Getting is shape is often on the top of many people’s priority lists, but getting a membership to gym is an expensive commitment. The good news is just about every kind of equipment that you can find in a gym you can also buy for use in your home. While building a good home gym can cost more than a membership in the short term, over the course of your use of the equipment you will find working out at home to be much cheaper.
So how do you know what kind of equipment to buy in order to outfit your home gym? Planning your home gym is really based on four factors: your goals, level of commitment, the amount of room you have for equipment and the amount you can spend on your gym.
Of course you don’t want to plan to buy a weight bench, treadmill and exercise bike if your workout space is the corner of your living room, you can’t afford any of it and you really just want to train to run a 5K. If you can’t afford or don’t have room for the equipment, or if it doesn’t meet your fitness goals, you aren’t likely to use it.
So let’s look first at your fitness goals and current level of activity. If you’re starting from scratch, both physically and equipment-wise, you’ll want to start slowly, maybe with some barbells in light weights, a yoga mat for stretching and doing other exercises on the floor, and maybe an exercise bike or a treadmill. Now would not be the time to invest in an elliptical machine or a strange piece of equipment you’ve never used before (really, there’s never a good time to invest in equipment you’ve never used).
On the other hand, if you’ve been working out a gym and suddenly have extra room in your house (say a child just left for college and you’d like to take over his room) you know what kind of equipment you like to use, so whether it’s a treadmill, a rower, or a weight bench, invest in those machines that you go back to every time, as many as you can both afford and have room for.
No matter where you find yourself on the road of physical fitness, you will want to take a look at your interests and goals when trying to decide what equipment to buy. Do you like to bike when the weather is nice, or would you prefer to run? Are you just looking to get into better cardiovascular health or are you training for a marathon? The answers to these questions will lead you to the types of equipment you might want to buy.
The main things to keep in mind when designing a home exercise program (and thus, when building a home gym) are the necessities of cardiovascular exercise, weight-bearing exercise and stretching as the basics. That’s why I recommend buying weights, a yoga mat and an exercise machine (bike or treadmill) that has variable resistance and multiple programs so you can make the machine make you work harder as you gain more strength. These three types of equipment will get you a long way toward general fitness. Start with small weights and work your way up to heavier ones. You can get a weight bench if you want, or improvise with a piece of furniture you already have in your house.
You want to buy a quality machine, and try it out in the store if you can. Variable resistance is a key component of a good machine, as well as adjustable seats and/or pedals so that all the members of your family can use the same equipment. If you can’t afford a good machine, try to find a used machine in the classifieds section of the paper or on an online auction site. If they are still beyond your means, you can get the cardio portion of your workout without a machine, for instance by jumping rope or jogging outside. Of course you can’t do this when the weather is nasty, but it is better than nothing.
Another thing you might want to consider for your home gym is a television with a VCR or DVD player. This way you can watch television while you are working out, which makes it a little less boring, or you can use exercise videos to change up your routine. You can buy or rent exercise videos that use minimal equipment but allow for an interesting change in your exercise program.
If you have lots of room, lots of money and lots of interest in your fitness, the sky is basically the limit. People have home gyms that are almost as well-equipped as public gyms, with several types of equipment, weight machines, balance balls and stretch cords.
Even if you don’t have a lot of space or money to expand your home gym, you may find you want to pick up more and different equipment as time goes on. Heavier weights, a balance ball, a step bench, exercise cables, special equipment for yoga and pilates or ergonomic grips to make push ups easier are all good potential additions to your gym.
What is truly key when you start to think about building a gym for yourself in your home is your level of motivation. If you don’t think you will use a piece of equipment, don’t buy it. if you’re one of those people who has had five different gym memberships and let each one expire because you only went for a month or two and then stopped, think long and hard about your commitment this time before you go buying an expensive piece of equipment. You may think the money you spend will motivate you to use it, but that never worked when you joined the gym, did it? Putting the equipment some place you’ll see it every day can help, but it can also lead you to have a very expensive clothes rack.
So before you start building the gym of your dreams, examine your motivation carefully. If you are determined to exercise, start small, and evaluate your space, your funds and your goals before going to the store. If you keep in mind the ultimate goal for buying this equipment, buy things you like to use that provide for cardio and weight workouts as well as stretching, don’t go over budget or cram your space full of machines, you should be able to build a home gym that is nice, useable and effective at helping you reach your goals.
