For most people, the hassles of becoming a member of a gym and having to deal with crowds can be the motivation behind designing a home gym. Of course, there are other advantages of having your own gym in the house – save on gym membership costs and transportation expenses, set your own exercise time in the comfort of your home, and sharing the exercise experience with loved ones, to name a few – add to the decision to undertake design of your own gym.
Always make sure that you have a space dedicated to the home gym to ensure that it will become an encouraging place to exercise in. Main requirements include sufficient room to perform body weight and machine exercises, safe electrical outlets to plug in the power machines, adequate ventilation and light, and an enclosed space where small children cannot enter unsupervised. Designing a home gym requires safety above all else.
Your gym can be located either in the upstairs portion of the house like the attic or the downstairs portion like the basement, either of which ought to provide additional exercise by way of the stairs. Of course, you can set it up in any portion of the house just as long as safety, which is the foremost consideration in home gym design, is met.
Now that you have reserved a space for your home gym, looking at your budget comes next. Often, designing a home gym is a balancing act between the equipment plus its accessories and the renovations/redesigns of the space. After all, turning an attic or a basement into a gym requires redesign expenses, no matter how small! With that said, always canvass the equipment you want. However, take note that the basics will include a treadmill, ellipticals and weights like bench press and free weights, exercise balls and bands, and small props for body weight exercises like mats. You can throw in a mirror just to see how good you look as the days go on.
Of course, in designing a home gym, you can always look for secondhand exercise equipment. Just make sure that these are still in good working condition as you want to ensure safety while exercising. When you have the money for it, splurge on high quality equipment even if it’s on the expensive side as it will pay for itself in the long run.
Exercise equipment will be useless when these are not enjoyed by the human who bought them. Thus, you have to consider the people who will use the workout area and how much they will use it in, say, a week. For example, if your partner also wants to use the gym area for his weight loss program, you must ensure that the treadmill is up to par. Or if your teenage son wants to use the gym to bulk up, throw in some weights with varying levels of resistance to help him in his goal. Ask your family members for their inputs on the matter.