Imagine that you’re new to fitness, and you are considering all the options open to you. It can be a lot to take on, and for many, the thought of going to a commercial gym can be daunting. So what can you choose to do? As many others have discovered, it’s possible to set up your very own home gym. What’s more, it’s relatively easy, provides really accessible facilities, and is a fixed cost.
But how do you choose equipment, and what are the best options for a home gym? There is a lot to consider, and in this article, we look at some tips and recommendations to help you when setting up your home gym.
Key Takeaways
- Strategic investment in gym equipment can save you money in the long run. Find out how
- We consider the initial challenges and opportunities that a home gym provides.
- We explore popular equipment and how to get the best out of your budget.
- Highlighting additional benefits of choosing a home gym.
Recognising the health impact and strategic benefits of choosing a home gym
Being able to train when you like typically means that you will train more, so choosing a home gym means that you will likely use your space more frequently. The frequency of exercise is linked to happiness, according to www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7369812/
Although setting up a home gym is expensive upfront, you will eventually be in credit for choosing a home gym because there are no ongoing membership fees. It’s also worth pointing out that from a strategy perspective, you can always sell your gym equipment, but a commercial gym membership has no secondhand value.
Unseen benefits include adding value to your home. According to the post office, this can be as much as 44% to qualify for this; here is the article. – postoffice.co.uk/mortgages/how-to-add-value-to-your-property.
What about assessing the gym equipment landscape?
Navigating the gym equipment landscape can be tough with so many options out there, and when you start out, you don’t necessarily always know what you need. It is worth looking at gym equipment suppliers and perhaps even reading a few blogs to see what they have to say on certain topics. If we look at the gym equipment supplier Mirafit, they have some equipment-specific blog posts that demonstrate the right exercises and the equipment required to do them. This might help you in terms of making decisions around certain equipment types for your home gym.
Alternatively, you could look at a basic package that is designed for the type of exercise you wish to do. Many gym equipment suppliers will have certain packages for certain types of activity. This could be a cardio pack, a home gym strength pack, or a mixture of the two. A cardio pack might include an exercise bike and a Rowing Machine, whereas the strength pack might include a power rack and barbell with bumper plates. You must decide what is right for yourself and what you are trying to achieve. Remember it’s possible to use contact forms and email addresses along with telephone numbers to contact suppliers and ask her advice before pressing go on a big purchase.
Popular equipment when starting at home gym
It is recommended to start with the essentials. However, you may have a goal in mind when you start your planning and purchasing process that requires specific equipment. Depending on the location of your home gym—typically a garage—the first thing you must consider is a suitable flooring type. Purchasing good gym flooring dampens sound, prevents potential injury, and provides a professional appearance to your home gym. Gear in Bodybuilding
After flooring, the next thing to consider is lighting, and the reason for that is because where you place your lights will have a direct impact on your equipment and how easy is to see and use. Strip lights in garages are very common and functional but don’t provide a particularly nice aesthetic. Consider LED lighting, or if you would prefer to invest a little bit more, ‘can lighting’, or spotlights are an excellent way to light up your equipment and key areas. It’s worth considering directional lighting as well because this can adapt to your needs as your equipment develops or changes.
Most people would then choose to use a power rack as the centre of the gym if they are strength training; this allows you to train safely at home, especially if you purchase spotters as well. Spotters are very important if you’re training alone, as they can catch the bar in the event of a failed lift. There are many attachments that you can purchase along the way that will fit a rack, such as a pull-up bar, a platform, wallball targets, pegboards, etc. To complement a power rack, you should consider a bench to add an additional dimension to your gym.
It is normally recommended that you purchase a barbell and bumper plates to use with your bench. Some companies provide rack, plate, and barbell packages to get you started, and sometimes, these can be more favourably priced than buying individual items.
Hand weights, such as the dumbbells we previously mentioned or kettlebells, which are equally popular, can be used in a variety of ways. They can be used both with and without the bench to strengthen biceps, shoulders, back, and even quads and abs. It’s worth having a look at example workouts before making a decision on whether to buy dumbbells. Bodyweight Overload Review
From here, you may wish to consider either a cable attachment for your power rack or a cable machine. These can be quite useful and occupy a limited amount of space, which makes them perfect for home gyms. At this point, the following equipment has been listed as essential.
- Flooring
- Lighting
- Power Rack
- Weight bench
- Barbell and bumper plates
- Dumbbells/kettlebells
Maximising returns on your investment
As previously mentioned, when looking to spend money on setting up a new gym it can be daunting. The thing to remember is that you need to consider the future when purchasing now. Although you may not wish to lift a 30 kg dumbbell at this stage, the chances are that you will sometime soon. It’s a very good idea to consider packages because they often provide more equipment at a competitive price, which helps to futureproof your gym. Leg Exerciser Machines
If you were looking for dumbbells, for example, then buying a dumbbell weight set can save you money. It gives you a variety of different hand weights and typically comes with storage for a home gym. Storage is key; it takes things off the floor and gives you more space. Space is one of those things that is typically at a premium in a home gym environment; therefore, choosing a rack and selection of weights as part of a package can be a really good way to see long-term value out of your products.
Summary of takeaways
So, in this article, we have looked at this strategic investment in your equipment and how you can save money in the long run. We have looked at the initial challenges and opportunities that the home gym provides; along with this, we have also looked at the best way to explore popular equipment and get the most out of your budget. We have also highlighted additional benefits to choosing a home gym. To further summarise this, we have listed these items below;
Strategic investment. This relates to purchasing equipment that has future-proofed potential.
Initial challenges and opportunities. This relates to the challenges of choosing the equipment and the opportunities that a home gym provides both in terms of accessibility and better health.
We have highlighted ways to explore popular equipment and things you can do to help your decision-making process, including discussing with suppliers or researching blogs showing exercises that you wish to perform.
We’ve also examined the additional benefits of choosing a home gym, which are the unseen benefits that include increasing the value of your home.
So what’s stopping you from going and ordering your equipment to set up your space?
We hope that you’ve found this article helpful. For more useful articles on this website, please refer to the other related blog articles. Thank you for reading!
