A Beginner’s Guide to Building a Home Gym
The first thing you need for your home gym is a spot in your house. You don’t have to turn half of your house into a fitness complex. You only need enough room to move around and be able to exercise freely. Garages, spare rooms, and basements all make excellent spots for home gyms. Your space should be a spot where you are excited to go and feel comfortable working out in. Now that you have your spot picked it is time to start outfitting it with equipment.
If you have any fitness equipment lying around your house go and collect it and bring it to your gym. When you are looking for equipment don’t rush out to the mall or start shopping on the Internet. You can find a lot of fitness equipment at a discount price in your local newspaper, at garage sales, and on Craigslist.com. Here is a list of stuff you should look for when you are shopping around.
BASIC EQUIPMENT
Dumb bells (a variety of weights), flat bench, medicine ball, jump rope, exercise ball, exercise mat, resistance bands
ADVANCED EQUIPMENT
Pull up bar, plyometric jump boxes, weight plates, barbell bar, weight vest, kettle balls
MISC EQUIPMENT
Towels, Motivational Posters, Workout DVDs, TV, DVD player, CD player, music, stop watch, ankle & wrist weights
All this stuff is pretty basic and shouldn’t cost you much to acquire. If you want a more elaborate set up you can look for treadmills, bicycles, elliptical machines, rowing machines, stair climbers, and anything else you can think of. If your space is large enough you can even add a punching bag or two. Craigslist.com and used sporting goods stores are great places to get some of this stuff locally.
Once you have the equipment you need it is time to set it up in your gym. You should make sure your equipment is somewhat organized so it doesn’t interfere with your workout and so you can have easy access to it. Get your fitness posters and motivational stuff put up on your walls, so when the going gets tough you keep going. If you don’t have any posters then you can print off quotes and sayings to put up. You can even give your gym a name like The Lair, The Pit, or The House of Pain. Really any name will do. It is just another little motivational trick for you to feel pumped up about going to work out.
Remember, when you are putting your home gym together keep it simple at the start. You can always add stuff and upgrade as you become more invested in working out. It’s more important to have a gym that you are going to workout in, not one that you spent a ton of money on and never use. Once your gym is set up, get in there and work out! Good Luck!
