Over the past few years, building your own home gym has become an increasingly popular way to exercise. Because your private home gym is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and can cater to your specific needs, so you can get to your ideal physique and excellent exercise capacity faster.
In this article I will cover the benefits of home gyms, what to consider when building a home gym, how to build the best home gym and how to make a sensible fitness plan for yourself.
Embark on your fitness journey from the comfort of home with an electric treadmill, offering convenience and versatility for effective workouts anytime.
Advantages of Having a Home Gym
1. Saving time and reducing excuses to slack off
It used to take you 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or even an hour to get to the gym from home. The excessive commute can reduce your desire to go to the gym and give you an excuse to slack off. But when you have a gym home, you can get to the gym in one minute and there will be no more worries.
2. Helping you avoid distractions
To be honest, you'll see all kinds of people in commercial gyms. If you're not already focused on your training, it's easy to lose focus because of these people. Noise is a big problem! But if you have your own gym then when you get into it, you will know immediately what you need to do.
3. Customised to your needs
The biggest benefit of having a home gym is that you can customize your space and experience. Whatever your workout preference, you can meet those needs by purchasing the professional home gym equipment you need to practice.
4. Having more privacy and security
An independent home gym will give you more privacy and security so that you will not feel the pressure that comes with the presence of others. When you are in a commercial gym, sometimes you will suddenly want to interrupt the workout you are doing, but will have to still continue to exercise because of the pressure in others.
5. Clean equipment
One of the biggest disadvantages of commercial gyms is that the equipment is dirty. Any equipment you use will have other people's body fluids on it. When you have your own home gym, you can avoid the annoyance of other people's body fluids by cleaning up promptly because you have your own home gym equipment.
The cost of a home gym
Let's calculate the cost of going to a commercial gym. If you were to become a member of a commercial gym it would typically cost between $700-$900 per year; assuming you drive to the gym once for $5 in gas, and go to a commercial gym 100 times a year, that would cost $500 in gas a year. Just counting these two costs, you would also spend between $1200-1400 a year going to a commercial gym.
According to a recent survey, the average cost of a home gym in the United States is around $3,000, which includes both purchasing equipment and furnishing the room.
There are a few pieces of home gyms equipment that you generally need：
- Yoga mat
- Dumbbells and barbells
- Adjustable Bench
- Jump rope
- A power rack
- Kettlebell
Treadmills are generally not required to be purchased, rather than running on a treadmill you can go for a run in a quiet park. The equipment will cost around $2500, and choosing and renovating a spacious and well-ventilated room will cost around $500-$1000 (or not if your room itself is not too problematic).
What to consider when building a home gym
When you start exercising, the biggest challenge is thinking about how to keep going. Most people buy a gym membership or build a home gym out of impulse, but after a few weeks may lose enthusiasm for exercising and think it is boring, hard and meaningless. I have the following suggestions for maintaining your motivation to exercise:
1. Make fitness a part of your life
Making fitness an essential part of your life is the fundamental way to keep people exercising. Only when you think that exercise is something you must do, like eating and sleeping, will you not feel resistant to it.
2. Find a partner to exercise together
Sometimes exercising alone can feel particularly empty, because in the process of exercising you may think about philosophical questions,you may suddenly ask yourself the meaning of exercise, and if it is for health,you may ask yourself what is the meaning of health, finally you may ask yourself what is the meaning of life, and even what is the meaning of "human being". When you come up with a negative answer, you are likely to give up exercising, and this is when you need the support of a partner. It is better to have two people exercising together, as a group of three is more stable.
3. Choose your preferred exercise program
In the early stages of fitness, if you're doing something you don't like, you're likely to give up. So it's best to start out with something simple that you enjoy and then gradually move on to something more complex to give yourself some time to settle in.
4. Never do just one type of fitness program
In the home gym for a few hours, if you only do one exercise program forever, even if it is your favorite, you may feel bored, so try several kinds of sports, find more exercise programs you like and suitable for yourself, every half hour or an hour to change the program, you are more willing to continue the fitness.
5. Learn to appreciate yourself
Knowing how to appreciate oneself keeps one confident and optimistic; a pessimistic mindset makes one never stick to anything.
How to build the best home gym
1. Pick a suitable room
If you want to build an optimal home gym, the first step is to choose a room that is suitable to be converted into a gym, it should be large enough and well-ventilated.
If your room is too small, less than 10m², then you may need to optimize your small space in order to improve the comfort and space utilization of the room, which will help you train better, without focusing on the space utilization of your home gym, then your room may always be in a bad state, which becomes no different from a commercial gym, so make sure to organize the largest space possible.
Good ventilation is the basic condition to build out a good home gym, because good ventilation keeps the air in the home gym fresh and there will be no unpleasant smell no matter how long you stay in the room. If you want to optimize the ventilation of the room, you can put an air conditioner in the room.
2. Purchase high-quality, functional equipment
Fitness equipment doesn't come with a lot of brand premium, so basically, the better the materials, the higher the selling price. If you want to build a home gym at a lower cost then I suggest you pick some better quality products, these products are more expensive but have better quality, a longer life span, you do not need to replace them all the time, in addition, you can buy multifunctional integrated fitness equipment because such equipment can make better use of space. I recommend buying a Major Lutie power rack, compared to the traditional power rack Major Lutie's power rack has greater functionality and stability, and fitness movement training is also more abundant.
3. Purchase mirrors and lighting equipment
Staying in a dim environment can make people feel lost, which is why more lighting is needed to keep the gym bright and keep yourself excited at all times; installing mirrors on the walls of the gym will allow you to observe your movements to see if they are standard and also make your gym appear more spacious.
4. Add a surround-sound system
One study proved that our exercise efficiency is maximized if we keep the rhythm of our music in sync with the rhythm of our exercise. For example, when you are doing high-intensity fast paced exercise, you can choose fast paced music, while when you are doing some slow paced exercise, such as relaxation exercise or strength training, you can choose slow music, which can greatly improve our exercise efficiency.
How to make a sensible fitness plan for yourself
Before we start to develop a fitness program we need to know how to arrange training weights and intensity in the fitness.
What are weights?
In strength training, training intensity refers to the weight of the equipment, such as 40 kg; in unarmed training movements, can also be referred to the difficulty of the movement, such as flat push-ups and high platform push-ups are different intensity.
In strength training, there are usually two units of measurement of training intensity, one is RM, or Repetition Maximum, which means maximum number of repetitions. For example, a 12 kg weight biceps curl you complete 10 times and can no longer continue. So, for you the strength of a 12 kg weight biceps curl is 10 RM.
The second is the percentage of the limit weight, for example, you can complete 1 rep with 20 kg of dumbbells, and a little more weight can not be completed, then 20 kg of dumbbells for your biceps curls training intensity is 100%, 15 kg for you is 75% of the intensity, 10 kg for you is 50% of the intensity.
If you are a person who has just started working out, it is recommended that you start with unarmed training movements and then slowly increase the weight without having to confirm the intensity of the training first, and slowly find the right intensity for you. Until you have had relatively rich experience in this matter of fitness, and then to confirm the training intensity that can help you improve.
Normally we would consider：
Training below 6RM (with a counterweight of 85% or more of the limit weight) is considered high intensity training, and gym goers usually train with 1 to 5 times at this intensity. This training mainly develops absolute strength.
6~10RM (75%~85% of the limit weight) training belongs to the medium to high intensity training, the gym will usually use 5~8 times per set in this intensity to train. This training mainly promotes muscle hypertrophy, while taking into account the development of absolute strength.
11~20RM (60%~75% of the limit weight) training is a low to medium intensity training, gym goers in this intensity usually use 8~15 times per set to train. This training mainly promotes muscle hypertrophy, while taking into account the improvement of muscle endurance.
The training above 20RM (below 60% of the limit weight) is low intensity training, gymnasts in this intensity usually use more than 15 times per set to train. This training is mainly to improve muscular endurance.
The intensity used by a bodybuilder will also usually be tied to the purpose of the training.
Those who want to increase their absolute strength will usually train more with high intensity and medium to high intensity.
Those who want to increase their muscles will usually train more at medium to high intensity and low to medium intensity.
Those who want to increase muscular endurance will usually train more at low intensity.
In most cases, a training program for muscle building will choose an intensity between 6 and 20 RM (with a counterweight of 60% to 85% of the limit weight) for training.
Assuming you have a bench press limit of 100kg, if you are a mass fitness enthusiast, the plan for your chest gain is usually as follows
- barbell bench press 70kg 4 sets of 8-10 times
- Other movements 4 sets of 8-12 times
- Other movements 4 sets of 8-12 times
- Other movements 4 sets of 8-12 times
If you are a powerlifter, when you are in the muscle building phase, its bench press program will usually be arranged as follows：
- barbell bench press 80kg 3-5 sets of 5-8 times
- Other movements 4 sets of 8-12 times
- Other movements 4 sets of 8-12 times
If you want to increase the absolute strength of the bench press, the bench press program is usually arranged as follows: 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 times, for example:
- 90kg 3 sets of 3 times, or 4 sets of 2 times
- 85kg 4 sets of 4 times, or 3 sets of 5 times, or 5 sets of 3 times
- 80kg 4 sets of 5 times, 4 sets of 5 times
Many fitness enthusiasts tend to over-consider a single variable when choosing their training intensity, thinking that the heavier the weight, the better. When in fact, intensity is highly correlated with training volume.
High training intensity is usually paired with low training volume.
Moderate training intensity is usually paired with moderate training volume.
Low training intensity is usually paired with high training volume.
That's why we sometimes see schedules like this.
80% intensity, 5 sets of 5 times. (medium to high intensity, low volume)
65% intensity, 4 sets of 10 times. (medium intensity, medium volume)
50% intensity, 10 sets of 10 times. (Low intensity, high volume)
And when we consider frequency as a training variable, the program becomes even more complex.
Generally speaking, training frequency, single session intensity and single session volume cannot all be taken into account at the same time. If you have a high volume per session and a high intensity, then you are bound to maintain a low weekly training frequency. A typical example is the Russian powerlifter who trains 3 times a week for 3-4 hours each time. If you maintain a high training frequency and you train at a high intensity each time, then you are bound to be unable to complete too much training volume in one session. The case in point is the gym goer who likes to use HIIT for fat loss. If you maintain a high training frequency and a high training volume, then you will certainly not be able to do too much training intensity at a time, and many bodybuilders train in this way.
Now let's talk about home gym fitness programs.
Ideas and steps for designing a home fitness programme: when developing a programme, we can just consider the following main elements: purpose,frequency, choice of movements, arrangement of times and intervals.
1. Purpose and movement selection
In the realm of mass fitness, the training purposes of a gym-goer can usually be categorized into four categories: building muscle, losing fat, building strength, and maintaining health. But no matter what your training purpose is, you will train with basic fitness movements such as push-ups, squats, Romanian hard pulls, and rowing. These movements are the movements that all fitness people need to learn at the beginning.
2. Frequency
For older, less experienced fitness trainers, a less frequent training program (2 times a week) would be better; while beginners under the age of 30 can arrange a higher frequency of training (3 times a week).
3. Training intensity and capacity
Fitness practitioners in good health can start with a moderately high intensity and volume training program; those in poor health should arrange a lower intensity and lower volume training program. Beginners with sports injuries should follow their doctor's advice and avoid movements that can aggravate the injury; if they are beginners with a good nutritional diet, they can consider a slightly more aggressive progression strategy. Again, the purpose of a beginner's program is to improve physical fitness, maintain exercise habits, and learn fitness moves.
4. Determine the rest time between each group of movements
The rest time between each group action control in 30 ~ 60 seconds, too long rest time is easy to let the trainer feel bored, not conducive to the development of training habits; too short rest time may lead to training pressure, reducing the trainer's control of the action degree.
Below are two simple family planning templates developed from the steps above.
Novice fitness program:
- Squat 3 sets of 10-15 times
- Push-ups 3 sets of 5-15 times
- Jump rope 3 sets of 1min
- Bobbi jump 3 groups of 5-10 times
Fitness program for those who have some basic fitness:
- Cut squat 20 times
- Squat 15 times
- Push-ups 10 times
- Jump rope 1min
- Rest 1min
Cycle 4 sets
Conclusion
Building a cool home gym is a complicated job that requires time and wisdom, and getting into the habit of working out is also a difficult task, because only when you truly recognize its value will you accept it in its entirety, but such opportunities are rare, so most people don't really stick with it, but just go to the gym to take pictures of themselves "working out" out of vanity to let people know they are "pursuing a healthy life".
Society offers you all kinds of delicious, high-calorie food while spreading all kinds of so-called health knowledge to you to buy some healthy food or go to the gym to exercise, but all just want you to buy more stuff. If based on the logic of consumerism, healthy and unhealthy may not be much different in essence. If you really want to start working out, make sure you stick to it and don't let yourself be in a state of impulse all the time.
