Increasingly, special training spaces are becoming a mandatory part of our homes and apartments. A home gym is convenient because you don’t have to get to the other side of the city – it is always at your service, can be practiced at any time, in addition, you will not be embarrassed by any curious glances.
Advantages of a Home Gym
- You can choose the equipment you need.
- Comfortable atmosphere.
- One room for all family members, i.e. health for the whole family.
- Hygiene. Only your individual equipment.
- Personalized settings. It is possible to train without being shy of strangers.
- A home gym allows you to exercise when it’s convenient for you and not to waste time on the road.
Instructions for Setting up a Home Gym
How to create a full-fledged gym at home? The task is not as difficult as it seems at first glance. It is possible to set a home gym in almost any room: a small space will be enough. A small gym will be suitable for an area of 4-6 square meters and good ventilation. If there is an option to allocate a separate room for it, you will have more training opportunities.
Before you start building your own gym, it will be useful to consult a designer who will help to organize the space optimally, and a fitness trainer can tell you which equipment to choose. However, all these questions can be dealt with by yourself, just follow the step-by-step instructions below.
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Step 1. Define the purpose of training
Choosing fitness equipment and home gym location depends on how you intend to train and what results you want to achieve.
For those who want to lose weight, develop endurance or strengthen the cardiovascular system, cardiovascular equipment such as bicycles, treadmills, ellipses (cross-fitness equipment) is the best choice. Elderly people and anyone who has certain musculoskeletal system problems can opt for a horizontal cycling simulator – the safest of the whole family of cardio equipment.
It is almost impossible to damage the joints or spine on a cardio workout machine. A set of dumbbells does not hurt either – studies show that a combination of strength and cardio training is the most effective way to achieve a slim body. Those who want to gain muscle mass can start with a set of free weights, dumbbells and exercise benches. A good alternative with a view to the progress of training can be a multifunctional power tower.
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Step 2. Choose a home exercise equipment
So, you have defined the goals and objectives, now you can proceed to choose equipment. But a “home fitness equipment” Google request will give you thousands of results. According to HomeCareChoices, there are many companies offering simulators. How do you navigate through such an abundance of offers? Here are a few selection criteria.
Security
The main objective of sports is to improve health and shape. Therefore, when choosing from all the variety of exercises, it is important to pay attention to the quality of the simulator, and we are talking not only about materials and assembly here but primarily about the design – it must have all the features of the human body structure and biomechanics. Only then will you have the confidence that you are doing it right.
When choosing a simulator, pay special attention to its safety, as now some manufacturers focus on the design and electronics stuffing to the detriment of safety and reliability. A high-quality system of treadmill shock absorption is a guarantee of your joints’ health. During ellipse training, biomechanically verified trajectory of movement allows moving comfortably and naturally, reducing injury risk to zero. The same applies to workout power towers – the trajectories of movement should be maximally verified and, as a consequence, effective.
Efficiency and Convenience
The design features of the simulator determine the quality of training. For example, compact treadmills with a short treadmill will not allow you to take a comfortable free position and follow the correct running technique. Therefore, it is better to give preference to full-size models. But pay attention to the folding models of full-size tracks of famous manufacturers – they will save a lot of space.
When choosing an elliptical simulator, pay attention to the distance between the pedals – the smaller it is, the more effective your training will be. For elderly people and people with musculoskeletal injuries, the height of the pedals above the floor is very important. The lower it is, the more convenient it is to get in and out of the simulator.
It is very important to choose a model with an optimal pitch length. It will allow to make training as much as possible effective and to involve all groups of muscles. The ability to adjust this parameter will allow several family members with different physique to work out. Your lessons should not interfere with either home or neighbors. Therefore, it is also important to choose the simulators with the lowest noise level.
This is important: there should be at least 0.5 meter of free space between a simulator and  surrounding objects – this will ensure convenience and safety.
Functionality
Modern technology capabilities should not be forgotten. Well-known companies equip their simulators with consoles compatible with different types of devices. Special apps allow you to develop your own training program, track progress and adjust loads. And finally, pay attention to such pleasant additions as a water bottle holder, TV remote control and smartphone compartment. The more convenient the simulator is, the better the chance you’ll really be using it, rather than turning it into a garment rack.
Reliability
Good simulators are durable and reliable, but it is still better to secure yourself and buy equipment from a company that provides a guarantee for their products. Models with low-power engines work at the limit of their capabilities and rapidly fail. Quality simulators function for 7-10 years without any failures, which means their owners will not have to spend money on repairs and interrupt their workouts.
Cost
Price is an important, but not the main factor of choice. Moreover, when choosing fitness equipment for a home gym, it is better not to save money. Cheap fitness equipment is unstable and often breaks down. It is better to overpay for quality and don’t think about where and how to fix it later. In addition, an expensive simulator is not just a well-known brand, it is a well-tested biomechanics, a guarantee of effective training, a simple and convenient adjustment system.
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Step 3. Organize the room and think about the design of your home gym
The room, where your future gym will be located, must be bright and well ventilated. Without ventilation, the air will get stale fast and condensation will appear on the equipment – both are bad for health and the condition of expensive fitness equipment.
To increase the efficiency of your workouts, you can hang several mirrors on the walls that reflect your full height – they will help you control the accuracy of your exercises. One of the walls can be made completely mirror; it is not necessary to hang a real mirror, and lightweight mirror panels made of special plastic are quite suitable. You can also place several motivational posters on your walls.
Special attention should be paid to the floor covering as well. It is desirable that it was not slippery and noise-absorbing.
If you have a gym in one of the ready rooms, there is no need to carry out a large-scale reconstruction – you can buy special mats to protect the laminate or parquet from the weight of the simulators.
A good idea is to mount a plasma in the wall – firstly, after watching your favorite movies and TV shows, time flies unnoticed and training becomes much more fun, and secondly, the TV can be useful for video lessons from famous coaches. And don’t forget your watch – how else do you know it’s time to finish training?
It should be noted that modern simulator models, mainly for cardio equipment, already include all this set of features. Built-in monitor and special software will allow you to surf the Internet, broadcast your favorite movies or video lessons, track the results of your workouts (duration, calories, heart rate, etc.), and compatibility with Android and iOS will allow you to analyze and adjust your workout using special fitness-apps. For example, dietologycal MyFitnessPal or interactively competitive RunSocial.
Colors for a gym should be soft and pastel – light gray, cream, white, ivory, blue. Red and orange increase blood pressure (and it is high enough during workouts) and quickly tire, bright yellow leads to overexcitation, dark saturated colors cause boredom and reduce performance.
This is interesting: as psychologists’ research has shown, men are motivated to workout by cold pastel shades – gray and blue. Women, on the other hand, show the best results in rooms where warm colors – beige, peach and sand – prevail in the interior.
Let’s do this!
Now that your home gym is ready, you can start training. Of course, there will be no personal trainer with you, but it is not a problem. You can take a few private lessons and ask the coach to make an individual training program for you. And it’s easy to find a lot of video courses on the Internet to create your own training programs. Special apps, like LFconnect, Kinomap, Fitbit, RunSocial, Cardio Legend, SoFit, Jawbone, and Runtastic can also become your helpers.
By the way, most coaches say that training at home is not inferior to the gym. The secret of success is not a fitness club gold card, but perseverance, the regularity of training and self-confidence. At home, you can organize workouts professionally and effectively, especially if you give preference to the machines.