December was a blustery month here in the Northwest, and record snowfall meant days trapped indoors and lots of canceled plans. Among our winter casualties? Regular workouts with a personal trainer. Though she offered "alternative" exercise (i.e. trudging through deep snow and climbing the basement stairs), nothing quite took the place of actual equipment. Which got us thinking...what does it take to create a home gym?
We took a quick look at Oregon Home's 16 Tips for Home Gyms and eHow's How To Build A Cheap Home Gym and were most impressed with the following suggestions:
- Create a co-op gym with friends where everyone splits the cost of equipment, but only one person stores the gear at his home or garage.
- Search for used gear on local online bulletin boards.
- Research the cost of various exercise options (including gym memberships and classes) before you spend money on setting up a home gym.
- Before you buy a big piece of equipment, measure and remeasure it and the room in which you'll use it.
- Protect hardwood, cement or tile floors from sweat, equipment grease and repetitive motions with a thick floor mat.
- Realize that the small things—bottles of water, a heartrate monitor, dumbbells—are as important as big, spendy exercise machines.
Do you have a home gym? If so, what tips do you have for pulling one together?
Images: batiskafo kotur and rbarenblat for Flickr
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Stumptuous.com home gym ideas. Mistress Krista is awesome!
A good set of dumbbells are the ultimate fitness accessory - you can get just about every type of exercise you need from dumbbells. Save yourself the gym membership fees (and the time it takes to get there and back).
when i first glanced at this title i thought it said "how to cheat at the gym." i got really excited.... THATS something i want to read about!!! :)
madsarah, I'm right with you! I also dance, and I was fortunate enough to get a large (5' by 4') mirror from a woman who had just bought a house with two mirrors on the wall that she didn't like. She offered both mirrors to me if I could haul them off (unfortunately, one was too firmly attached to the wall, so I had to leave it).
The mirror's been with me for a few years now and lives in my living room/dining room/yoga and dance studio. It's not the most chic decoration, but it does make the apartment feel much bigger!
Home workouts are great, especially when it gets cold out and especially now that $ are tight and I can't afford yoga 3x/week. I do yoga at home now with videos I download on www.beYOU.tv. Great addition to my home workouts. There are bootcamp and Pilates, too.
I like the work out method in the Terminator; just a floor, a place to do some pull ups and in a few months, you too can look like Sarah Connor.
Find a set of powerblocks on Craigslist and you're a large part of the way there.
In my tiny studio, I found I could throw one piece of resistance equipment in the center of the room - as long as it looked cool and had wheels.
I bought one of the more popular machines from a used sports equipment store and paid very little. Web sites provided exercise programs and eBay provided accessories.
Because it was in the middle of the room, I used it as soon as I got home from work. Between supersets I'd start dinner, clean the place up and get ready to go back out.
My advice would be:
1. Don't enter into a payment plan for fitness. Never finance discomfort and sweat.
2. Be a snob and recycle. Nordic Tracks, fitness machines, and ellipticals are given to every guy as soon as he hits 60. They are all eventually donated to Goodwill. Try them out and buy used.
3. Bribes. Get up early and watch brain-rotting tv. An old tv with DVD player can give you enough of your favorite series to provide 45 minutes of cardio.
4. Have cleaning supplies handy. That bowflex gets ripe.
5. If you do sets, try to set up your machines near the laundry. It's amazing how neatly I fold laundry when I'm faced with another circuit.
For the holidays, my daughter was given a Nintendo Wii with the games Wii Fit and Dance Dance Revolution. I've been sore everyday since! Without the room for a treadmill or the time/money for a gym membership, this "home gym" has been my saving grace this winter.
As a bonus, I now can bust a move AND do the tootsie roll with the best of 'em. :)
Trudging through the snow and ice has become my cardio (at least I can drag myself to the gym again).
I love www.yogatoday.com. You can stream hour long yoga classes for free (only ads at the beginning and end). They also offer free, 10 minutes video podcasts, which are also excellent (download through the website or iTunes). They have three instructors and offer a range of styles (anusura, kundalini, ashtanga, etc) and levels.
For strength training, I use my exercise ball and an application from iFit (download through iTunes for the iTouch or iPhone). It keeps track of reps, and has short video instructions for every move.
most home gyms aren't all that used. they are theme rooms or extra spaces that needed something in them. they are best reserved for people who truly love to work out (like a music room for an opera fan or a true library for a book lover).
personally i prefer to keep exercise, and work, outside my home if possible. i also think the gym environment and fitness classes are motivating. i'll also take trudging through the snow over 30 minutes on an elliptical trainer any day (ipod or not). the walk to my gym is part of my warm up as is my 2 mile roundtrip to my p.o. box, my 5-15 blocks for groceries, the 5 mile saturday loop to the farmer's market, and my 2 mile trip to zuni for margaritas. in a city, it really is about walkability. walk more and then all you need is access to light weights or resistance items and a mat.