Sometimes, half of the battle with getting fit is dragging yourself out of bed and heading to your gym. Building your own home gym would be an ideal solution to this – you can roll out of bed, thrown your gym wear on, do your workout and jump straight into your own shower before getting on with the rest of your day. It sounds like a luxury, but when you consider that a gym membership can be hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year, with a bit of careful planning, you can all the benefits of fitness equipment to use whenever you want. You may have space already in your home for a gym, by repurposing the garage or spare room, or you may need to extend or remodel your house to fit the space in. You may even consider moving house with the help of MyBekins.com if having a gym is that important to you. However you do it, it is more than possible to create the perfect gym in the comfort of your own home. Here are the things you need to take into consideration:
Where you are going to put it
Of course, this can depend on what space you have available. If it is your small first-floor spare bedroom, then you need to work around any limitations that will bring with it. Ideally, your gym would be on the ground floors for the following reasons:
- Gym equipment is heavy, so the less pressure it places on your ceilings, the better unless you are prepared to put in reinforcements
- You don’t have to get heavy gym equipment up the stairs
- You do not need to think about soundproofing – a treadmill upstairs can prove very noisy for anyone sitting downstairs
- If you plan to use the equipment in the early morning or late at night when the rest of your family are asleep, you will want it away from their bedroom.
Think about the amount of space you need
Each piece of equipment will need around two square meters and plenty of circulation space around it. Some will need extra space to manoeuvre around. If space is limited, try to select equipment with multiple functions such as a bench to jump onto.
Make sure you have a big enough budget
A home gym is going to be expensive, no matter what. Over time, it will pay for itself as you save money on the costly gym membership we mentioned above, but building your own does require a significant outlay to begin with. If your budget is limited, go for the more essential equipment first – if you want to concentrate on cardio, go for the treadmill rather than any weight lifting equipment, and add those later. Scour over Facebook market place and other second-hand sites to see if you can pick up a bargain – many people start with the right intentions, and they never use them, so end up selling the equipment off. Don’t forget to factor in any alterations to the space such as lighting, flooring and power.
This is a collaborative post.
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