If you miss the gym but still don’t want to risk visiting a public one (or you might have fallen in love with exercising at home), why not build a home gym for yourself and your family? This investment in your health will not set you back too much, but it will definitely pay off when it comes to comfort and safety. No matter, if you’re already building a home gym or just thinking about it, here, are a few tips to follow for an effective and beautiful home gym that will motivate you to kill all your workouts.
Choose the spot
Before you start buying equipment, it’s important to locate a good spot for your gym in the house (or somewhere outside). It’s best to choose a spot that’s a bit isolated so you can avoid the distractions and also not cause a distraction with slamming weights for other house members. The spot also needs to be comfortable and relaxing so you can focus all your attention and power on building that muscle and burning fat. For many, the upper floor is the best spot because it’s safe from distractions and it gets plenty of natural light. A basement is also a peaceful spot, although it does require more insulation, work, and illumination. If you want to take your gym outside, building an addition or repurposing your garage should work perfectly for you. Basement finishing allows you to create additional living space, such as a home office, a playroom, a media room, or even a guest suite.
Rethink your flooring
Once you have your spot, it’s time to start building the basics such as the gym flooring. To keep your joints protected while jumping or doing any floor exercises, it’s a great idea to invest in rubberized flooring. If this is too much of an investment for you, a quality yoga mat will do the trick without breaking the bank.
Grab the equipment
Now comes the fun part—buying equipment for your gym. Depending on the results you want to achieve in your gym, you can focus more on cardio machines or weights. You don’t have to get all the equipment you can find at the store, but you do need some variety to create balanced workouts. If you check out Catch Fitness and scroll through their offer, you’ll see everything from strength equipment to conditioning stuff and cardio machines. Of course, they have a variety of basic items like benches, bars, plates, and dumbbells. And if you want to do cardio, a treadmill is a must. Free weights like a kettlebell and a medicinal ball, as well as jump ropes and recovery gear, will help your training in many ways. And all of this can be found at one store so you don’t have to go shopping around.
Come up with storage solutions
There’s nothing worse than working out in a messy gym with equipment all over the place—it’s dangerous as well. So organizing your gym is a must. You can go with wall shelves and bins, so you can keep all your free weights and equipment organized and out of your way. If you don’t have that much floor space, you have to get creative by hanging your bench off the ceiling.
Add some tech
To get you pumped up, it’s necessary to play some music. It’s a great motivator to boost your workouts and provide you with focus. It’s easy to install some speakers, but you can just grab a Bluetooth speaker and move it around whenever you like. If you love long cardio sessions, you can also grab a small TV and enjoy your favorite TV shows as you run on the treadmill or cycle on your stationary bike. A box with your favorite recovery items like a foam roller and a massage gun to prevent muscle pain is a nice techy touch. With technology, you can have much more interesting and modern workouts.
Finish with some personal touches
It’s always easier to work out in a space that’s familiar to you and makes you feel comfortable and relaxed. Therefore, it’s crucial to personalize your space with the right colors, art, motivational messages, and posters. You can hang posters of your workout goals or motivate your workouts with inspirational quotes. When it comes to color, you can go basic with white or gray to remain focused, but the art will adequately break the monotony. Also, you can put up some clean towels for you when you end your workout as a nice touch. If you prefer to mix your workouts with some yoga flows, adding candles and incense will help you achieve the right atmosphere.
If you want to always stay on track with your workouts and have a relaxing fitness progression, creating a home gym is a great idea. You won’t need too much money to create a gym (but it is still an investment) and get in shape—just a few good equipment pieces and a lot of determination to use your home gym regularly.