Setting up your own home gym is awesome, but it can be difficult if you don’t plan it right. Take the time to review these five common mistakes people overlook or don’t consider when setting up a home gym. Learning from other people’s mistakes is one of the best ways to learn what not to do. Let’s take a look at the top 5 home gym tips.
1. Measure, Measure, Measure. We always hear the mantra when we buy a house or start a business: location, location, location. When setting up a gym, the mantra should be: measure, measure, measure.
You need to map out the area in which you plan to build your home gym. If you are considering building the gym in your basement, be sure to consider the height of the ceiling. The last thing you want to do is buy exercise equipment and find it’s useless because your ceiling is too low.
2. Remember normal dumbbells. When people set up their home gym, they always focus too much on the big, expensive machines from multiple gyms. You know these gym machines; the one is where you can work your legs, arms and back all in one. However, the old dumbbells are still an important part of your home gym. They work the stabilizing muscles, which the machines in your gym don’t.
Another item to consider is purchasing resistance bands, which help with stretching and yoga.
3. Treadmill or no treadmill? Before heading to the fitness equipment store, you should consider what type of home gym you want. Do you want to lose weight or develop and tone your muscles? Treadmills help with cardiovascular exercise and weight loss. Multi-gym machines work on building and toning muscles.
Treadmills and elliptical trainers take up a lot of space. Depending on your climate and your home fitness needs, you’ll want to see if having a treadmill is necessary. If you can run outside regularly, you may not need a treadmill.
4. Don’t hurt yourself. Setting up your own home gym is exciting, but it does come with some risks. When you’re at a gym, you can ask personal trainers or staff for advice on how to use the equipment. With a home gym you don’t have this luxury of a personal trainer and you can potentially injure yourself.
Another disadvantage is that you are in charge of establishing your own exercise program. Before you buy any equipment, you should find out if someone is available to teach you at home. Of course, most home fitness equipment comes with “how-to” DVDs to help you learn how to use the equipment correctly.
5. Don’t forget the iPod or mp3 player. Now, with your very own home gym, you can dictate the music that will be played. You have several options when it comes to playing music. First, you can connect your iPod to some speakers to play in your home gym. The second option is to wear headphones like you probably did at the gym in the past.
The main point is to choose music that motivates you to keep going. Working out at home can get boring because you may miss the camaraderie of your workout buddies at the gym. Don’t be discouraged. You can create your own training environment, so have fun and be creative when setting up your gym.
With these 5 home fitness tips, you should be ready to successfully start your own home fitness gym. Good luck!
