You may be relieved to know that it doesn’t take big fancy equipment and thousands of dollars to build a fully functional and complete home gym. Creating a simple home gym that covers your fitness needs and goals can not only be easy and budget friendly. You can also benefit more than you would from a fully stocked home gym.
The important things to keep in mind is what your goals are, and finding an exercise that you would actually stick with. Typically you would want to consider cardio, strength training, stretches and core workouts in order to get some variety and an overall complete exercise.
To keep this a simple home gym, we are looking at ways to fit most if not all your fitness needs. Without the need for bulky equipment. As a general rule, I tend to stay away from home gym equipment such as treadmills and ellipticals. Investing in equipment that typically only allows a limited variety in exercise types, can be inefficient at times.
Luckily, there are many options to chose from when finding multi-use gym equipment. Often they can be in expensive. Depending on what your current workout routine is you may need to make some changes in your current program in order to accommodate.
Not to worry, you would likely would not need to learn any type of new exercises but some adjustments may be needed.
First, lets see where you would need to start.
Create The Right Space
Finding a dedicated space to work out could be a make or break factor in the long term success of your fitness journey. Putting the time and effort into an are of your home that simply doesn’t inspire and encourages you to grow would not an ideal situation.
Not to say that you should shy away from a corner in your basement. Any free space you have should be able to work fine. We suggest to make it into a enjoyable experience. Really consider putting in some effort into making it a space that you’re happy to go to.
You can try adding some motivational wall art, install a sound system or TV. Make the space completely your own, and something you can be proud of. It can be a major motivation booster on the off days where exercising is on the back burner.
Organize the area as much as you can and keep it that way. Make it as easy as possible for yourself. By resetting your gym every day, you won’t find yourself doing any extra work the next time you come for a workout.
Equipment For A Simple Home Gym
In order to keep this a simple home gym, we are going to completely avoid the large bulky items like the elliptical and barbell racks. Instead we are focussing on equipment where you would utilize more body weight exercises, and can be available for many other types of workouts.
Body weight exercises or also know as calisthenics is exercises that use your body as the main form of resistance. Meaning you won’t need different weights or additional equipment down the road.
Some extra material on calisthenics if you’re a beginner.
Now let’s take a look at how to start your simple home gym.
Essentials for A Simple Home Gym
Parallettes – A staple for calisthenics. Parallettes are simple equipment that look like dip bars but are much closer to the ground. They are effective in varying your push up work outs and versatile enough to incorporate other exercises such as sit ups, hand stands and reverse dips.
Dip Bars – There is a larger variety of sizes for dip bars. Generally you would want to find the one that is easiest for you to use, and fits well in your home gym. With dip bars you can work core muscles and triceps and also perform modified pull ups.
Floor Mats – Some type of layer between your floor and workout should be used if possible. For one, it helps protect your existing floor from any accidental damage when working out. It also provides some layer of cushion that helps with muscle and joints. Ideally you would want to cover as much of your workout space as possible.
Jump Rope – You need to get the cardio in. Jumping rope is a great exercise to get your heart pumping and breaking a sweat. A good substitution for jogging if you’re unable to get outside or if you’re just looking for the workout warm up / cool down.
Pull Up Bar – Whether it is a door way pull up bar or something you would be installing from scratch. It’s would be a good idea to have pull ups as part of your exercise to not only work arms, but core and back muscles simultaneously.
The Nice To Haves For A Simple Home Gym
Power Tower – In place of pull up bars and dip bars. A power tower could be a solution to not having too many extra workout equipment. The issue with most of these items is that they are tall and wide making them fit into areas a bit trickier.
Weighted Vest – When you begin to feel less challenge on your workouts, adding a weight vest could help you progress. Instead increasing your reps, use the vest to make your workouts more challenging by increasing resistance.
Punching Bag and Gloves – Keep variety with your workouts. Boxing is one of my favourite ways to add variety in my workouts. Another form of cardio and strength training, not to mention the agility and movement boost you get when be consistent with this form of exercise.
Conclusion
Building your home gym should be fun. It’s a chance to explore creativity and personality all while figuring out how you want to reach your fitness goal.
With that said, your workout should be exciting and energizing for you as well. The variety that comes with calisthenics keeps the possibilities endless and provides workouts that can change every week or everyday.
If you’re on a budget or just simply don’t have the space, utilizing the items talked about in this article is a great solution. Almost everything talked about are pretty inexpensive and easy to put aside and taken out when needed.
More on home gyms:
- Creating a home gym in a small space: https://thebasementwarrior.com/small-space-home-gyms/
- Best Space for a home gym: https://thebasementwarrior.com/where-is-the-best-place-for-a-home-gym/
