Commercial gyms not for you? Can’t manage time to travel to gym? Good gym not available in your area? WANT TO HAVE THE BEST INVESTMENT OF YOUR LIFE. Read for my own experience of building up my home gym…
Several gyms of all sorts of size and facilities are turning up in all nooks and corners. Is there any need for a home gym at all? Well, some people like me do not like the concept of going far from home to workout. If you are reading this, you also have some interest in building up of a home gym like me. Several people from celebrities to ordinary fitness freaks are thinking in the same way.
Think about it… Are you tired of the commercial gyms and the filth, sweat and grunts along with it? Well, let me think about it further… Are you feeling that a gym membership must be there for the rest of your life but you cannot afford time to travel? Or is there no such good gym in your locality? Do you prefer a personal space to workout?
Well, whatever be your answer, you will prefer to build a home gym. It may be a garage space, a part of your own house or even an unused part of an old room that you can afford.
I, myself, have built one for myself from scratch. My wife, parents and neighbours thought I had gone nuts. Even the courier delivery boys had known about a crazy doc who orders extremely heavy consignments! But I stuck to my ideas. It was slowly built up inside a part of my own apartment.
For 35 years, I had been a fat, sedentary guy with all sorts of fitness problems and worsening health and strength. Being a doctor myself (did a personal training course later, by the way), I was well aware of the consequences. Finally I decided that enough is enough. I had to change.
Let me share my experiences along with the instruments/weights/machines I bought. Every choice I made was not perfect. But as they say, you can’t learn swimming without getting into water…
Treadmill – I started my gym hunt with a motorised treadmill from a fitness store in Kolkata. This is almost always first choice that comes into mind of every fat ass guy who think of getting fit. It may not be the smartest choice for fat loss, but I had too little idea to prevent me from spending 35K bucks on this machine. Mine has a top speed of around 12 kph (with manual incline facility). I would suggest you to go for a top speed of 16 kph or more and auto incline facility. HIIT, being a much more efficient fat loss method needs a high speed and inclining treadmill. But surely those LCDs and other fancy features are not necessary. They cost a bomb and of you are not a super rich guy, save your budget for many more to come.
Exercise bike – Or gym cycle is a favourite of the women. People in this part of the world still believes in spot reduction (nothing less than a superstition now a days). My wife, like other women here believed cycling can reduce those gynaecoid pattern of fat (fat distributed more in thighs, buttock, groin etc. in women).I had little idea that time and bought one at around 6k bucks. Exercise bike is an amazing instrument for low impact high intensity exercise, by the way.
Dumbbells and dumbbell rack – This one is a tricky buy. Buy a pair of dumbbell of 5 kg or 10 kg, whatever and you will grow stronger to discover they are getting too easy. You will go on increasing reps and later discover you have shifted from strength to endurance training (doing millions of light curls with 14 inch biceps not growing!… well just a random example to explain). What you need to do is to buy hex dumbbells (for home gym they are simply cheap and perfect) them over years at 5 pounds incremental pairs (or 2.5 kg) starting from 2 kg to as much as you can lift. I have a range of dumbbells starting from 2 kg to 22.5 kg pairs at present. My wife decided to present his crazy hubby a pair of 25 kg dumbbells on his next birthday…!! For keeping them, I ordered a iron rack by a local guy. You can buy racks too but they seemed too costly to me. But you have to rack those 10 pairs of dumbbells to have some breathing space in your home gym.
Barbells with bar and weights – This is the core of you strength training toys besides those dumbbells. A home gym without those clanking iron simply does not look like a gym. I bought 2 good 5 feet bars (1 inch bore and not the big olympic ones for price cutting) from local Decathlon store with spring collars and one 3 feet straight bar and an e z curl bar. I have also fixed one bar at a corner with weight plates in the other end – kind of T bar for rowing. Perhaps olympic bars are better choices here but once I bought them and plates for normal bar, I had to forget those olympic bars. Try buying 3 ft and 5 ft bars. 6 and 7 feet ones occupy too much space and not great for home gyms. But if you can afford go for olympic bars. Those bars and plates are of international qualities and are definitely great choices. I bought 2 pairs of 20 kg plates and several pairs of 10 and 5 kg plates and a few of 3, 2 and 1.25 kg plates. Smaller plates are required, dont ignore them as you continuously itch for progressive overloading. (For smaller upper body muscles, weight increments can never be 10 to 20 kg jumps at a time, isn’t it?). Don’t hurry here. Besides a few heavier and lighter pair of plates, go on buying them, as per requirement. Also try to buy the round rubber ones and not those cast iron noisy ones.
Weight tree– People ignore this one but I must say this is extremely essential. As my child tripped over a few stacked plate, I decided to buy one fast. Also I used screw locks to secure them. Always buy heavy duty ones as they will bear the heaviest load of your gym! Remember weight plates lying here and there in your gym makes the place real shitty and irritating.
Power rack – I wonder how such an important part of a real gym is missed in so many commercial gyms, leave alone home gyms. Doing heavy benching and squatting alone, without any spotter around and without the pins of a power rack to catch a missed fall is plain stupidity and extremely dangerous. These, being not available in local fitness stores, had to be bought online. I bought one from Protoner brand, perhaps the cheapest here at 7k bucks only. Installation is easy, you can do it yourself. It normally comes with a pull up bar, which I felt is an icing on the cake. But learn from my mistake, never buy a cheap one. Always buy a sturdy one with heavy load tolerance and holes close to each other for pin adjustment.
Home multi gym– This is a big looking machine, a popular buy for those thinking of having a “single station solution to home gym”. I bought one from a local fitness store. It has normally 2 to 3 pulley attachments, pec deck fly/chest press attachment, leg curl/extension attachment. A longer and a shorter bar with leg straps are provided for free. They can be used for lat pulldowns, seated rows, triceps pushdowns, biceps curls etc.Weights are pin loaded as in normal gym machines. I bought max 60 kg which I had to repent later as I grew stronger. Always buy smaller home gyms (they take lots of space) with higher max weights as you can’t increase weights later. Also remember local buying can be better than online as you have to check several parameters before buying one.
Home gym attachments and accessories – These are must buys if you want to vary your exercises and make them more effective. A triceps rope, D bar, neutral grip stirrup attachment and may be a V bar can be amazing attachments that can spice your exercises with varieties.
Benches adjustable and flat– Basically I bought both but if you lack space, go for the adjustable one. I bought the adjustable one from a local fitness shop and flat one online. Simple changes in angles of the bench can open the horizon for several exercises with free weights. Always buy a sturdy one from local store by sitting, lying, reclining and checking it out well. Mark my word, you will find bench to be more useful than you have thought of previously.
Parallel bars and pull up bars– Parallel bars are required for dips and L-sits and the pull up bar for pull up/chin up/hanging leg raise. A power tower with dips/pull ups/leg raise station is obviously a better choice in 15 to 20k bucks. As I had a pull up bar installed in my power rack and a dips bar already bought, I preferred not to buy the complete power tower station.
Preacher curl bench – Well, this doesn’t seem that important for a home gym but guys do have a soft corner for biceps, you know. Anyway, this is something that is not really essential for a home gym
Barbell rack – This may not be that important as you have the hooks of the power rack for same purpose. You may even make 2 such identical hooks for the power rack as I have done. I sometimes feel too lazy and tired to move those heavy shits around and bought a pair of adjustable and movable barbell racks for around 2k bucks only.
Few not-so-glamorous-but-important buys – These may not convince you as important but trust me, you have to thank me later if you have them in you gym:
Foam roller – for warm up
Swiss ball or gym ball – for post exercise stretching and a lot more
Wrist straps – for heavy deadlifts, shrugs etc.
Grippers – to increase grip strength
Gloves with wrist support – to prevent palm callus formation and better non slippery grips
Gym belt – extremely important for heavy squat/deadlift/military press/bent over row
Knee caps/wraps – for squat/deadlift/olympic moves etc.
Elbow wraps – for heavy benching/other pressing/skull crushers
Training shoes – flat soles (elevated sole crossfit ones are great for squatting and olympic lifts)
Running shoes – Curved soles specifically designed for running or jogging
Squat pads – for squats/barbell hip thrusts
Ab rollout wheel – for abs and core strength
Rubber mats – required for stretching and warm ups, even more in winters
Floor mats – these are costly considering the whole floor of gym to be covered. I bought two pairs for the deadlift area to reduce barbell clunking sound
An wooden/plastic, preferably light rack to keep the above small accessories to prevent a cluttered gym.
Few mirrors in the gym walls – for obvious reasons! Watch yourself getting fitter
There you go with you complete home gym. If you had enough patience to read upto this much, believe me, you really need to build up a home gym. I have built it up over few years and hardly have space to add any more.
Lastly, home gym is perhaps the best investment you can do for your own health. Once you are up to it and have started working out in your own gym, there is no looking back. You can’t really have the ambience and fancy machines or instruments of the big commercial gyms but believe me, those are rarely required. Just spend some bucks, build up your home gym slowly but surely…
[…] Also sweating out in a commercial gym may not seem a good lifestyle to fit one’s ego. It is far from suited-booted corporate desk job. (The fitness craze nowadays are definitely changing the equation nowadays, though. Gym membership is in, already for many.) Maybe you are wealthy, also you don’t want to be in a commercial gym for any reason. Fine, but nothing can hold back you from learning everything from scratch and setting up a home gym. Read my article on how to set up a home gym. […]
[…] I started lifting weights at a local gym, Bag Gym for a month. I was unable to continue more than a couple of months due to time constraints. I finally decided to build a home gym. You can read my post on how to build a home gym. […]
[…] Also sweating out in a commercial gym may not seem a good lifestyle to fit one’s ego. It is far from suited-booted corporate desk job. (The fitness craze nowadays are definitely changing the equation nowadays, though. Gym membership is in, already for many.) Maybe you are wealthy, also you don’t want to be in a commercial gym for any reason. Fine, but nothing can hold back you from learning everything from scratch and setting up a home gym. Read my article on how to set up a home gym. […]
[…] I started lifting weights at a local gym, Bag Gym for a month. I was unable to continue more than a couple of months due to time constraints. I finally decided to build a home gym. You can read my post on how to build a home gym. […]
[…] Let me start with a story. A mechanic came to my house to fix our home theater. He became more interested in our home gym, than his task! He roamed around and scrutinized my home gym. He appreciated the idea of a doctor building up a home gym to work out, anyway. Read about my post on how to build a home gym. […]
[…] of break, I took lots of carbs and lots of water today, before entering the gym. It’s my own home gym with no A. C. Today was the ‘pull’ day (I am now doing push pull regimen – works great […]
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[…] Also sweating out in a commercial gym may not seem a good lifestyle to fit one’s ego. It is far from suited-booted corporate desk job. (The fitness craze nowadays are definitely changing the equation nowadays, though. Gym membership is in, already for many.) Maybe you are wealthy, also you don’t want to be in a commercial gym for any reason. Fine, but nothing can hold back you from learning everything from scratch and setting up a home gym. Read my article on how to set up a home gym. […]
[…] I started lifting weights at a local gym, Bag Gym for a month. I was unable to continue more than a couple of months due to time constraints. I finally decided to build a home gym. You can read my post on how to build a home gym. […]
[…] Also sweating out in a commercial gym may not seem a good lifestyle to fit one’s ego. It is far from suited-booted corporate desk job. (The fitness craze nowadays are definitely changing the equation nowadays, though. Gym membership is in, already for many.) Maybe you are wealthy, also you don’t want to be in a commercial gym for any reason. Fine, but nothing can hold back you from learning everything from scratch and setting up a home gym. Read my article on how to set up a home gym. […]
[…] I started lifting weights at a local gym, Bag Gym for a month. I was unable to continue more than a couple of months due to time constraints. I finally decided to build a home gym. You can read my post on how to build a home gym. […]
[…] Let me start with a story. A mechanic came to my house to fix our home theater. He became more interested in our home gym, than his task! He roamed around and scrutinized my home gym. He appreciated the idea of a doctor building up a home gym to work out, anyway. Read about my post on how to build a home gym. […]
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