5 Reasons For Owning A Home Gym

UPDATED, November 24, 2020

Fitness should be simple and practical––everything about packing a bag, climbing into the car, and heading to the gym is not. Added to the hassle of traveling somewhere just to work out are the scheduling conflicts and overcrowding problems that mess up your day. How can you stay active and healthy with such obstacles working against you?

Owning a home gym solves many of these issues. You can fit in a quick session any time during the day and benefit from the cumulative effect of multiple workouts too. According to the Mayo Clinic, sessions that are spread out throughout the day can be just as beneficial as one long workout. For example, three 10-minute sessions are just as effective as one 30-minute workout.

The ability to do multiple workouts throughout a day are just one of the many benefits that come with setting up a gym right inside your home. Whether you convert a spare room or just clear a little space in the corner, a home gym is an incredible fitness resource for you and your family.

Consider these five fundamental reasons why owning a home gym just makes sense:

1. Privacy

Setting up your own home gym means creating a training environment that is both comfortable and private. You are free to take your time and learn proper stances, discover how to best use the equipment, and decide what routine and pace is the right choice for your fitness needs––all without feeling judged.

There are no restrictions on what you wear, or don’t wear for that matter, during your exercise either. You are free to be yourself without risking someone snapping a picture of you. You can focus on getting the most from your exercise without having to make small talk or feeling embarrassed. How much harder will you train when you know no one is watching?

With a home gym you can look forward to:

A workout without anyone staring at you
Freedom to use any of the equipment without waiting in line
No distractions
No competition for videos, music, or television shows that keep you occupied during your workout routine

You create a workout oasis that separates you from the rest of the world.

2. Freedom

With a home gym, you are making fitness choices based on your need, not what’s available. The days of walking into the gym and finding the one piece of equipment you wanted to use is unavailable are over. A home gym offers flexibility, so you can vary your routines any way you feel necessary to meet your goals. Create a strategy that works for you instead of trying to fit into a commercial gym’s one-size-fits-all program.

That sense of freedom extends to your daily schedule as well. Don’t have time to spend an hour or more at the local gym? That’s okay. Tuck in four 15-minute sessions during the day using your own at-home equipment instead. A home gym is always open for business, so if you decide at 2am that a workout might help you sleep, no problem!

3. Convenience

A home gym isn’t weather-sensitive like the local jogging path or bike trail. Even a commercial indoor fitness center is hard to get to during a storm. If the weather isn’t slowing you down, then the commute might. How many minutes a day do you spend simply driving back and forth to the gym? That’s time you could use for your family or friends.

Heading to the gym is an inconvenient option when there are children in your life. It is hard to get motivated to drive there if you have to pay for a babysitter or cart the kids around with you. With a home gym, you can wait for everyone to go to sleep and enjoy some quiet time as you do your workout, especially now that you can connect your Bluetooth® headphones to your NordicTrack machine.

The home gym works on your time schedule, not the other way around. You won’t be stuck running to the gym during your lunch break or trying to make it there before closing.

4. Time Efficiency

From cutting out drive time to splitting your workouts into convenient sessions, a home gym is one of the most time efficient investments you can make. What once took an hour and a half a day, when you add in the commute, chatting with personal trainers and other gym-goers, and waiting for equipment may only take minutes.

With a home gym, you eliminate:

The long lines to use equipment
The wasted travel time
The long prep that starts and ends in the locker room: taking the time and effort to get dressed to workout, shower, and then get redressed to leave

You can workout right before you shower to get ready for work or do your routine and grab a quick shower before bed.

Add your daily chores to your workout schedule as a convenient warm-up and cooldown to save even more time. Folding laundry is an effective way to warm up the arms before working them in your home gym, for example, or run the vacuum to cool down your legs after your exercise session.

5. Cost Efficiency

Commercial gyms are a for-profit business that makes money off of clients, usually in the form of membership fees. On average, consumers pay anywhere from several dollars a visit to hundreds of dollars a year just for the privilege of using the gym’s workout space and tools. When you add up everything it costs you to go to the gym, you see that buying your own at-home equipment is a financially savvy choice.

It is not uncommon for people to overestimate how often they will use a gym membership either. U.S. News reports that 67 percent of consumers that sign up for a gym membership never use it. Buying a membership seems like a fair deal when you sign the contract, but the reality is going to the gym is a hassle. It’s hard to get motivated, so you end up looking for more convenient ways to exercise anyway. Gyms don’t give refunds because you decide it’s too much trouble to go.

Some gyms do provide a pay-as-you-go plan, but you still have to deal with everything that was impractical about going there in the first place, such as:

Travel
Inconvenient schedules
Sharing facilities with others

There are hidden expenses that go with your gym membership too:

Transportation
Workout clothes
Trainer fees
Vendor services, such as the juice bar or bottled water

Conclusion

By investing in a home gym you save money on gas, membership fees, fancy workout clothes. Your one-time purchase provides you with everything you need to exercise regularly, wisely, and conveniently without ever leaving your home.

A gym that you can use first thing in the morning for a morning run on a treadmill, any time during the day with a quick elliptical workout, and in the middle of the night––don’t you deserve that level of efficiency? A home gym is a fitness strategy with benefits that go beyond what a commercial gym can offer. It’s time for you to consider what a home gym can do for you.