The type of equipment you purchase is obviously going to be determined by the type of exercise your family chooses to do. For instance, if you are a cardio person and love to feel your heart pumping and get your sweat on, then you want to make sure your workout room is big enough to house the larger equipment that requires. You also want to consider having enough space for a stretching and warm-up area or mounting a TV so you can work out with recorded or streamed exercise programs, or even watch Netflix while you exercise.
If weights are more your style, consider where you’re going to store them and make sure the flooring you choose is strong enough to handle the extra pressure and stand up to the wear and tear from using the equipment.
Either way, you want to ensure that you’re investing in equipment that you’ll actually use. The reason most people invest in a home gym in the first place is because they already have gym memberships that they don’t use. Building a home gym will go a long way towards removing the barriers that are keeping you from improving and maintaining your health, because the convenience of having it in your own home makes you much more likely to use it.
How to Choose Your Equipment
Your first step will likely be to do a little research within your community. Talk to friends or family who are into physical fitness and ask for recommendations for which manufacturers they prefer and what equipment they personally find the most useful. You can also speak to a personal trainer who can give suggestions for which particular pieces of equipment will help you to reach your fitness goals. If you know you’re never going to use a treadmill, there’s no point in buying one. Likewise, if you know that you won’t need more than 30 pound dumbbells, most standard weight sets will work perfectly.
Most people typically don’t need much more than a set of weights, a treadmill or elliptical (or both depending on how much space you’re dedicating to your gym), and space for stretching or yoga. Anything more than this and it’s probably better to invest in a gym membership so that you don’t end up with a lot of complicated machinery to maintain. There is a ton of fitness equipment on the market, so it’s often easier to just keep things simple and stick to the basics. While all-in-one resistance machines can be great, they don’t engage your muscles in ways that free weights couldn’t and they often take up much more space than a simple weight rack.
What you choose to include in your gym will essentially come down to how much space you’re willing to dedicate to it and what exercises you’ll actually do. At Empire Custom Builders we have built many custom homes that include exercise rooms. We can help you plan the perfect space to meet your fitness goals. Contact us today to learn more.