Weight Trainers United
Advantages of a Home Gym
Posted By: Gary Zeolla
Date: Saturday, 26 November 2005, at 9:48 a.m.
I ran into a lot of problems setting up my home gym. But now that I got all of the problems are worked out, I am very happy I set the gym up as there are many advantages to having a home gym.
Adding up all of the money I spent for all of the equipment for my home gym, it ended up costing me about $2500. That was more than I originally planned on spending. But still, in the long run, it will be a money saver.
Before setting up my home gym, I had figured out that between the cost of gas and gym membership fee, I was spending about $1000 a year working out at my last gym. So as long as I continue to workout for at least another 2-1/2 years, it will have been worth it. In fact, this gives me an incentive to keep lifting, knowing I will have wasted a lot of money if I stop now. So saving money is an advantage, as long as you keep working out.
Some other advantages are obvious. There is the time savings of not having to travel back and forth to the gym. This is especially the case in the winter when traveling to the gym requires bundling up in a bunch of clothing, clearing snow and ice off of the car, fighting snow covered roads to get the gym, then having to change once again at the gym, only to have to do it all over again to go home.
Another big advantage is being able to workout anytime, 24/7. Your home gym does not close on holidays, does not close early on weekends, and the like. You can lift whenever you want. Now my last gym was a key entry gym, so I could have worked out there 24/7 as well. However, I still tried to avoid lifting at times when I knew the place would be busy. And this leads to the next point.
With a home gym, you do not have to put up with the (how do I say this nicely?), heck, the idiots at the gym. People screwing around or yapping away on a cell phone while you’re trying to concentrate and prepare for a heavy lift. Or someone walking right in front of you while you’re going down on a heavy squat, causing you to lose your concentration and get buried. Or someone tying up the power rack doing curls while you’re waiting to do heavy squats. With a home gym, you don’t have to put up with such stuff, and you never have to wait for equipment.
There’s also the advantage of being able to play whatever music you want. At one gym I was at, they used to play “hip-hop” music. Ugh! I tried explaining to them that this was not lifting music, but to no avail. I did try using a MP3 player for a while. But it was a real pain, as the cord kept getting in the way, or it kept slipping out my shirt pocket. And when I was wearing a bench shirt, there simply was no place to put it.
But now I can play my favorite form of lifting music, White Metal (i.e. heavy metal Christian music). Yes, there is such a thing, and I have plenty of it, on both cassette tape and CD. There is no way I could have gotten them to play such music at any gym I worked out at. But now I can crank it up to my heart’s content.
At my most recent gym, the owner was nice enough to let me store my chains in a closet near the power rack I used. But most gyms would not be so accommodating. When I was first thinking about getting chains I was working out at a YMCA. I asked the manager if I could leave the chains there, he said I could, but in his office on the opposite side of the Y from the gym. I couldn’t seem to explain to him that carrying 90 pounds of chains that far for every workout would be a bit too much. But now, I can put my chains where I want, right by my power rack.
I can also change into my powerlifting gear right in my workout area. At a gym you need to go into a locker room or restroom. And at a couple of gyms I lifted at, these were a ways away. And walking a long distance in a tight squat suit is not fun!
Of course, there are some disadvantages. If you have a gym with other powerlifters in it, there is nothing better than getting a group of guys together for a workout, screaming for each other, psyching each other up for heavy lifts. But such behavior is not acceptable nowadays at most gyms. And at most every gym I worked out at, I was the only powerlifter. So I basically lifted alone anyhow. But now I can crank up my White Metal to get psyched up.
But lifting by yourself can get a little lonely. So if you are the type of person who needs other people around, then a home gym would not be for you. However, this problem could be overcome if you find yourself a good workout partner or two.
I don’t have a workout partner, but I am now planning on posting my full workout logs each week on my Web site and on this message board. Knowing other lifters will be reviewing my workouts helps me get psyched up, and participating in this forum, discussing workouts and related issues should help to alleviate the loneliness.