Home Gym Setup: How to Design a Space You’ll Use

There are some data points indicating that the majority of home fitness equipment goes totally unused, while others state that home fitness equipment is one of the wisest investments a person can make toward fostering a healthy lifestyle, with the majority of such equipment being put to proper use.

These non-scientific, self-reported statistics indicate that some people are simply better at capitalizing on the presence of the fitness equipment in their midst than others, and those that are successful have probably employed one or more tricks to make workouts as simple to engage in as possible. 

The solution? Identify one or more tricks that will ensure that you engage in effective workouts at their appointed times, so that the notion that you’ll exercise at home becomes a foregone conclusion.

Create space and opportunity for quick wins.

If you have an empty floor and an empty door frame, you can always complete a satisfying workout through push-ups and pull-ups alone. However, you won’t be able to drop and get in 50 quick push-ups on a cluttered floor any more easily than you’ll be able to rise up and squeeze out 10 pull-ups on a bar that isn’t there. 

The solution here is a simple one: Keep your floors empty, and your equipment easily accessible, so that quick and efficient workouts are always within arms reach whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Build your training environment around your unbreakable tendencies.

If your daily habit is to come home from work, crash on the couch, and watch your favorite sports team on television, you’re kidding yourself if you think you’re suddenly going to have the willpower to break from that habit and spend long stretches of every evening inside of a basement gym that is nowhere near a television screen.

Instead of trying to create a new workout habit that is going to intrude on your comfortable routine, you’ll probably be far more successful if you identify ways to integrate your workouts into your established nightly norms. So place your new elliptical machine in your living room so that you can get in a half an hour of cardio while enjoying your favorite TV programs, and make sure your portable dumbbells are stationed right next to your TV for easy access to a powerful pump.

Make the training area the most comfortable space in your home.

There’s something to be said for attaching additional benefits to your workouts. If your treadmill and weight bench occupy the spaces in your living room with the most pleasing views of the television, the odds are that you’re going to spend more time on them than you otherwise would — hopefully actively training — than if they were located in the corner of the room with the most obstructed view.

Even if you prefer to train in a purer gym environment, and have dedicated a room of your home exclusively to service your fitness agenda, your home gym does not need to resemble some austere dungeon. Make sure it maintains a comfortable temperature, has a great sound system, has a television mounted on the wall with every streaming service you need, and possesses every other comfort that will ensure your attendance on every day of the week.

Know your tendencies and plan around them.

Some people have the freedom to leave home and use the dedicated training space provided by the gym, and they consider that environment to be highly motivational. However, if leaving home is out of the question, acknowledge what it will take to get you to train regularly, and do everything you can to tailor your environment to ensure that you can take simple steps to better your level of physical fitness.

Summary

1. Sometimes the arrangement of your home workout space helps to make the idea of workout out more appealing.

2. Make sure your environment creates easy opportunities to sneak in exercises.

3. Integrating your workouts into your existing behavioral patterns is easier than building brand-new habits.

4. Design a training area so that it’s a pleasant space where you would truly desire to spend time