How to Build Your Own Gym at Home

For many, having your very own gym at home is the dream. No need to pay monthly membership fees, no waiting around for someone else to finish with the equipment and, best of all, no commute.

You might believe that a home gym is a treat only reserved for those of whom have a spare room and/or garage, but you would be wrong. Building a home gym is possible even when space is at a premium. Whether you have a lot or a little room to play with, you can create a fitness area suited to your needs with state-of-the-art gym equipment.

Designing Your Home Gym

Before you rush off and buy all the equipment you would find in your dream gym, first, you need to take the time to plan and design your home gym. After all, there is no point in investing in numerous pieces of equipment if you haven’t the room to house it all. You might also be pleasantly surprised by how much equipment you can fit into your home gym if you were to move a few things around.

Here at UK Gym Equipment, we offer a free 3D design service for both commercial and home gym use. This will allow you to not only create a detailed plan of your gym area but to also visualise how it will look once you have moved in all your equipment.

This service comes with absolutely no obligation to move forward with your design, so you need not worry about being tied into any commitment when you use our 3D design service. Should you wish to proceed with the design created by our service, the UK Gym Equipment team will be more than happy to discuss moving ahead with your project.

What Are You Hoping to Achieve?

When building a home gym in a garage or spare room, you need to consider precisely what it is you are looking to achieve from your workouts. Is your target to lose weight? Build muscle? Or a combination of both? Depending on what your fitness goals are, this will help you to decide which equipment is best for you.

Cardio machines such as treadmills, exercise bikes and cross-trainers can all take up a lot of room as, too, can strength-training equipment like barbells, bench presses and more. The best home gyms include a variety of both strength and cardio equipment, with aerobic and anaerobic exercises making up vital elements of your fitness regime. That means it is all about finding the right balance.

If you are uncertain as to what equipment will best serve your needs, you can refer to our workout posts over in our blog section which detail the best exercises and equipment you need to achieve your fitness goal. With exercises that require little to no equipment, as well as making use of bulkier pieces, you may just be pleasantly surprised by how much you can achieve in your space.

Storage

Storage is key when it comes to building a home gym, especially when you add in other factors such as shared space and the potential for young children to be in and around the equipment. It can make for a safety hazard if heavy pieces are left out and unattended.

It may be worth considering foldaway solutions that you can get out as and when you intend to use them and safely store away when you are finished. Treadmills, bikes and rowing machines can all be purchased with folding options that not only allow for safe storage, but all for you to make more use of the space you have.

Storage racks are another key component of any gym, regardless of whether it is at home or in a commercial setting. Rather than having dumbbells, kettlebells and medicine balls kept on the floor, you can store them safely outside your workout area on a rack out of harm’s way. Imagine being in the zone, pushing yourself in the middle of an exercise only to trip over a dumbbell that has been left on the floor. That is a very real hazard that can result in serious injury.

Gym Flooring

Arguably, the most important piece of equipment in your home gym isn’t any of the cardio or strength-training pieces but is, actually, your flooring. When you workout in a commercial gym setting, you will notice the use of hard and rubber flooring, depending on the section of the gym you are in. This has been used for a reason, with noise reduction and protection against the heavy equipment in mind.

In a home gym setting, especially when other people are in the building, you have to be respectful of others. They probably won’t want to hear you banging and clanging as you smash a workout, which is why rubber gym matting is something that you should consider. The noise-reducing qualities of rubber mean that, if you happen to drop weight such as a kettlebell, dumbbell or another piece of equipment, it isn’t going to echo around the house.

As well as the noise-reducing aspect, protection against the equipment is even more important at home. Carpets will show indentation when heavy pieces are placed on them, while hard flooring can show indentation over time which can be costly to repair. Should you wish to be able to easily move your gym space in the future, for whatever reason, tiling mats will be the best solution as you will be able to put them down and take them up just as easily.

Budget

When you come to think about building a home gym, you must have a budget in mind and, most importantly, stick to it. Commercial-standard gym equipment rarely comes cheap, but neither should you have to pay over the odds, either. At UK Gym Equipment, you will find a vast array of high-quality equipment with various finance options available to suit your budget.

With a set budget in mind, you can price up each aspect of your home gym and work towards creating your own ideal fitness space tailored to your specific requirements. For more information on how to build your own gym at home, please do not hesitate to get in contact with a member of our team today.