Are you tired of waiting for your favorite leg press machine? Tired of driving twenty minutes each way to work out? If you belong to a commercial gym, chances are the little irritations have you dreaming about the luxury of working out at home. But have you stopped to count the costs and benefits of building your own home gym? Let’s take a minute to consider a few of the more important pros and cons, before you haul that power rack into your garage.
The most obvious benefit of having your own home gym is that big fat check that you would not be writing to somebody else each month. It may not seem like much, one check at a time, but over the course of a year, you are paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars for the privilege of sweating on somebody else’s floor. Don’t forget to count the cost of your personal trainer at the gym, both the fee you pay the trainer and the extra markup the gym owner takes. By working out at home, you will save the cost of the gym membership, and if you do hire a personal trainer, you can cut out the middleman fees and just pay the trainer directly.
Your gym membership also comes with a number of little incidental costs that you may be overlooking. The first thing to consider is the cost of getting to the gym. If you are lucky enough to have a gym next door to your home or work place, then you are avoiding the extra cost of transportation. But if you are driving ten miles to the gym every night after work, and then another ten miles home, your gym membership is costing you an additional tank of gas every two weeks.
Some folks spend extra money on fancy workout clothing when they go to the gym, but would be just as comfortable at home in a faded t-shirt and old sweatpants. And what about all of those energy bars and protein shakes you consume at the gym? By eating the same food at home, you could be paying grocery prices instead of the marked up convenience prices that your gym charges.
Having the flexibility to workout on your own schedule is usually the number one benefit that people are looking for in a home gym. This becomes critically important to people with a jam-packed daily schedule. Waiting ten minutes for your favorite machine can set your entire day off track.
Of course, there are also a few drawbacks to working out at home. The first is the cost of the home exercise equipment. It is not unusal for each workout machine to cost anywhere from a couple hundred, to a couple thousand, dollars, but used equipment is often an option. Of course, when used properly, gym equipment tends to last forever so you will only have to make the initial investment once. And home exercise equipment holds it value well, so you should have a ready market if you later decide to sell your equipment.
Isolation is often the biggest drawback when giving up the commercial gym to work out at home. While some folks relish the solitude of working out by themselves, others require a push from other people to get them motivated. You can mitigate the loneliness at home by surrounding yourself with your favorite music, utilizing headphones if you are living with others. Perhaps most importantly, the lack of a spotting partner can be a dangerous drawback of working out at home. The ideal home gym is often shared with a roommate or a neighbor.
it is fair to say that the long term financial benefits of working out at home usually far outweigh the initial cost of buying equipment. Of course, you may find that the emotional costs are just too high, in which case you should sell your home gym equipment on Craig’s List and go back to to your mates at the gym.