The Ultimate Guide to Building a Budget Home Gym

Thanks to Covid-19, people all around the world are unable to take care of themselves physically as well as mentally. Such a dramatic change in lifestyle has not only affected people’s individual well-being, but also the well-being of the people around them. Ideally, this is the perfect opportunity to start working on building that picture perfect home guy that the fitness freak in you has always dreamed of.

But the truth is, doing so is not always as easy as seen on blog posts and YouTube videos since a lot of people are also running low on personal finance due to the market collapse because of lockdown and quarantine regulations. However, there is a way around this. You can start building your home gym today using simple equipment and enough investment to get you started.

In this article, we are going to be sharing some handy tips and recommendations that you can follow to build an affordable yet effective home gym without breaking the bank. This is especially beneficial for people who feel uncomfortable working out in public gyms due to fear of judgement or simply not wanting to use the same equipment dripping with sweat and odour of other people.

Needless to say, the equipment you will be able to buy with a limited budget will not be super sophisticated, but it will be enough to keep you in good shape and health and much easier on your wallet.

Apart from the obvious pros, having a home gym also helps you save time, money, and avoid making excuses since you no longer have to pay a membership fee every month to keep using the equipment and also don’t have to spend time actually traveling to the gym from your home.

A little heads-up before we start

If you happen to live at a place that doesn’t have a lot of space, then it’s better to not turn your home in a gym. Gym equipment can be heavy and dangerous if misplaced and cramped up in a tiny place. You don’t want to trip over something and hit your head on a dumbbell and hurt yourself. That defeats the whole purpose of working out.

The ideal place for a home gym would instead be a basement, backyard, or an empty garage where you can put your equipment without having it interrupt your everyday life while doing chores around the house.

Watch and Learn

Probably one of the best advice to build a home gym, is to not build one at all! Yep, you don’t exactly need to buy equipment to remain fit. Most of the times and for most people, simply doing exercises that require your own body weight is enough or add Dumbbells for resistance. There are tons of exercises out there that you can do without equipment like:

• Push-ups
• Jumping jacks
• Squats
• Planks
• Mountain climbers
• Tricep dips
• Lunges
• Russian twists
• Flutter kicks
• High knees
• Bicycle crunches
• Leg raises
• Donkey kicks, and more

If you are really low on budget then you can simply skip on the idea of buying equipment altogether. Instead, you can simply mount a flat screen TV on your wall and play no-equipment workout tutorials and follow the procedures if you’re just starting out in personal fitness and need some guidance.

We do recommend buying a simple yoga mat, though. Working out on the floor can be uncomfortable and can even lead you to accidentally slip on the floor because of your own sweat and fall while performing a workout position (as funny as that sounds).

Buy Second hand Equipment

If bodyweight simply won’t cut it for you and you absolutely need to buy equipment, then make sure not to buy new ones. Gym equipment usually has a very long lifespan and buying second hand doesn’t cut back on quality that much, especially in the case of weights since the material used to make them is highly durable and can withstand abusive anyway.

Buying new equipment when you are already on a budget is like buying bottled water when you could easily just fill your own bottles before leaving your house. Some of the best places to buy second hand gym equipment are the following:

• Facebook Marketplace
• ebay

There are tons of other apps and websites that you can search through to find the best deal that suits your budget. Be smart about your purchases, though. Don’t start impulse buying. A lot of the times, people just ending up buying for the feeling of being fitness conscious and end up not using the equipment they bought.

Ideally, try to look for equipment that can be used in multiple exercises instead of something that only targets a very specific muscle. Some of our personal recommendations include resistance band, dumbbell, yoga ball, jump rope, kettlebell, and barbell.

Before buying heavy equipment

Your instinct may suggest you to buy all the equipment you think you might need in just one go, but that’s not really a very good idea unless you are someone who already works out regularly and has a scheduled time allocated specifically for working out. However, that’s not the case for everyone.

If you are someone who is just starting out in physical fitness, don’t buy all the heavy equipment now thinking that it will motivate you to workout. Instead, buy them in intervals of a few months. That way, if you continue working out in those months prior to the next purchase and don’t quit exercise altogether, you know that you are ready for another batch of investment and more equipment.

This will not only save you money, but also save you the hassle of returning the items you bought or reselling them at a loss in case you decide to quit working out. All in all, start slow and with low budget and work your way over to the big numbers – consistently and carefully.

Thanks for reading this article!