Are you tired of waiting for your favorite leg press machine? Tired of driving twenty minutes each way to work out? The hassles of working out in a commercial gym may promot you to consider the benefits of working out at home. But have you stopped to count the costs and benefits of building your own home gym? There are plenty of both, so take a moment to consider the following before you start measuring your garage for your new power rack.
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.
Don't forget to include the little incidental costs that you incur with your gym membership. Your first expense is getting there. 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? Eating the same food at home could mean savings of a couple hundred dollars a month.
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. Even ten minutes spent waiting for an open chest press machine can knock your entire schedule off track.
To be fair, there are also several drawbacks to the idea of working out in a home gym. First, you need to consider the monetary investment you will have when you buy 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. The goodnews is that gym equipment tends to last a very long time when used correctly, so you will likely only have to buy it once. And home exercise equipment holds it value well, so you should have a ready market if you later decide to sell your equipment.
When counting the drawbacks of a home gym, it is important to consider the isolation factor. Some people enjoy working out in solitude, but many need the energy of people around them to get them motivated to push a little harder. You can mitigate the loneliness at home by surrounding yourself with your favorite music, utilizing headphones if you are living with others. The other drawback of working out by yourself is the lack of a spotter. The ideal home gym is often shared with a roommate or a neighbor.
In summary, the financial benefits of a home gym usually far outweigh the cost of buying the initial equipment. But if you find yourself lonely and unmotivated to work out at home, then it's time to put your home equipment up for sale on Ebay and rejoin your friends at the gym.