Finding the time and the motivation to exercise can be tough, especially if you have a very busy schedule. However, you can make life easier for yourself by setting up a home workout space. Having all of the equipment you need at home means you can easily fit workouts in around your other responsibilities. By cutting out travel time, you make it much easier to keep motivated and maintain a good workout routine.
However, throwing a few weights into a garage isn’t going to cut it. If you want to stay motivated, you need a workout space that you enjoy spending time in. It also needs to have all of the right equipment so you can get the most out of your workouts.
If you are thinking about creating your own workout space at home, here are some tips to help you make it perfect.
Table of Contents
Create a Positive Atmosphere
If you are working out in a dingy room with bare walls, you’ll feel like you’re in a prison. You need to create a positive atmosphere that inspires you to push yourself and work hard. The bottom line is that, if you don’t like spending time there, you won’t keep up with your fitness routine.
Make sure that you paint the walls in a bright color and get plenty of light in there. You should decorate the walls with things you love too. A few motivational posters with your favorite quotes will help you stay on track. People often assume that the equipment is the most important thing, but it’s the atmosphere that you need to get right first.
Set Up a Station for Video Workouts
Having a station for video workouts allows you to get the same experience you would from taking classes at the gym. There are so many excellent online workouts that can help you keep your routine interesting. Set up a small table area and invest in a good tablet with a high-resolution screen (you can find some excellent ones at https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/d/deals/phones-and-tablets/). If you’re trying to run home workouts from an old laptop or a tiny phone screen, you won’t get the most out of it and you will quickly give up. However, when you have a professional video workout station, you’ll feel just like you’re in a proper class.
Invest in Versatile Equipment
Space is the biggest challenge you will have when setting up a home workout space. You don’t have a huge area like you would have in the gym, so you can’t fit in all of the equipment you would normally use. However, you can still give yourself lots of exercise options if you invest in versatile equipment. Resistance bands, for example, are amazing because you can do all kinds of exercises with them and they take up hardly any space at all. If you wanted to, you could do a full-body workout with this one piece of equipment. Check out https://www.coachmag.co.uk/full-body-workouts/6867 for a great example workout.
Kettlebells are excellent too, and you should also invest in a good set of dumbbells with adjustable weights. Whenever you buy a new piece of equipment, think about how many different exercises you can do with it. If it’s only one or two, it’s not an efficient addition to your home gym.
Make the Flooring Soft
Hard floors are not good for workouts because they don’t absorb any impact. Your joints will take the impact instead, and this can cause a lot of long-term damage. You can easily get shin splints if you are doing a lot of jumping and other cardio exercises. Changing the flooring to something softer will protect you from injuries.
The problem is that you probably don’t want to rip up and replace the flooring, especially if you use the room for something else. Interlocking rubber mats are the perfect solution here. You can put them down quickly and create a soft, springy surface for safe workouts. When you’re not using them, they can slide under a bed or behind a wardrobe somewhere out of the way.
Get Plenty of Storage
You don’t want your home workout space to feel like a cluttered spare room filled with weights. You want it to feel like a gym where you are excited about working out. So, keeping it tidy is crucial. It also helps you stay safe when you’re exercising because you are not tripping over equipment that has been left lying around. Get lots of storage boxes and invest in some racks to put weights on so you can keep the floor area clear.
Creating your own home workout space can be a challenge and it takes some time to get it right. However, if you follow these tips, you will be on your way to your very own gym.