110717 Building your own limited space workout room

110717 Building your own limited space workout room

The primary advantage of owning your own gym is you can exercise anytime you want to and you don’t have to wait for equipment to free up from the knotheads jawboning to their partner.

If you are looking to maintain your physical fitness or improve a little bit, you don’t need to spend a lot of money on equipment. Furthermore, you don’t need a lot of space to have a nice gym set up.

You can even have equipment set up outside for use when you are working in the yard or feel like working out outside. A chin up bar between two trees, a selection of rocks in various weights and sizes, and inner tubes filled with traction sand all hold up very well for outside use.

The first thing to do is to decide exactly what you want to be doing. Do you want to focus on your cardiovascular capabilities, flexibility, balance, strength or on all four? Each one is going to have equipment that is particular to attaining the goal you choose.

For example, if working on balance you would want to have a stability ball that fits your height, several different types of balance pads, and a good instructional manual to follow. In the case of cardio, a good stationary bike or skip rope is a good purchase. Neither of these takes up much room and provides a good cardiovascular workout.

For flexibility purposes a set of the large stretching bands, a length of rope with loops at various distances and perhaps a pulley set up. For resistance training, you will need a solid bench, a barbell and dumbbell set and if space allows a squat rack.

All of the equipment listed above can fit into an area as small as 10 x 10.

I have recommended craigslist to many of my trainees. It is an excellent spot to find used exercise equipment. This is especially true in the spring because by this time many people have been walking around the non-used equipment that they bought in a frenzy at the beginning of the year. The prices are good and in most cases negotiable.

All in all, there are really no good excuses for not exercising since the cost is minimal and the location to exercise is where you live.