Time is one of the biggest barriers to starting or sticking with your fitness program, so building your own gym at home could be a great solution with so many benefits.

If you don't already have a gym membership:

  • It can be more comfortable - Gyms can be intimidating and crowded
  • Time-efficient - When you're starting, it can be particularly difficult to find the time in your schedule
  • You can ease into it - Research notes that even small blocks of 5-10 minutes can have substantial health benefits. You can do short bursts of time where that wouldn't be realistic at a gym.

If you already have a gym membership:

  • It can supplement your workouts - It's a great option to do extra work to help you reach your goals.
  • Option for scheduling - Sometimes you just can't make it to the gym, whether it's weather or a hectic schedule.
  • Cost-efficient - You could opt to get seasonal or sessional memberships and yet keep your workouts consistent.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, choosing exercises you enjoy helps you stick with your program. Identify what you want (or need) to focus on, whether that's cardio, strength or flexibility and mobility. There's no sense in buying a treadmill if you hate it, but there are so many other options for equipment to help you work on cardio.

Think of your home gym like renovating a room. Identify your goals and then create a plan. Create your ultimate home gym but start with what fits your budget. You can then build on that over time with the money you may have spent on a gym membership!
 

Design Tips for Setting Up a Home Gym

1. Set your goals and preferences.

2. Set your budget.

3. Map it out!

4. Create a space - No matter what the size, have it dedicated to your workouts considering convenience, colour, motivational music or posters.

5. Dress the part - Buy some workout clothes as part of your investment; good shoes are a base and then comfort and function for apparel; if it helps, make it fun, bright and "cool!" as that helps motivate too!

6. Source your products - Here's where you do need to do some legwork!

7. Layout a schedule and tracking - This is so important, particularly when working out at home since you don't have trainers or other people around.

  • Write out your goals, your schedule and stay accountable whether it's easy tick marks on a calendar or tracking on an app.
  • Benchmark - you don't have to have a full fitness assessment but pick some measures that will help you know if it's working; set where you're starting and a time to re-assess.

Tips for Selecting Home Gym Equipment

1. Cardiovascular Equipment

Be creative and consider both budget and space with your selection along with you preferences.

  • Treadmills - Look for an incline treadmill which is trendy - doing slower, low impact but on an incline to work muscles and burn more calories
  • Ellipticals - New designs feature independent and/or lateral movement which makes them more challenging, functional and interesting!
  • Trampolines - These are just a great options for cardio as its low impact, fun and has a lot of physiological benefits.
  • Boxing equipment - This covers cardio and strength.
  • Skipping ropes - Traditional, weighted or "ropeless" options that don't require a high ceiling or coordination!
  • DVD programs
  • Steps or BOSU's - These are multi-purpose as well as they can be used for cardio and as a bench.

2. Strength and resistance equipment

There are so many options for resistance with a broad range for both budget and space.

  • Dumbbells - There are standard dumbbells but also "selectorize" options that give you a range of 5 lbs to 35 lb or more with just one set!
  • Kettlebells
  • Weighted bars and balls
  • Multi-exercise units - These also have a broad range from Bowflex to gravity machines to full squat rack units and functional trainers.

3. Flexibility/Mobility and Balance/Stability

This is such a growing category in fitness, so it's no surprise that there is a growing list of equipment options. These are great choices for home gyms as they don't cost much and yet they can be so multi-functional.

  • foam rollers
  • mats
  • fit discs and dots
  • balance boards
  • Pilates balls
  • stability balls - multi-purpose as a weight bench as well
  • DVD's to follow - as it can be tough to be motivated to stretch, to hold stretches long enough or to know which ones to do!

Throughout January, I'll be posting lots of information and options to recover from the holidays and set yourself up for success in the New Year. I'll also be reaching out to invite anyone with wearable technology to join our community so that we can all help support and inspire each other!

If you have a specific question we'd love to hear from you at . We also have a quick survey to find out your biggest challenges to help plan workouts and support for our new online challenge to be announced soon!.