My Budget Home Gym

Why A Home Gym

Why a home gym? Why not just go to a normal gym like everyone else? Well for me personally, I have two reasons.

Time

I have 2 very young children, they need constant supervision. They cannot be left alone. Going to a gym at 5 am for an hour to get my swole on isn’t an option when the wife goes to work at 430 am. Not many gyms have childcare available at 5, either. So why don’t I just go at night? Well, that leads me into my second reason.

Money

My second reason is money. A home gym requires no monthly membership, only requires upfront costs. They can be big, or they can be very small (my option). One of my Goals of 2020 is to get rid of our credit card debt, and cutting out our pretty expensive gym membership goes a long way towards that goal.  There is something to be said about the monthly membership fees driving you into the gym to ‘get your money’s worth’, but we aren’t in a place to take advantage of that currently.

Where Did I Put It?

This is the thing that’s really kept me from getting a home gum until now. Gyms require space, and space costs money. Most people put there workout equipment in their garage and just park in a driveway or on the street. I hate that idea, because the weather and people will take a toll on your vehicle. Making sure everything is out every time you park, defrosting the windows on the winter, dealing with burning seats and seat belt buckles in the summer, break ins & stealing, the list of reasons goes on & on! I even had the tail light stolen off my truck one night when I lived in an apartment without enclosed parking. The tail light!

I’m parking in my garage, every night, period. Non-negotiable. But now I have to put a gym in there, too. So how do I do it? Rings.

What Equipment Do I Have?

Gymnast Rings

Rings, on eye bolts screwed into rafters, over where my wife’s car parks. She leaves super early in the morning, meaning I now have a whole car’s worth of space open before the kiddos wake up! When I’m done, I just cinch them up and hang the excess straps.

It’s dark, it’s not pretty, and it doesn’t have to be. It’s very affordable, space efficient, and capable of a full body workout with enough knowledge. It checks all the right boxes.

It’s cold in the winter, which is why I have a space heater. I have no idea how hot it’ll be in the summer, but hopefully the early mornings will help with that.

Sandbag

Also, a home made sandbag for variety. It’s literally a duffel bag I bought on Amazon with a 40 lb bag of deer corn in it (in doubled up trash bags). Nothing in it is specifically necessary, it is just a semi-awkward object with some mass to be picked up and put back down. Feel free to change that up as much as you like.

What Equipment Do I Lack?

Resistance Bands

Sticking with things in my budget that actually gives me a significant increase in capabilities, I’m thinking a set of resistance bands would make a lot of sense. I’m not very familiar with them, but I’ve always had barbells and free weights to use. I’m a big fan of Pat McNamara, and his house brand of resistance bands sounds like a sure winner. The only hangup I have are that his bands cost as much as the rest of my gym combined.

Yoga Mat

Something soft to out down on the floor. Concrete sucks on knees, and that eliminates more than a few potential exercises. Variety of exercises is the key to making a minimalist gym work. It’s a system, not a collection of parts.

s y n e r g y

Select-Weight Dumbells

Another option for the future would be a set of those select-weight dumbbells. Those things would double the cost of my entire gym, again. Those would start to allow me to do the kinds of workouts I’m more used to doing, in more of a “bro lifter” style. They would also be very much benefitted by the addition of a bench, but now we’re talking about using up a lot of space. Like I said, a future option.

Conclusion

Total Cost

$25 for rings

$1.50 for mounting bolts

$12 for the duffel bag

$6 for the bag’s filler

$45 + tax for a full-body-workout capable gym

What Do I Think About it So Far?

I actually like it. Those gymnast rings are very useful and flexible. I can get a legitimate, no kidding, full body workout on equipment that cost me less than 30 bucks by themselves. I recommend them to pretty much everyone. As I get stronger, I can actually do more stuff on those rings.

The sand bag isn’t as useful as I had hoped. There are just some common sandbag exercise characteristics that I can’t do. Anything where you drop or throw the bag down I don’t feel comfortable doing because it might wake up my kids. That eliminates like half the stuff you do with a bag! It’s a good piece of kit, but just not for my specific situation.

Downsides

There is something to be said for the ritual of putting on your gym clothes, taking your preworkout, getting in your car, and driving to your gym. It is a routine with specific steps and a change of location that really can put you in a headspace for working out. Removing that change of location removes a central part of that ritual, and that’s not to be discounted.

Lack of location change hasn’t affected me a lot, but I think I’m lucky in that regard. If you’re a regular gym goer, you need to think about that. You should get and hang a set of rings, though. Totally worth it.

The variety of exercises that I can do is a bit of a downside. Rings are more versatile to stronger people, and I’m not quite there yet. There is a lot I can do at the moment, but it feels like I’m restricted. That’s probably just due to the kind of exercises I’m more used to, but I feel it needs to be said.

A downside that I hadn’t experienced until recently is a result of the space efficiency. Efficiency and fragility go hand-in-hand. Systems that are efficient are not durable, and my home gym is no different. I can’t workout at night unless I open the garage (loud, might wake up children) and back a car out, which then needs to be pulled back in afterwards (see paragraph 4, above). If my wife doesn’t go to work because of reduced hours at work, or it’s the weekend, then I need to back a car out. COVID-19 has made that point very apparent. Space efficient, but not resistant, and definitely not anti-fragile.

Wrapping Up

At time of writing, we’re in the middle of the Coronavirus Chaos of 2020. A home gym is clutch, since all the gyms nationwide are closed. Amazon is still making deliveries, so you can copy my setup complete before the gyms reopen. Unfortunately, my home gym is also closed until my wife can go back to work. That’s a very temporary situation, and probably won’t be a factor to most of the people who read this. Maybe I can find a place outside to hang my rings for the time being…

Outside of that, I recommend this style of setup to anyone who is on a tight budget. Affordable, effective, and very immune to the whims of the outside world (depending on where you put it).

Stay active, and I’ll see you next Friday. -S_S