Advice from the Experts: Creating the Perfect Home Gym

Every year more and more people are deciding on entering a healthier lifestyle, whether it is getting rid of bad habits, changing their diet, or starting exercising.

We all know how good exercise is or how beneficial it can be for us; it generally improves our body function, mental health, and, my personal favorite, exercise as a stress reliever; some enjoy a nice run, others like to hit the gym, do a workout routine at home, or maybe something a bit different, like a specific sport.

How can you design a home gym in a small space and what are the essentials you would need?

Obviously when space is limited, you need to maximize the space with a small footprint. Multifunctional pieces of equipment are ideal for a small space. The FITBENCH FREE contains all the essentials you need for a workout—dumbbells, kettlebells, slam ball, and resistance bands all neatly packed into one functional piece of equipment. In addition to storing the equipment, each piece can be easily accessed on each side and end of the bench. The bench’s multi-wheel mobility, allows a user to move it out of the way when complete with their workout and  quickly roll it wherever it needs to go. The FREE itself is extremely lightweight, so it can be moved from a room to a garage to the park or beach to find a new training space. The best part, the FITBENCH FREE is made 100% in the USA!

Another great tool, the YBell, combines a dumbbell, kettlebell, double-grip med ball, and push-up stand in one piece of equipment, making more exercises possible with less equipment.

Tracee Meyers from FITBENCH

How can you make sure to exercise correctly when working out at your home gym?

The most important thing to remember is that the workout should be correct for you. Not everyone will feel great back squatting or deadlifting. So, don’t feel like you have to do specific movements to get the most out of your home gym. 

When you find the right movements for you, learn how you should execute them. You could hire a local coach for one hour. Or, spend some time on YouTube. Take your time with each lift. You’ll avoid injury while getting each move down correctly. 

BJ Ward from Born Fitness

Could you give us some tips on improving posture at home?

A simple yet effective way to improve your posture is to do the shoulder blade squeeze, especially when you are sitting for long periods of time. It’s actually a natural reaction to a sore back – simply straightening your spine and pushing your shoulders back as if you’re trying to get your shoulder blades to touch. The idea is to feel a slight stretch across the front of your chest and a squeeze in your back. Hold the position for a moment and then release.

Jacob Montoya from FitSW

General tips you should consider before building your home gym

While building a gym, you need to plan carefully with the available space. This might restrict you from purchasing certain equipment. So when buying, you need to decide on the home gym essentials and prioritize them. If you want to do a great home gym building that will make you feel your money’s value, then go for quality items. This way, you get to buy once and cry once, then enjoy the benefits in the long run. Creating a list of requirements will help you determine which home gym equipment to prioritize. This way, you can easily balance your expenditures against the space available. it would be cheaper to buy a considerable number of items at once from a given store – you can quickly negotiate the price with the seller.  Don’t forget to buy a mirror so that you can monitor your progress and correct your posture while exercising. If you’re not doing it the right way, then you may end up with opposite results.

Gift Your Home

What are the essentials you would need to become a home fitness trainer?

• Being in the mindset of fitness training.
• Utilizing the space to perform fitness training.
• Having a distraction-free open-space.
• Knowing the proper muscle groups to target and train each day.
• Getting the proper nutrients to fuel the body before and after a good workout session.
• Get plenty of rest afterwards so that your muscles can replenish and refresh.
• Knowing how to train your audience if the home fitness training session is a virtual meeting.

Matt from Confessions of the Professions

How can you improve your fitness this summer?

The best way to improve your way to fitness this summer is to simply stay motivated and get into a routine. Set a goal and take the proper steps to reach that goal. Make sure you are eating the proper foods and maintaining a healthy diet. Also, make sure you are getting adequate rest. Last but not least, choosing the right store to buy your gym equipment from is key, you want to find one that’s super personable and helpful like Top Fitness!

Patrick Halloran from Top Fitness Store

What are the benefits of practicing yoga at home and what essentials do you need?

Having a yoga practice at home allows you the freedom to practice in a comfortable environment. You also get to practice whenever you want. You can set a schedule that you can ensure you’ll commit to because it’s convenient and accessible. When meditating at home, you can choose how long you want your practice to be. There are plenty of meditation scripts on youtube and Spotify. You can also meditate in silence and repeat a mantra, or sound or phrase that you repeat, that helps you concentrate.

Alex Tran from Schimiggy Reviews

What are the best CrossFit routines and equipment you can use in a DIY home gym?

The “CrossFit at Home” gym can vary dramatically depending on budget and space, whether it’s in the garage, living room, or outside. At the bare minimum, a set of kettlebells (light/medium/heavy) will take you far. Don’t forget warm-up and mobility equipment like bands, rollers, jump rope, and poles cut from PVC pipe! Next would be gymnastics equipment: dip and pull-up bars and stackable boxes you can jump on. Ideally you’d build the pull-up bar into the wall or into its own rig, ensuring you have enough head and leg space for kipping and muscle-up practice. At this point you can do the majority of prescribed CrossFit WODs. Lastly, if budget and space allows, buy a barbell with a set of plates and rubber mats (horse stall mats work great and are cheap), squat rig, bench, a set of dumbbells, and a rower. With all of this you will be as prepared as any CrossFit Games athlete!

Miles from Foundation Crossfit

What exercises can you do at home to practice your golf skills?

If you could only do one exercise to help you improve your golf game and skills, we would definitely suggest the good old squat!  Whether it’s an air squat that only uses your body weight or a barbell squat, increasing your lower body strength is a simple but effective way to increase your swing speed and generate more club head speed to start crushing the ball down the fairway.

Brian Peña from Red Birdie Golf

How can you incorporate a jump rope in different home workouts?

There are a wide variety of home workouts one can accomplish with a jump rope. The best part about a jump rope is it doesn’t require anything but the motivation to get started. You can do squats, jumping jacks, and so much more! Spice your workouts up with a weighted jump rope to start building muscle.

Nathan from Elevate Rope

What are the best functional exercises to do at your home gym?

Functional exercises help improve your ability to perform everyday activities. While some functional exercises require specialized equipment, there are many that can easily be done in your home gym with just a few simple items. For example, squats and lunges are two functional exercises that can be done with just your bodyweight. If you want to add a bit of resistance, you can hold dumbbells or a kettlebell while you perform these movements. Another great functional exercise is the push-up. By varying your grip, you can target different muscle groups and make the exercise more challenging. In addition, push-ups can be done virtually anywhere, making them a convenient option for those who don’t have access to a gym. These are just a few of the many functional exercises that you can incorporate into your home gym workout routine.

Kelly Rusk from My Top Fitness

What equipment would you recommend for practicing playing football at home?

We recommend a ‘Solo Close Control and Skills Football Training Aid’. It’s a relatively simple device with an adjustable strap that fits a range of footballs attached by a bungee to a Velcro wrist strap.

You won’t need a lot of space to practice football at home. It lets you focus on your shooting, passing and ball control without annoying neighbors or ruining your dad’s bedding plants!

Sam from 5 a side football leagues

What is the best way to practice boxing at home?

Practicing Boxing at home can be done. The basic skills of boxing include stance, the jab, the cross, the hook, and the uppercut punches. The proper Boxing Stance is to lead with the shoulder opposite of your punching hand, right-handed boxers should position their left shoulder toward the target and vice-versa. Your feet should be positioned shoulder-width apart and position your feet at a 45-degree angle toward your intended target. You should always keep your knees and hips slightly bent and place your elbows close to your sides and use your forearms to shield the chest.

You should always keep your glove at shoulder height and position your right glove underneath the chin with the wrist turned inwards. Once you master these, it’s time to hit the heavy bag. Using a heavy bag is great when you’re alone, use a 3-minute heavy-bag-round and rest 30 seconds in between each minute.

For example, in Round 1 use your jabs only. In Round 2 use your double jab-cross. In Round 3 use the jab-cross-hook, in Round 4 any four punches work. In the last two rounds, Round 5 will have any punch combination, with 180-degree semi-circles around the bag between combos, and for Round 6 non-stop punching at 60% of full power. Shadow boxing can improve your boxing technique, strength, power, speed, endurance, rhythm, footwork, offense and defense, and fighting
abilities.

Roberto Villa, CEO of FightBook MMA

Can you recommend some of the most effective exercises you can do at home to improve physical endurance? 

I am a huge fan the resistance band. It is inexpensive, easy to store and effective. Hide the band in your desk drawer or beside your sofa so you can grab it and train any time you find an extra ten to fifteen minutes! No excuses…only solutions! This ​level of convenience allows you to be consistent and consistency is CRITICAL. You want to make your workouts convenient so you can move your body consistently. The benefits of any workout are moot if you can’t make yourself do the workout. Think “consistency over complexity”

• Seated V hold and rows, 12 to 15 reps. Sit on your bum with the band hooked around your feet. Hold one end of the band in each hand. Lean back 10 degrees, and hold the lean throughout the motion. Engage your core to stay stable. Use your upper back to row your elbows backward. Crack a walnut between your shoulder blades. Slowly release. Rows with doorframe attachment. 12 to 15 reps. Loop the band through the attachment at roughly chest height. With one end of the band in each hand, use your upper back to pull your elbows backward. Slowly release.
• Lunge and lateral raises, lunge and front raises, 12 to15 reps per leg. Start standing. With your right leg forward and the band under your foot, hold either end of the band in each hand. Start with your arms straight at your sides. As you lunge, raise your arms to shoulder height — keep them straight (lateral raise.) Lower your arms as you stand up. Use the bum muscle of the front leg to power you up. When you do the exercise with your left leg forward, straighten your arms forward to chest height (front raise.)

Kathleen Trotter from Kathleen Trotter