Building a home gym

Below is translated with AI so there might be some strange wordings... :)

Building a home gym is one of the best investments you can make in yourself. The possibility of being able to train exactly when you want is unbeatable. In addition, there is zero travel time, you can wear exactly what you feel like, you never have to wait for equipment. If you bring a buddy, partner or someone else, it's a big plus as it's also fun to train as a team

The home gym does not in any way have to be a complete set of exactly everything there is, but there are definitely some basic items that you should think about. Here are (5 tips) to consider when building a home gym

1. The surface

You don't usually have 25 square meters of empty floor space at home, so usually a home gym is a bit of a compromise against what is completely optimal. As a first basic measurement, you can think of an Olympic barbell being 220 cm long and you want to be able to have room all around the sides (to be able to load the weight plates anyway). In other words, you can't have much less than 2.5-3 mi width, especially if there are walls on the sides. If it is part of a room, it can work with a little less as it still feels airier. A "small" lifting platform is about 3x2 m. A standard and the one sold by Oak is 3x2.5m.

If the width should be 3, then you can get by with 2 in depth, although more is better. 3 x 3 m (9 square meters) is a nice surface that is good enough for one person to do both body exercises in a rig (if it has small built-in dimensions), bench exercises, have a free surface for Olympic lifts, squats, box jumps, burpees or what you like to torture your body with.

2. Equipment

You don't have to have everything, but what you have should be good. There is nothing as unmotivating as a half-broken dumbbell with screw on weights lying in a corner together with some multifunction machine that is not good at anything. Exercising with real equipment provides both motivation and better results.

If you train with a barbell, you should definitely have it (if you don't train with a barbell, you should start). The variety of exercises is endless with just a barbell and weight plates. I read somewhere that if you only do one exercise and nothing else, you should do deadlifts - then you train your body best in one exercise. The other thing is something to hang the barbell on. This is not a must, but if you have plastic and the opportunity, either a wall-mounted rig or a squat stand is a great base. A rig cannot only be used to unload and load the rod. It can also be used for many good body exercises.

The third gadget to think about is a bench. You can get by without it, but if you want to bench press, row, hip thruster, etc., the bench is a good partner in the home gym. If it's stable and nice, you can jump on it too...

After that comes everything else you can think of. A couple of KB gives the opportunity for many exercises and likewise a couple of dumbbells.

3. Budget

The budget always plays a role. Think about what you really want as a base in the gym (rig and bar + weights) and bet on it being right. It is worse to try to get everything done and that the equipment does not measure up. Buy strategically and build up your equipment gradually. Making a budget can help prioritize purchases. You can always buy more and supplement later, but it's very rare to replace the basic equipment - so make sure it's right from the start.

If you buy a barbell, you may not have to max out with all weight plates from the start. Likewise with dumbbells and KB, start with a few selected weights instead of having every weight from 2.5kg to 40kg just like in the gym. It is rarely used.

You can also think about and compare what the home gym costs in comparison to, for example, a membership at a gym. The investment is big but with the right products you have decades of training ahead of you.

4. Floor

Floor, floor, floor - is much more important than you think. When I built my own garage gym myself, I thought that concrete floors are boring and it feels a bit rough and such. But the importance of flooring should not be underestimated. It gives a much smoother feeling when lifting with the barbell. It gets quieter and there's nothing quite like just letting go of a pair of dumbbells after one last heavy rep. A floor also "frames" the gym and the area that is dedicated (unless you have a completely separate room)

5. Your gym, your temple

This is among the most important of all. Make sure there is a dedicated place for training. It's hard enough to motivate yourself sometimes and the "room" you have to do it in should be inspiring. Make sure it doesn't become the bike storage-sort-laundry-recycling center-gym room ... try to keep the space to what it is dedicated to. The style, the decor and the feeling all around are at least as important as the training equipment. Think about design and interior design, what do you want on the walls? A neon sign or a graffiti painting? A raw concrete wall or chipboard? Motivational quotes or ivy? No matter where it lands, the little extra on the interior side is what makes it your gym!