Exercise at Home or the Gym – Rent Gym Time vs. Owning Equipment

Consumer Info

Website Info

Subscribe To This Site

Should you Exercise at Home or the Gym?

While weighing options of doing your exercise at home or the gym, there are some important issues to consider as well as some minor ones. If you have the space for exercise equipment, you have the first problem solved. The cost isn’t an issue, as you’ll see in a moment, and other than the chatty interaction at the crowded health club, there are no distractions or drawbacks to owning a home gym.

Can You Afford It?

Like most people faced with the decision whether to exercise at home or the gym, you will first determine the cost of setting up a home gym based on how much it would cost for a month-by-month or yearly membership to a public gym. Depending on where you live, these fees can range from $25 to $75 a month, more for elite health clubs.

Home gyms pay for themselves and it is easy to calculate the savings yourself. For example, if you pay $50 a month to attend a gym, you will pay $600 a year. After five or ten years, you will have spent thousands of dollars working out on someone else’s exercise equipment. While the camaraderie may be great (or not), you will be better off financially to invest in your own stuff and using the money you save to pay for other things.

Affordable Resistance Training at Home

Here is what that $600 can get you for a home investment: a budget exercise home gym sells for around $500 to $1500 new, or you can custom build a free weights gym, with a bench, bar and plates, for around $600 or less.

Or, you can start out on an even smaller budget and assemble a compact home gym using basic resistance and cardio equipment such as dumbbells, resistance bands, jump rope, chin-up bar, fitness ball, kettle bell, and an exercise mat. With these simple tools you can start working out in your home exercise gym for less than $100. This small investment will let you see if you are motivated to stick to a home gym workout schedule before you spend a lot on larger equipment.

A Cardio Home Gym

If money is no problem, you can also add a treadmill, stationary bike, or elliptical trainer to your home gym for your cardio training, or simply get a good pair of athletic shoes and hit the road running. That will be up to you, or you can do the third option which would be to integrate cardio training with resistance training by using a rowing station on a home multi-gym machine, or by purchasing a heavy bag for about $60. Either of those exercises will serve your cardio needs very effectively.

Privacy, Convenience, Time

Another argument regarding whether to exercise at home or the gym, is that a basement or garage workout room allows you to have the privacy you want, and have the equipment available to work out on, any time day or night. You don’t have to wait for a favorite machine to become available, you don’t have to block out annoying conversation, and you don’t have to listen to other people’s music while exercising. You can wear what you want and you don’t waste precious time commuting to a club or public gym. Most home gym owners find that there are few if any downsides to a personal home gym set-up.

Don’t Buy — Invest

If you are ready to make an investment to exercise at home, the gym you build and the equipment you buy will be surprisingly affordable. Face it, if you pay health club fees, at the end of the year, all you have done is rent gym time and equipment. With a home gym, you will own the exercise equipment, and it is going to be there, ready and available to you whenever you want, for as long as you want to own it.

Return from Exercise at Home or the Gym to the Home Gym Reviews Index Page