Fitness studio at home – 8 good reasons for your own fitness room

Have you ever thought about opening your own private little gym at home? If you are currently still hesitating or doubting whether this really makes sense (for you), I have a few good arguments for you here. If you are not the doubter and have to convince someone to be allowed to set up your own fitness room, the following article can probably also help you.

For several years I have repeatedly toyed with the idea of ​​building my own little home gym so that I no longer have to rely on training in the gym. For a solid training with my own body weight I always had a few tools that I also liked to use for my hotel room training on the go. Due to the corona crisis, however, I significantly upgraded my fitness room and I don’t want to do without basic exercises with heavy weights at home.

By the way, you don’t have to sacrifice an entire room to be able to train effectively at home. In fact, for me it is more of a fitness corner in a room because you need a lot less space (and money) than you might think right now. Depending on what your ideas about your own fitness room look like. I will go into this in more detail in the course of the article and also give a few recommendations on useful equipment.

Without further ado, I would now like to present you my best arguments for your own private gym at home.

Eight good reasons for your own fitness room

When I look at my fitness corner, I sometimes wonder why it took me so long to set it up. Maybe I just missed the reasons or weren’t so aware of them. If you and / or your co-decision-makers in the household are still on the brink, here are my most important arguments for a (small) private fitness studio in your own house. If the following reasons don’t convince you to bring at least a small set of fitness equipment into your house, I don’t know what else could convince you.

1) Having a gym at home saves a lot of time

A finite good of all of us is time. I have often given tips here on the blog on how you can save time with your training or find more time for sport . Even if you can save a lot of time with superset training and Co., having your own gym at home is probably the most effective way to minimize time for your training.

In just over an hour you will get an effective training with Warmup and a few basic exercises. I know people who spend more time commuting to the gym. I don’t even want to talk about the time of (multiple) changing clothes and showering and packing sports gear. In addition, public fitness studios also have to be serviced regularly in the evenings. This means that even more time is lost.

So if you regularly feel you have no time for sport or an effective training, then your own private small fitness studio at home can be the solution for you.

2) Having your own fitness room makes you flexible

Apart from saving time, your own fitness equipment also makes you much more flexible when it comes to your training. With your own fitness room, you are not dependent on a public fitness studio in terms of time or space.

You don’t have to worry about opening times or the rush at rush hour. You can train at any time and don’t have to worry about whether you are socially acceptable at the moment. In your own fitness room you will not meet anyone that you have not invited yourself. I am just realizing that I could have listed that in terms of time savings.

Depending on where you live, the next studio can be a long way away. The next studio doesn’t even have to be the right one for you. With your own little gym at home, you don’t have to worry about where to find the nearest gym or how it is equipped. After all, you are responsible for the equipment.

If you choose the right equipment, you are not necessarily tied to one room. In a good home gym there is always some equipment that is well suited to take your fitness room with you and train with it on the go. You can read a few examples of what I always have with me for my training on the go on my fitness packing list for (business) trips .

That’s what I call a lot more flexibility through your own fitness equipment for your own small fitness studio at home and at the same time for on the go.

3) Your own fitness equipment increases motivation

There is a very interesting psychological effect which means that the probability of success also increases with increasing investment amount. In several online courses (including but not limited to sports and fitness), it was found that the success rate is significantly higher for high-priced products despite identical content.

What seems strange at first is actually quite easy to explain: The higher costs are seen as an investment and an obligation to yourself. Incidentally, the fact that you know nothing changes that. Even if it is often advised to start small and not spend a lot of money on equipment at first, exactly the opposite can make sense.

Sure, if you’re not sure whether a sport is right for you, you can test it out with a minimum of equipment first. However, if you know that you want to pull something off, it makes perfect sense to start with an investment that is meaningful for you personally. This puts you under some pressure on yourself and increases your self-motivation .

4) The gym at home is more hygienic than a public one

Before Corona I would never have thought that this could be such a strong argument, but I know from reliable sources that the fitness industry is still suffering tremendously from the new awareness that was triggered by Corona. The number of visits to the fitness studio is still sometimes over 50-80% below the level before. Despite the requirements, the circumstances in a gym are simply still ideal for the transmission of viruses and bacteria.
Admittedly, hygiene has never really convinced me, especially in cheaper studios. However, I never really thought about my health. In my own home gym I have control over how clean and hygienic it is there and who is allowed to train there and under what conditions.

As long as the circumstances remain like this, I am very happy to be able to train effectively at home. Even after that, I will probably continue to prefer training in my own four walls to training in the public studio very often.

5) You are the boss in your own fitness room

In a public gym, the rules are made by someone else. Likewise, someone else is responsible for following these rules. You have no influence on who trains there and how the other trainers behave there. However, you also have some rules that you have to adhere to that you may not like.

You make the rules in your own gym at home. You determine the dress code, determine who is allowed to train there when and how the equipment should be used. You also have full control over the equipment of your home gym. If you really want something and need it regularly, then you simply expand your fitness room with this tool. In a commercial studio, you can wait a long time for someone to respond to your equipment requirements.

6) A well-equipped home gym is a statement

If someone comes to visit you at home and sees your fitness room or “just” your training equipment, then that person will know immediately. Someone who is serious about their training lives here. At least no one will deny you the good intentions who have seen this. Anyone who has their own small fitness studio at home is determined to make fitness a part of their life.

Of course, it’s up to you to prove that with results. This in turn is another strong motivating factor. The presence of the tools that remind you of your goals every day should make it easier for you to achieve them. Actually, your inner weaker self should hardly have a chance anymore.

7) Having your own gym at home is cheaper than you think

You also don’t have to start right away with an over-equipped, commercial-grade gym in your home. You may think that you need a variety of machines and weights to be able to train in a targeted manner. Even effective muscle building with your own body weight is possible, even if not that easy. With a few tools you can achieve a lot and make your training more comfortable.

Yes, it’s true, the less equipment you have, the more you will have to deal with more challenging exercise variants in order to be able to set optimal stimuli. So of course you will have to make some compromises for your own little home gym, especially if you have a small budget.

However, if you think carefully about what things you really need for effective training, you will find that there aren’t that many things. Even with a very cheap and minimalist setup, most people can do very good training sessions. In fact, I trained myself on the go or at home for a while, only with a sling trainer and a few rubber bands and still achieved good results. Even a really good, adjustable dumbbell set * doesn’t cost the world.

You can also save a lot of money if you don’t buy immediately and respond to good offers or try to get some things used directly.

Either way, I am convinced that there are very good options for every budget to set up your own fitness room. I’m currently working on an overview of different setups, depending on goals, preferences and budget. This will appear here on the blog in a few weeks. It is best to sign up for my newsletter directly, then you will receive an information as soon as the article appears.

8) No space? No problem!

Space is a little like money. Of course it is possible to set up a private gym at home on a commercial level if you have the money and the space for it. In my opinion, however, it is not necessary at all. You would probably never use 90% of the devices anyway. So the question is what is most important to you and how much space is available for it.

Ultimately, it’s all a bit of a question of attitude. Such a fitness room doesn’t have to be in a separate room. A corner in your living room does too. That’s how I did it at home. So I can always look directly at my fitness corner from my desk and sofa, which also motivates me.

For particularly little space, there is also small, foldable or otherwise space-saving equipment that can be stowed away very well.

Depending on what you intend to do, space in the basement, garage or attic, which you may not have thought of using before, is also very suitable.

What you need in your fitness room at home

“What are the most important things I should buy for my home gym?” – I’ve been asked that quite often and ultimately the answer to that depends very individually on what is important to you, what you like to train with and what You want to achieve. I am a big fan of barbell training, especially if you want to build muscle mass . However, I also see some advantages in training with your own body weight, with a couple of dumbbells or functional sling training.

That is why I will shortly be recommending an article with various “sets” on how you can set up your own home gym, depending on your budget and needs. An entry in my newsletter guarantees you to be the first to know about the publication.

Nevertheless, I would like to share some basic thoughts and recommendations with you.

The minimal gym equipment for at home (and on the go)

Strictly speaking, you always have the absolute minimum, because that is your own body. Even with bodyweight basic exercises you can already do a lot for your body. If you approach the matter a little smart, you can get a lot more out of your workout for little money with a few inexpensive and space-saving tools. Accordingly, I have a minimal set of equipment for the gym at home, which I recommend to everyone.

From my point of view, the minimum equipment is also what you can train with whenever and wherever possible and consists of the following things:

Training anytime and anywhere – with one Sling trainer

With these things you have a complete small fitness studio for around 200 € that you can take with you anywhere in a suitcase. Only the pull-up bar is not necessarily that easy to take with you. There is a lot that can be done with the rest. Since I discovered the sling trainer as a training device for myself a few years ago, I especially don’t want to do without it.

A real home gym needs some heavy weights, right?

Now you might have thought that a proper fitness studio at home also needs some equipment or at least some heavy weights. If you have enough space and want to build a really impressive fitness room, you should of course bring at least one barbell with a few heavy weight plates into the house. Then you can also do the classic basic exercises at home, on which I prefer to base my training. When I didn’t have a barbell at home

Basic equipment for dumbbell training in your fitness room

In my opinion, the basics for solid barbell training (and dumbbell training) in your private gym at home are:

• A stable weight bench, like this one from Fitness Reality * – you can even fold it up and stow it in the closet
• A good Olympic barbell like this one *
• Enough 50mm weight plates for your training needs (cast iron plates like these * are absolutely sufficient for normal fitness training) – you will most likely find it here in classifieds and Co.
• Floor protection mats (stable mats from the hardware store also do a good job)
• A squat rack * with safety rests or a full-fledged power rack * (the linked one is optionally available in a set with the above-mentioned bench)
• optionally a set of adjustable dumbbells – either in the simple version * as I have, or in the deluxe version *

However, you don’t necessarily need a barbell AND dumbbells. However, there are some advantages to having the option of loading the pages individually. This prevents imbalances that can creep in when training with the barbell. Everyone naturally tends to have a stronger and a weaker side. For this reason I like to have both available.

If you have a little less space and / or money and you are not a big fan of barbell training, then you are “only” well equipped with the weight bench and dumbbells. A foldable weight bench and a set of adjustable dumbbells can be stowed compactly in a corner at any time and then take up almost no space. Your fitness room almost disappears completely when you no longer need it.

Do you need cardio equipment in your fitness room?

I’m generally not a big fan of cardio machines. I can run or cycle outside and both of these are very effective cardio training . Now and then I used to do my intervals on the treadmill when the weather was bad. It can also be useful if you would like to do a little cardio unit after your strength training that you don’t have to go out of the house again. But that is pure convenience and I am not willing to sacrifice space in my apartment for this luxury.

However, if you enjoy rowing, for example, or want a distraction in the form of a movie or series during your cardio training, it may be worth the investment. Personally, however, I have always decided against one and have no cardio equipment in my home gym.

If I could wish for something, it would be a water rowing machine made of wood * like my little brother does. This can also be stowed away to save space and is simply great in any room. So far, however, I’ve been too stingy to buy something like this.

That was just a quick rundown of the different types of equipment you can deal with. A few more articles on the subject of home gymnastics will follow shortly here on the blog. As much as I’ve dealt with it over the past few months, it just makes sense. If you are interested in the topic, it will be worthwhile to take a look at my blog again soon or to subscribe to my newsletter .

Conclusion – have you already started setting up your fitness room?

I hope I was able to bring you a little closer to the topic of home gym and its advantages with this article and give you a small overview of useful equipment. I am sure that you now have enough arguments to convince everyone who is involved in a decision to set up your own small fitness room. Maybe you are already infected and are currently planning how and where you can set up your fitness studio at home. Have lots of fun with it! 🙂

However, I would like to give you one more thing to consider: If you are still inexperienced in your training, you should definitely get a trainer (at least for a few times and for a certain time). In this way you minimize your risk of injury and maximize your success.

You should also definitely take a look at my tips for performing the most important basic exercises with the barbell . In these articles I have the most important things about the basic exercises squats , deadlifts , bench press , barbell rows , Shoulder press and lunges combined.

If your goal is to build muscle, I can also recommend that you take a look at my book Muscle Building Basics . This is the first real no-bullshit guide based on the 80/20 principle for building muscle, which guarantees you won’t waste time and build muscles as effectively as possible.

If your problem is more of your inner weaker self, you can also take a look at my book Become a weaker self killer . In it, I have put my 7-step system, which I developed for my coaching, into book form and accompany you as a reader from setting to reaching your goals.