Home gyms versus traditional fitness centres?

They say the hardest part of going to the gym is "getting to the gym" (motivation). This is going to be your biggest difficulty here. I work odd hours and have been using a home gym for many years rather than going to a local gym. Its strange at first as you are isolated, but you can certainly get a great workout.

A few simple things I have found are:

- Set a routine (say, the same time every morning or at a point in the day and stick to it). This is easy to break, but try to keep the same times when using a home gym as it will motivate you.

- Get some good earphones and music. This is also important.

- Think carefully about what equipment you have room for as you are limited on what you can fill a space with. I personally preferred a running machine, a bench which allowed me to do weights/stretches/basic exercises from the bench, an inflatable ball (a really good piecee of kit once you learn how to use it) and best of all a punch bag (difficult in a house, but well worth it as it is by far the best cardio workout I have ever had).

- Look in the local papers for equipment or on places like eBay. Thousands of people start out with good intentions but leave their equipment sitting around for months before selling it to get room back. Its cheaper than new and most of it is hardly used.

- I also had a multi gym for a while (the all in one thing). This I bought new as I needed it to be delivered with all the parts and good cables but I purchased the cheapest one I could find (and guess what, it was as good as any other for what I was using it for).

- Think about weight. If its in the house (I used to use the garage so I wasn't worried about weigh on the floor) then you will have a lot of kit in the room.

- Get a floor mat (a camping mat is fine) for when you are on the floor. If you are in the house then it saves you laying on the carpet and if you are in the garage then the floor gets pretty cold!

- Finally, get a big mirror on the wall. This is one of the things that you use in the gym without realising it. As you can see improvements and watch yourself (posture wise with the weights) you will appreciate it.

So, yes. You can have a great workout at home and it doesn't have to be an expensive setup. As I said at the start, motivation is the hardest part but set a schedule and stick to it and you should be good to go.

Good luck :-)

if you're paying £90 a month, you're being robbed, so a home gym would be a good idea, especially when your baby is born, I found that I worked harder when I went to the gym though, than I did at home.

Yes you can but it's to easy to stray.