The Advantages of a Home Gym

I started running while I was in college.  Before I graduated, I also took up weight training.  I bought a set of weights and a cheap weight bench that required assembly from an assortment of metal tubes, nuts, and bolts.  The bench didn’t seem real sturdy, but I wasn’t using a lot of weight, so it met my needs.  More important, it was something I could afford while going to school and working part-time.

While I was in college, I was living with my parents.  They were nice enough to let me use my mom’s “sewing room” as my weight room until I graduated.  I also bought an abdominal board that could be used for incline sit-ups.

The nice thing about that weight bench was that it could be disassembled and stored in a box for transport.  That made it easy to take it with me when I moved into an apartment.  I was living by myself, but I still got a two-bedroom apartment.  I used the second bedroom as my weight room.

Shortly after Deb and I got married, we bought a house.  I set up my weights in a room in the basement.  By now, I was able to handle more weight.  I no longer felt comfortable using a weight bench that seemed kind of rickety.  I found a fitness store that built their own equipment by welding 2x2 beams of iron together.  I replaced my department store bench with a nice sturdy bench that would last a lifetime.  The bench could be adjusted in different ways, so I could do incline or decline bench presses.  It also had an attachment for doing leg exercises, and another one for doing curls in a seated position.

By now, I owned a variety of bars and cast-iron weight disks of various sizes.  Over the next few years, I bought other pieces of equipment, so I could do more exercises.  First, I bought a pair of squat stands with wide heavy bases.  Next, I bought a high lat station, that also had cables and pullies that could be used for various rowing exercises.

Finally, I bought a fly attachment, and I replaced by curl board attachment with a better one that was padded on both sides.

I didn’t buy this equipment all at once.  These purchases were spread out over a period of about five years.  By the time I was done, I spent about $1,000 on weight lifting equipment.  I was set up to do just about any exercise that can be done using free weights.  I owned enough weight disks that I didn’t have to interrupt my workouts to move weights from one station to another.  I could set up everything before I started, and then move quickly from one exercise to the next.

I had friends who had gym memberships.  That had access to other types of equipment, but I was appalled by the cost of their gym memberships.  In the first five years alone, they spent more on their memberships than I did buying all my equipment.  Weight disks and benches don’t wear out.  Once I had them, I could use them for a lifetime with no additional cost.  It’s 30 years later, and I’m still using the same equipment.  There was an up-front investment, but since then I’ve saved thousands of dollars in membership fees.

At first, I just had weight-lifting equipment, but then I bought a stationary bike.  Now I could supplement my running with aerobic cross-training, and I didn’t have to leave my home.

The last major addition to my home gym was a treadmill.  Throughout my 20s and 30s, I was content to run outside.  Then I set my sights on running the Pike’s Peak Marathon.  That was the same year than I turned 40.

The Pike’s Peak Marathon is a trail run that starts in Manitou Springs and goes all the way up and down Pike’s Peak.  In the first half of the race, you ascend more than 7,800 feet.  That’s a mile and a half of ascent!  The average grade is 10.7 percent, but some parts of the trail are much steeper.

I don’t live near any mountains.  There’s no place I could go where I could practice running up a steep grade for mile after mile after mile.  That was my initial motivation to buy a treadmill.  I found a nice durable treadmill that could simulate grades up to 15 percent.  I did workouts where I alternated between running on a 5 percent grade and walking on a 15 percent grade.  At first, I could only keep this up for 30 minutes.  Then my quads would be screaming.

I kept up this training until I could routinely run uphill for an hour.  Then I started adding weekly long runs.  I gradually worked up to the point where I was simulating the entire ascent.  It took me three hours.

For the race itself, I had to contend with the thin air at elevations going up to 14,000 feet.  There’s no way I could prepare for that, but at least I was ready for the climbing.  The treadmill prepared me for that.  Despite living and training in Minnesota, I finished in the top third of the field.  Almost all the runners who finished ahead of me lived in Colorado, Wyoming, or Utah.

Now that I had a treadmill, I couldn’t resist using it for most of my winter training.  I live in a cold climate where the snow and ice stay on the ground all winter.  Running outside not only involves bundling up for cold temperatures, but also running on layers of packed snow and ice.  The best you can do on icy streets is to shuffle along slowly.  On the treadmill, I could train at race pace or faster.

Now, in addition to weight training, I could also run and bike, all without leaving my basement.

It’s worth noting that the treadmill and the stationary bike have moving parts, and they eventually wear out.  I’m now on my second stationary bike and my third treadmill.  These pieces of equipment are more expensive than the weights were, so it’s no longer clear that owning my own equipment is still significantly less expensive than having a gym membership.  It’s worth it, though, because of the convenience.

If you go to a gym to exercise, you have to take the time to drive there and change clothes before you start working out.  Then you have to shower and change clothes before driving home.  That takes a lot of extra time.  With a home gym, you just have to change into workout clothes and walk down to the basement.  Working out in my own basement has made it possible for me to do short workouts before work just be getting up a little earlier.

Often, the hardest part of a workout is getting started.  Who’s more likely to start a workout: the person who has to drive somewhere or the person who just has to walk down to his basement?

I still haven’t got to the biggest advantage of a home gym.  I never have to wait until a piece of equipment is available.  I can do my exercises in any order I choose.  The equipment is never in use by someone else.  (OK, Deb sometimes uses the treadmill, but we can pretty easily coordinate our workout schedules.)

I don’t know about you, but I need to listen to music while I work out.  I especially need music when I’m on the treadmill.  I don’t use a portable music player of any kind.  I don’t like the idea of sweating all over a pair of headphones.  I also wouldn’t want any cords that could get caught on something while I’m lifting weights.  Because I’m the only one in the room, I can fill the room with music.  I have a stereo in my living room, and I ran some speaker wire through the floorboards, so I can have a remote set of speakers in my exercise room.

I’ve always felt fortunate to have the convenience of a home gym, but now it’s more important than ever.  Because of COVID-19, lots of businesses are temporarily closed, including gyms.  People who have gym memberships no longer have access to the equipment they usually use.  Even while sheltering at home, I can still do all the same cross-training exercises I did before. Thankfully, I can still run outside, and the weather is starting to get nice.  It’s nice to know, however, that I could also run without leaving the house, if I was willing to do all my running on the treadmill.