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Make Sure You Ask Yourself These 4 All Important Questions Before Buying Your Home Gym
If you are new to home gyms, I suggest you read Home Gym Review's brief article titled Types of Gyms before continuing. If you have already read that article or you feel confident you know enough about the types of home gyms available, let's move on.
Home Gym Review have broken the decision of choosing a home gym into the following 4 questions
These are the questions we must all ask ourselves before purchasing a home gym.
1. What are my goals?
2. How much should I spend?
3. How much room do I have?
4. Where to buy? - this link will take you to Home Gym Review's "Which Seller" page for advice on choosing a seller.
1. What are my goals?
This is the most important question. Let's break it down
a) Get Big, Big, Big - If this is you, you will need a gym that allows you to squat, hopefully deadlift and lift a big load. That pretty much eliminates most traditional machine home gyms. Home Gym Review recommend you check out a smith machine or a power rack or even better, a smith machine/power rack/regular gym combination home gym (combination smith machine). Yes they do exist, Home Gym Review have reviewed a few of what we consider to be the best value home gyms of this type. Check out the MEGA Discount Smith Machines or Body Solid Home Gym Power Center Smith Machine . Prospot Fitness have developed a revolutionary technology that may replace smith machines. Have a look here . Finally, Powertec have a couple of home gyms that allow squats using a leverage system. Have a look at Powertec Home Gyms or Powertec Workbench Home Gym .
b) Get bigger (but not gigantic) - if this is you, like the rest of us, you fall into the biggest group of home gym users. You'd like a few extra curves around your chest and shoulders and maybe a few less curves around your butt and tummy. For you, Home Gym Review recommends a home gym with a weight stack, preferably with a leg press.
c) Train for a specific sport - if it is a strength sport, Home Gym Review recommend a home gym with squats and hopefully deadlifts (read (a) above for more detail) . These should be the core of your program and are essential to any strength athletes training. If you play an upper body sport like tennis, golf, badminton or swimming, Home Gym Review recommend a home gym with cables. Now most gyms have a high and low cable, some even a mid cable. But Body Solid have a few gyms with cable arms and even a gym that is virtually all cables (Body Solid Home Gyms) (all reviewed by Home Gym Review)
d) Tone - if you really only want to tone your body without building too much muscle than a traditional machine home gym or even a gliding, gravity as resistance type gym may be the ticket (for example the Total Gym series, for a better description see Types of Gyms ).
e) Lose weight - unfortunately a home gym is not the best tool for losing weight. Scientific research has disproved the old fallacy of "spot-reduction". That is, you cannot lose fat from a particular part of your body by training that part. Although ab machine infomercials would like you to believe its possible. A gym will shape and grow your muscles but if they are still covered by fat it will be difficult to tell. Use the gym to shape or grow your physique and alternate (called cross-training) with an aerobic activity to shed the fat.
2. How much should I spend?
If you're not sure if a home gym is the way for you try a short membership at your local gym to see if you enjoy it. That's also a great way to get an idea of what you want in a home gym.
If after that you are still not sure but want to buy one anyway, try a cheap gym like Bandflex. Keep in mind this is a cheap gym but it will definitely last you for more than a year. By then it will have paid for itself by saving you a 1 year gym membership fee. You should also now be able to decide if you want to upgrade.
If you're ready to make a serious purchase try to avoid anything less than about $500 (1 exception is the MEGA Home Gym System but once you buy free weights it will be over $500 anyway). Probably the cheapest gym Home Gym Review recommends with complete confidence is Body Solid's EXM-1500S
The home gyms we would like ourselves are all around a $1000 or more.
If you want multiple stations so that a few people can train together, expect to be forking out about $2000 or so.
3. How much room do I have?
First of all, don't worry about fitting it through the door because home gyms usually arrive in parts. So you can assemble it in the room.
But don't guess the size of your available space.....measure it.
Remember to leave room for walking around the home gym. However, Body Craft have a gym they call the Galena which they designed especially for the corner of a room.
You will also need to consider the weight if you are planning to put it on a wooden floor.
Home Gym Review provide the size information in every review we write.
4. Where to buy? - this link will take you to Home Gym Review's "Which Seller" page for advice on choosing a seller.
OK, now your ready to learn about how to choose Which Seller you are going to buy from.
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Which Gym?