Whether it be supplemental to your gym routine, or your full-time training space, investing more deeply in a home gym may be something you want to consider for 2023.
A carefully designed home gym with the right gym equipment offers a myriad of benefits including convenience, safety, privacy and — most importantly—complete customization to facilitate your fitness or sports-training goals.
Where to Start with your Home Gym?
Guiding impactful home gym design takes a deep understanding of and intention toward the desired outcomes.
First, the space must unequivocally support the different types of movement patterns, exercises, and modalities you’ll use in your training. Striking the right balance between cardio, strength equipment, functional training space and accessories and the right recovery tools is essential.
It’s also important that the home gym space is an environment in which you look forward to entering. From an interior design perspective, the home gym should serve as an extension of the home itself, not a departure or sacrifice in comfort. Colors, textures, wall art, mirrors and the right lighting are all careful considerations.
Evaluating all of these elements requires keen design skills and careful planning.
Here are some deeper considerations:
Designing your Home Gym From the Ground Up
When creating a home gym, one thing that often gets overlooked but is vitally important is flooring. Flooring needs to support traction, shock absorption, and stability, and facilitate sound absorption. Further, there are esthetics to consider.
Cardio training such as plyometrics or the use of a treadmill or heavy equipment requires durable flooring that absorbs shock and offers support. Rubber is a good place to start. Rubber is also a good option for strength training, as it will support weights or equipment if dropped.
A consideration for every home gym is how well it cleans up and prevents odors from building.
Further, the last thing you want is a dream home gym that fills the house with clanking and pounding. Look for gym flooring that absorbs sound!
Training Equipment
Beyond simple dumbbells and medicine balls, here are a few considerations for great home gym equipment that allows creativity and fun:
Aktiv AQUA products facilitate an incredibly effective form of rotational and core training. These water-filled tools provide a stabilization challenge during functional movement whereby improving power, strength, balance, and coordination and the load can be easily adjusted simply by adding or subtracting water as you change exercises and/or progress.
Suspended Training modalities remain at or near the height of popularity of all functional exercise programs and the Aktiv RECOIL Trainer is changing the game. With the push of a button n, the straps extend to the exact length you want them and then recoil to remain out of the way when not in use.
Check out more fun equipment here.
Don’t Overlook Recovery
Proper recovery sessions are a vital part of any sport-specific training, and often this modality does not get the space or thoughtfulness it requires when it comes to home gyms. The key then becomes having all the right tools at the ready and neatly stored when not in use to preserve the most training space during the exercise.
Smart Storage
Planning for home gym storage that looks as good as it works in organizing your fitness space should begin even before you select your fitness equipment. There are great choices today including storage-only solutions or those that will do double-duty such as integrated pull-up bars or anchor points for various equipment. Gym Rax® offers storage and suspension bays that are endlessly configurable for every exercise space.
Digital Integration
Finally, you will no doubt want to consume content as you train, therefore it’s important to consider digital integration within your design plan. This is where the fun factor matures, and the environment remains variable and welcoming many sessions down the road. Aktiv’s free mobile app offers a robust library of indoor and outdoor exercises that you can sort by equipment type or body weight. Additionally, the Xponential+ app offers thousands of live and on-demand classes from the best brands in the industry for a monthly fee.
Taking a holistic approach to creating your home gym is something we are passionate about at Aktiv Solutions. Contact one of our Design Consultants to find out more.