1. Time Is Valuable

Time is your most precious resource. You need it to make money, spend time with your loved ones, eat, sleep and enjoy life. Too often we waste time not giving it the respect it deserves.

Lifting weights at home means the only time you invest is the hour your workout takes, not a second more.

If you commute to your gym longer than your training takes, you’re wasting time. If you wait for the squat rack longer to become unoccupied, than your set takes, you’re wasting time.

And the crazy part is, that you don’t even get a better gym, but a worse one.

2. Public Gyms Have Bad Equipment

Shiny bench, but too narrow to bench press comfortably.

Public gyms might have a lot of equipment, but the quality is usually really bad.

Benches are too narrow, which is bad for your shoulders. A good bench should be 30cm wide.

Barbells are cheap and therefore have a low loading capacity, which makes them bend. A decent barbell should be at least loadable up to 250kg.

There are no micro plates (0,5kg), which you need for progress on upper body lifts. Taking 2,5kg jumps on bench press and overhead press will lead to plateaus sooner then necessary.

When you set up a home gym you can buy quality equipment, that won’t bend and makes you training efficient.

3. Commercial Gyms Don’t Care About You

He’s making money if you don’t go to the gym.

I am going to tell you a dark and dirty secret: Gyms don’t want you to train there!

They want you to sign a 12 month gym membership and then not come back after one month. They make money from non-active members. If every member showed up on a regular basis, they would not have enough equipment or space for everybody to train. This is the reason that gyms are so cheap, you pay for the option to go, which most people don’t act upon.

Also in most gyms, there are no real coaches who teach you how to lift weights correctly, just trainers who try to sell memberships and protein powder and got their licence over a two day weekend course.

In times of crisis, public gyms close, like when there is a lock down or government mandates force you to wear masks and check in with a QR code to prove your vaccination status.

It’s not your choice how to live healthy, if you don’t have a home gym. Take training into your own hands and do it at home.

4. Socializing At The Gym Is A Myth

Some people claim they go to the gym to socialize, but most of the time they just put on headphones to train alone, or small talk elongates their training by hours. If you want to train without distractions, don’t go to a public gym. At your home gym, no woman will ever accuse you of looking at her butt.

Even if you make friends in a public gym, a lock down implodes your social circle, with a home gym, you are never lonely because friends will want to train with you, you’re like the guy with the swimming pool during the hot summer, independent, strong and admired.

5. You Don’t Need Machines

You’re not a machine, so why train on one ?

If you want to get big and strong, you need a big gym with many shiny machines right ? Wrong ! You’ll be surprised to learn that most equipment in public gyms is unnecessary.

Machines isolate muscles, but that’s not how your body is designed to move. Why would you train only your chest, then only your upper back, then only your hamstrings and so on ?That does not sound functional to me, in real life your body moves as a unit and the different muscle groups work together. If you jump, run punch or throw, you coordinate your body and the muscles act as a team, not as a lone wolf.

Machines are expensive and take up a lot of space since each one only trains one muscle group, so how could you replace a public gym by training at home ?

What if I told you, that there was one piece of equipment, that you could use to get big and strong in your whole body without leaving home ? Would you go to a public gym, wasting time commuting and waiting for equipment to not be occupied ? No you would not !

6. All You Need Is A Barbell

Barbells strengthen every muscle in your body by training natural movements.

The barbell has been around for 100 years and is the most versatile piece of training equipment.

You can train your whole body with a barbell, using natural movement patterns like squatting, hinging and vertical pressing, horizontal pressing and horizontal pulling. Muscles are trained in conjunction instead of isolation, so there is less wear and tear on single joints and pressure is spread over multiple joints.

With a barbell you get functional strength that carries over into daily life and sports. This is because you get stronger at movements instead of isolating muscle groups. There are endless modifications to the main lifts that can be done, to reach an insanely high amount of exercise variety.

Just as an example, you can deadlift, rack pull, sumo deadlift, romanian deadlift, deficit deadlift, snatch grip deadlift, good morning, pin good morning and pause deadlift. These are 10 hip hinges, but all with different purposes and emphasising different muscles slightly.

Now imagines having even more variations of squats and pressing at many angles with different grips and tempos. If you’re creative the possibilities are endless !

7. How You Become Big and Strong

Once you understand the path to becoming big and strong, you will know why a home gym is all you need. People like to make training more complicated than it needs to be, leading you to think that complexity is better, twenty machines and a big dumbbell rack, look impressive, but are not needed, just like a public gym.

The simple truth it, that with progressive overload on big compound movements you get the most bang for your buck in the shortest amount of time.

Your chest and shoulders will grow from the bench press and overhead press. Your quads hamstrings and lower back muscles will get bigger from gaining strength in the squat and deadlift. If you really care about arm growth, throw some barbell curls and lying triceps extensions in the mix, you don’t need machines for that either. And finally the biggest backs on the planet belong to athletes who are strong at pull ups, which you can do at home as well.

A secret nobody tells you in most gyms, is that you need to gain weight. You need to eat food to build muscle and strength. Don’t dirty bulk though, but aim to gain about 1kg/month, eating a diet high in protein and low in sugar.

If you’re overweight, focus on loosing your body fat first and build a base with body weight training, for that you also don’t need a gym, since weight loss in 90% Diet. A calisthenics park or a pull up bar and push up handles at home will be enough if you eat right. I recommend the Atkins Diet for fat loss, because most people overeat on carbs, which make the appetite spiral out of control for some. That way you don’t have to count calories and satiety is high.

8. Equipment and Costs For A Home Gym

So now that you know, that public gyms are redundant, the question becomes: How do you get strong at home and create the optimal home gym ?

If you want to save money and have a minimal gym, you can get a barbell with plates, squat stands and a pull up bar. That way you can do squats, romanian deadlifts, overhead press, row, curl and floor press. This will cost you about 500€, the average price of a yearly gym membership. The only problem is that you can’t train to failure and drop the bar, because that would damage the floor.

That’s why the more expensive version is a bit safer. A power rack and a bench are added to the previous list. The power rack comes with safeties, so you the bar never touches the floor even if you fail a squat or rack pull. The Rack also makes bench pressing safely possible. In addition every power rack has a pull up bar on top, so you don’t need to buy that extra.

The bench gives you a longer range of motion on the bench press compared to floor pressing, so you get more chest stimulus out of it and it has better carryover to Powerlifting.

The power rack and bench cost another 600€, so 1100€ total, maybe 1500€ is you are very strong and need more weight.

If you’re into Powerlifting you should buy a flat bench, but if you don’t mind spending an extra 150€, get a good incline bench. That way you get more variety into your home gym, which is beneficial for long term motivation and injury prevention.

If you live in Europe https://www.strengthshop.eu/ has the best equipment for a good price, I don’t get payed by them, that is my honest opinion and where I bought most of my stuff.

9. Special Home Gym Equipment

If the costs so far were not an issue for you, you can be even more creative with your home gym. There are different specialty bars than you can buy to train at home.

I really love the Safety Squat Bar to bring even more variety into your squatting.

The Swiss Bar is very nice for all pressing movements, because of the different grip.

You can even get a cambered bar if you are very much into rowing movements and a thick upper back.

If you want a cheap addition, gymnastic rings can be hung from your pull up bar and enable you to do more pull up, push up, rowing and dip variations.

For a more upright quad focused squat, a squat ramp is a cheap and useful investment.

The best piece of equipment for arm training is the EZ curl bar is great, because it takes pressure of the wrists during bicep curls and laying triceps extensions.

Grip strength is best trained with rope pull ups. Just get a thick rope and hang it over your pull up bar.

10. Where To Place Your Home Gym ?

Beautiful but in summer too hot to handle !

You need a 3x3x3 meters space for a barbell home gym, so any room would do. If you have the space use a separate room, so you have some privacy when lifting. This can be the attic, a garage, the basement or a garden shed.

The attic can be a bit hot in the summer, so I’d recommend a fan. A garage and garden shed, can be hot in summer and cold in winter, so a fan and infrared heater are a good idea.

In my experience a basement is the best place for a home gym, because it stays cool in summer, but never gets too cold in winter.

11. Lockdowns and Independence

In 2020 lifters around the world realized, that their passion can be taken away in an instance, by government mandates that closed down gyms against their will. To many people strength training is essential for good mental health and physical well being.

With a home gym you take your strength training into your own hands, literally. Your rules apply, you can train whenever you want and decide what music is playing or who lifts with you.

12. Privacy

Maybe you’re a famous celebrity, who does not want to be disturbed when working out.

Or you feel intimidated by the weight others are lifting, either way a home gym offers you the privacy to go lighter if you are having a bad day without feeling ashamed or be looked down upon by others.

You don’t lift for the crowd, you lift just for yourself. You can leave a rep in the tank, without someone screaming “one more rep bro”.

13. Inspire Others

If you train at home you can inspire you wife, children or roommate to start working out.

You can be a role model for health, strength and discipline and teach others to avoid excuses because the bed is close, but the barbell is closer.

Coach Georg

Hello my friend, my name if Georg and I have been a personal trainer and barbell coach for 7 years. During 2020 I discovered home training in order to keep my livelihood and physical strength.

I am a real expert in home training, because I have only been lifting in my home gym for the last four years, but instead of loosing progress, it made me stronger.

Home Gym or Gym Membership ? 13 Reasons Why Men Should Lift Weights At Home