A home gym can be extremely useful in physical training. Training at home is a great option interested enthusiasts. The effectiveness of training in a home gym could compare to the one of working out in a commercial gym, as long as some factors are considered.
The first is owning the necessary equipment for your home gym. If you also have a partner who trains with you, the exercises can be as effective as the ones performed in the gym. Of course, we are talking now about the ideal situation of affording a home gym.
Some exercisers and body builders, especially the more extrovert ones, might find the lack the stimulating atmosphere, the sharing of experience, the communication that they can find in the gym a serious limitation to getting the most from their home gym.
In your home gym, you can improvise a room or just a corner of a larger room, for fitness. You have to train by yourself most of the time. In any case, it is preferable to have constant training at a home gym, rather than interrupt it a lot because the gym is too busy, too far, too expensive, or because you have other priorities that keep you from getting out of the house.
The minimum of home gym equipment necessary for training at home includes:
- an adjustable bench
- a set of two dumbbells, with increasing weights
- a barbell, with free weights and
- a fix bar for pull ups
This home gym equipment will enable both executing basic exercises (squats, bench presses, pull-ups, sit-ups, etc.) and diversity of exercises, necessary for avoiding routine.
The main disadvantage of not having a partner to train with in your home gym is reflected in the amount of loading in some exercises, which cannot reach its maximum. There are many exercises which can be loaded to maximum without any risk, even if there is no partner to assist you (pull-ups, dips, shoulder presses, barbell curs, dumbbell curls, etc.).
An advantage which comes from training at a home gym is that you can choose the training time without any restraint. Moreover, the speed of exercising can be increased a lot if the practitioner chooses to execute supersets, tri sets or giant sets. You can also save time, as you are not distracted by casual conversation, by waiting for the machines to be available, by having to change the weights for every personal series of exercises, etc.
In the extreme case when you can only afford a mattress, chairs and a towel, you can focus on exercises using the weight of the body (push-ups, reverse push-ups, between chairs push-ups, squats, sit-ups, crunches, hyper-extensions, lunges, plyometrics, plunks, etc.) in your home gym.
All the home gym exercises involving the body weight are considered as really demanding, because they mobilize more stabilizing muscles that ensure coordination and balance. The body-weight exercises are often introduced in the programs at the gym due to their proven effectiveness. They are also used in training and testing people in special troops, as these need a lot of force and discipline in their training.