One month of having a home gym
Around one month ago, I finally made the decision to wish my local gym farewell - to say goodbye to the dumbell hoggers, the squat rack curlers and the deadlift moaners and get a home gym.
What?
"Home gym" sound pretty fancy. All in all my setup cost me less than 800€ and takes up around 4.5 square meters in total. It is made up of the following items
- A pullup/dip tower
- A kind of bench press rack, which has a high ledge for the barbell as well as two spot arms
- A 10kg 30mm 1.7m long barbell
- An adjustable bench
- Two metall dumbells with screws to put weights on
- 2x15kg, 2x10kg, 4x5kg, 4x2.5kg & 4x1.25kg plates
- Three bands to assist me during pull ups
- 12 0.25 m^2 floor mats
When choosing the stuff, I went with the budget options, because I wasn't sure how much I was going to actually use the equipment. So far, I haven't regretted buying a single item.
How?
The main advantage of having a home gym is that it saves me time. Instead of going home after work, getting my gym clothes, commuting to the gym for half an hour, waiting for the squat rack to become free for 15 minutes and commuting back again, I can open my door, walk five steps, lie down on the bench and start pumping. Then, after an hour of exercise, I still have the whole evening to myself. While, beforehand, I was only able to train 2-3 times a week, the home gym enables me to train every day, which allows for far higher volume and a better split. Currently, I am following a Push-Pull-Legs routine, that looks like this (sets x max reps):
| Push (Monday) | Pull (Tuesday) | Legs (Wednesday) | Push (Thursday) | Pull (Friday) | Legs (Saturday) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bench Press, barbell (4x8) | Assisted Pull Up (4x8) | Squat, barbell (5x8) | Overhead Press, barbell (4x8) | Assisted Chin Up, Band (4x8) | Lunge, barbell (4x8) |
| Lying triceps extension, dumbbells (4x8) | Shrugs, barbell (4x8) | Bicycle Crunch (4x10) | Triceps Dip, barbell (4x8) | Incline Rows, dumbbells (4x8) | Plank (4) |
| Arnold press, dumbbells (4x8) | Biceps curl, dumbells (4x8) | Deadlift, barbell (5x8) | Chest Fly, dumbells (4x8) | Hammer Curl, dumbbells (4x8) | Bulgarian Split Squat, dumbbells (4x8) |
| Incline bench press, dumbbells (4x8) | Bent-over rows, barbell (4x8) | Superman (4x8) | Lateral raises, dumbells (4x8) | Assisted Pull Up, Band (4x8) | Romanian Dead Lift, dumbbells (4x8) |
| Dead Hang (4) | Dead Hang (4) |
I built this routine by starting with a compound barbell exercises as the base and adding what felt useful and what I could do with my equipment. Some of these exercises probably aren't super effective (e.g. the shrugs), but overall it feels pretty solid to me and I haven't gotten around to optimizing the plan more carefully.
Results
Overall, the experiment is going really well. As long as I am not travelling, I do manage to work out almost every day. Even if I'm at work all day and have with dinner with friends afterwards, I usually manage to squeeze in a workout before bedtime. I have improved all my lifts (although I might be approaching a plateau again) and my physique is looking a lot fuller than before. I also found that daily exercise is having a positive effect on my mood. Often, the stress and worries I bring home from work just evaporate a couple of heavy squats.
The Future
Right now, I like both my equipment and my routine, but if I am looking to level up my workouts, here are some things I might change.
- Get adjustable dumbbells: The screw-on dumbbells I have do their job, but removing and adding weights is quite time consuming.
- Get a cable attachment for the pull up tower: I am really missing triceps pulldowns.