7 Ways To Make Your Home Gym Really Yours.

Building a home gym? Here are 7 things you can do that really make a big difference in how often and how eagerly you work out in it.

Don’t Make It Multi-Use.

If you can avoid it, don’t put your home gym in a room where you also do a bunch of other stuff — if you have a couch and watch TV down in the basement, and your equpiment is right next to the TV, that lack of separation between the two rooms might making working out a chore.

If you can pull it off at all, get your home gym equipment into a separate space as much as humanly possible. Having that physical separation lets you maintain a good mental separation, too.

Invest in Good Equpiment.

Treat your home gym equpiment like you would a car, or a set of really great kitchen knives, or quality furniture — don’t skimp on it and expect it to last forever.

This is a tough one, because you also don’t want to over-invest in equpiment if you aren’t 100% sure that you’re going to stick with your home gym plan, but if you’re reasonably sure about working out at home — don’t go too cheap, or you’ll just end up re-buying more expensive equipment down the road.

Invest in a Stereo that Fills the Room.

Doesn’t have to be a huge one with a 7.1 speaker setup — there are plenty of iPod-compatible speaker/docks that can fill up a room just fine. But working out to your mp3 player and those $10 computer speakers, plugged into an outlet in the corner of the room, on the floor? Treat yourself a little better and you’ll get more out of your workouts, faster.

Pay Attention to Your Lighting.

Dark and dank gyms don’t last long. There’s a reason people who run gyms spend a lot of time making them bright and accessible — being in a sweaty, sometimes smelly environment isn’t always how we want to spend most of our days, so having good, bright, positive-feeling-inducing lighting takes the strain off of all that working out.

Keep Your Equipment Clean & Clear — Always.

Whatever you do — please don’t use your home gym equipment as a laundry rack. The more you do this, the less mental space you’re giving to it as something you should be using multiple times per week, and the more you’re letting it risk being buried under a pile of junk and eventually shuffled aside.

Musicians don’t let their guitars sit under their beds, covered in dust and old clothes — don’t do the same for your home gym.

Pretend You’re Going to a Real Gym — Every Time.

Ask any writer who has a home office — it’s unlikely they get a lot of work done unless they get up, get dressed, and treat “going to the office” like they’re leaving the house and going to work.

Sure, there are rare exceptions, but making that tangible split between home/work (or home/workout) is fundamental to giving yourself the space, time, and dedication to getting in shape. Treat your home gym like you’re going to the real gym — phone off, shower afterward, do it when you have enough buffer time to give it the dedication it (and you) deserves.

Just Get Your Workouts Done.

Lists of tips are great and all, but every single good idea in the world would remain just that — a good idea — if it weren’t for someone actually going and just doing it.

If your home gym ‘violates’ every single one of these rules, and you’re in great shape, working out multiple times a week, and loving it? You’re golden. You’ve got nothing to worry about.

And if you’re ‘waiting’ to start working out at home because you want to get your exercise room just perfect, with all the equipment and everything else you need to have before you can begin even one round of strength training? You need to admit it — you’re procrastinating, and you’ve got to deal with that before you can do anything else.

Not Everyone Has the Luxury, and Not Everyone Needs It

There are people in absolutely phenomenal shape who have zero access to any of the stuff we’ve talked about in this article. They’ve got dedication and hard work instead, which always, always — always come first. Work on getting those, and then head out and get your stereo/TV/kick-ass equipment/whatever else you need.

Over to Your Thoughts

How have you setup your home gym? Are you a minimalist, or do you have a fully decked out gym experience in your home? Leave me a comment and tell me about it! There’s no right or wrong way, of course — only what works for you.