How to Build a Complete Home Gym in a Small Space

Home gyms have always been a popular manifestation when talking about buying a house or renovating your space. Often, people believe that they need a dedicated garage or a large spare room to create an effective training space. However, this is not entirely the case. With thoughtful planning and versatile equipment, even a small space or corner of your living room can become a functional training area. Considering the significant benefits of strength training, way beyond improving athletic performance, having a training space in your own home is more than ideal. You can prevent the cause of disorders and disease, as well as improve bone, tendon, cartilage and musculoskeletal health (Source). This blog will provide you with how you can attain these benefits by building a complete home gym in a small space.

Start with the Essentials: Prioritise Versatile Equipment

The main consideration when starting your home gym is the versatility of the equipment you purchase. Even if you have a larger space, having versatile equipment is ideal when it comes to getting your best value for your money. Equipment such as adjustable dumbbells is a great example. This product can support multiple exercises, while allowing for adjustable resistance to support progress. You are able to complete upper and lower body exercises. For example, shoulder press, bicep curls, goblet squats, Romanian deadlifts and many more exercises. Additionally, these would replace the need for having multiple pairs of dumbbells, making them an exceptional space saver.

Another great example of versatile equipment is the Exersci hip thrust multifunctional bench. This product provides a box to perform hip thrusts, step-ups, Bulgarian split squats, box squats, etc. When pairing this with dumbbells, you can start to perform multi-joint movements including bent-over row and bench press. A similar combination is if you were to pair the adjustable dumbbells with a weight bench. You can perform a range of push exercises at different angles, including bench press, incline press and seated shoulder press. Furthermore, you can still complete hip thrusts, step-ups, Bulgarian split squats, box squats, etc.

What you should recognise is that by only pairing two pieces of equipment, you are able to complete exercises across the full body. Therefore, you can increase muscular strength and hypertrophy in the lower and upper body. In addition, this will provide wider benefits across the full body, for instance, improvements in daily function (Source) and preventing bone frailty (Source). 

Make Every Square Metre Count with Smart Layout and Storage

Another important suggestion is to plan ahead and be smart with your layout. You should choose a dedicated workout zone to avoid cluttering your home. As your home gym starts to grow, it is easy for your space to become messy. This is where storage becomes essential. Exersci offers a range of storage options. Specifically, we recommend opting for vertical storage choices to save space. For instance, our dumbbell storage tree provides multi-dumbbell storage while taking up minimal space. This will save a larger amount of space compared to traditional dumbbell storage racks to allow more space for training or other pieces of equipment. Likewise, if you were to include weight benches in your home gym, you can opt to store additional equipment under the bench to avoid clutter. The most important thing here is to ensure that the more frequently used equipment is easily accessible. Furthermore, for versatile equipment such as resistance bands, skipping ropes or even equipment attachments, you can use wall-mounted hooks to avoid taking up floor space.

These storage options will allow you to maintain space for you to complete compound movements and functional exercises. So your next consideration should be incorporating protective flooring. We typically recommend flooring that provides 15 to 20 mm thickness to protect your subflooring and equipment from any damage. We offer different bundles so that you can purchase the amount of flooring you require relative to the space you have available. For instance, our affordable EVA jigsaw mats. Additionally, if you want to start performing heavier strength-training movements, such as deadlifts, and dont have the space or money to include a weightlifting platform, we also offer weightlifting drop pads that can be stored vertically or stacked to save space.

 

Choose Equipment That Supports Progressive Strength Training

Despite only having a small space available, your training space must encourage training principles such as progressive overload. Progressive overload is a key training concept whereby the intensity of exercise is increased linearly with training adaptations to maintain continuous stimuli placed on the body to drive continuous adaptations. This is typically achieved by gradually increasing the load you lift. This would mean that you require multiple resistances, for instance, multiple dumbbells or bumper plates, to overload progressively. Now, this is not an issue if you have a large space available. However, for smaller training spaces, this is less than ideal. This is where adjustable dumbbell and barbell sets stand out from the rest. Not only do they take up little space and provide versatility for your training, but they also allow you to progressively increase the load lifted to maximise your training adaptations. 

You may be concerned that due to having limited space, you are unable to perform more functional exercises. This is not the case. Some of our adjustable sets also come with a kettlebell attachment. This means you can perform traditional resistance training while adding more functional movements. For instance, kettlebell swings and clean and jerks. In addition, you may think that sled training is out of the picture, due to typically requiring specialised flooring. However, with the new addition of the sled on wheels, you can complete sled training anywhere, for instance in your driveway.

What equipment we recommend:

• Adjustable dumbbell, Barbell & kettlebell set
• Weight bench
• Multi-functional box
• Gym sled on wheels
• Jigsaw flooring
• Weightlifting drop pads

Conclusion

Resistance training is incredibly beneficial for healthy ageing and improving athletic performance, for instance strength, power and endurance. By including versatile equipment such as adjustable dumbbell, barbell and kettlebell sets, a weight bench or multi-functional box, as well as appropriate storage options (either dumbbell trees or choosing to store equipment under your weight bench), you have enough equipment and space to perform full-body strength and functional training. As such, you will reduce the risk of age-related muscle loss (i.e., sarcopenia), the cause of disorders and disease, increase muscle size, strength, power and endurance and improve bone, tendon, cartilage and musculoskeletal health. Furthermore, you should consider which flooring is suitable for your space. If you are using a multi-functional space, e.g., an office/gym, you could opt for including a small amount of jigsaw mats or some weightlifting drop pads. 

So, if you are ready to transform a small part of your space and a large part of your life, explore Exercise's range of high-quality and versatile equipment through our website (www.Exersci.co.uk).