Are you tired of waiting for your favorite leg press machine? Tired of driving twenty minutes each way to work out? If you belong to a commercial gym, chances are the little irritations have you dreaming about the luxury of working out at home. But have you stopped to count the costs and benefits of building your own home gym? There are plenty of both, so take a moment to consider the following before you start measuring your garage for your new power rack.

The most obvious benefit of having your own home gym is that big fat check that you would not be writing to somebody else each month. It may not seem like much, one check at a time, but over the course of a year, you are paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars for the privilege of sweating on somebody else’s floor. if you are hiring the services of a personal trainer at the gym, you are paying not only for the trainer’s time but also an overhead fee that goes to the gym. By working out at home, you will save the cost of the gym membership, and if you do hire a personal trainer, you can cut out the middleman fees and just pay the trainer directly.

You must also remember to figure in the incidental expenses you have at the gym. The first thing to consider is the cost of getting to the gym. If you are lucky enough to have a gym next door to your home or work place, then you are avoiding the extra cost of transportation. But if you are driving ten miles to the gym every night after work, and then another ten miles home, your gym membership is costing you an additional tank of gas every two weeks.

Some folks spend extra money on fancy workout clothing when they go to the gym, but would be just as comfortable at home in a faded t-shirt and old sweatpants. Don’t forget to count those protein shakes, energy bars and countless bottles of water that you buy on your way out of the gym? By eating the same food at home, you could be paying grocery prices instead of the marked up convenience prices that your gym charges.

Having the flexibility to workout on your own schedule is usually the number one benefit that people are looking for in a home gym. This becomes critically important to people with a jam-packed daily schedule. Waiting ten minutes for your favorite machine can set your entire day off track.

Of course, there are also a few drawbacks to working out at home. The first is the cost of the home exercise equipment. Depending on your budget, you can spend anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand dollars, for each machine. The goodnews is that gym equipment tends to last a very long time when used correctly, so you will likely only have to buy it once. And home exercise equipment holds it value well, so you should have a ready market if you later decide to sell your equipment.

Isolation is often the biggest drawback when giving up the commercial gym to work out at home. While some folks relish the solitude of working out by themselves, others require a push from other people to get them motivated. You can mitigate the loneliness at home by surrounding yourself with your favorite music, utilizing headphones if you are living with others. Perhaps most importantly, the lack of a spotting partner can be a dangerous drawback of working out at home. The ideal home gym is often shared with a roommate or a neighbor.

It is fair to say that a home gym usually pays for itself after the first few months. But if you find yourself lonely and unmotivated to work out at home, then it’s time to put your home equipment up for sale on Ebay and rejoin your friends at the gym.

Tags: exercise, fitness, health, Home Exercise Equipment, home gym, Home gym equipment