Building a Home Gym in the Garage

Having a home gym is very attractive idea for anybody who likes to regularly exercise at home. Home gym has many benefits when compared with commercial gyms. In the home gym, one can exercise whenever one wants, there is no time lost trafficking, there is no time lost waiting for some other guy or girl to finish, there are no gym fees, it can be accustomed to personal needs etc. On the other hand, home gyms require space and money to buy and maintain.
Money for home gyms many consider to be the main problem, but in the long run, you are actually saving money because you are not paying monthly gym fees, you don't spend any money trafficking etc. So, when building a home gym, consider purchasing equipment little by little, month by month or even quarterly or annually.

Cardio Equipment
Depending on your personal preferences, cardio equipment can be in the form of expensive, but durable and sturdy treadmill or elliptical, or if you have ordinary bike, you can purchase a bike stand for just a fraction of cost of good treadmill or elliptical.
Home foldable treadmills cost less, especially self-powered models, and they are great choice for people who prefer walking as the form of low impact, low intensity cardio.
If you have good, heavy rope for rope jumping (and enough high ceiling), you have all necessary equipment for good cardio workout. Ordinary rope can be purchased in any hardware store for cheap.
If you like Martial Arts, good punching bag will build your strength, stamina and burn fat tremendously. Punching bag can be used as warm-up, as main workout, or to burn extra calories after main workout. Note that if you have never used punching bag, it is highly recommendable to find someone to show you how to actually punch.
To save space, punching bag can be stored away and mounted when required.

Exercise Equipment
Pull-up bars can be wall mounted, ceiling mounted, part of dip station or squat cage, doorway mounted etc. Simple pull-up bars are cheap and reliable – fix them somewhere on the wall and use them for great back and biceps workouts with various pull-ups and chin-ups.
With just a few items – bike stand, rope, punching bag and pull-up bar – one can make great full body workout that will increase strength, stamina, increase muscle mass, burn fat etc. And in the case of circular workouts, even full-body workout doesn't have to last more than 60 minutes. List of exercises that can be done using such equipment is rather long: cycling, running, walking, rope jumping, bag punching and kicking, various push-ups, various squats, various pull-ups and chin-ups, burpees, various abs exercises etc. As one can see, plenty of these exercises are bodyweight exercises and even if you are gym rat, don't underestimate them.
Next piece of equipment that one should consider for home gym are dumbbells – variable or adjustable dumbbells with proper stand. Variable dumbbells save space and even money in the long run when compared with ordinary dumbbells, but their initial price is relatively high.
Note that with the pair of adjustable dumbbells only one person can exercise at one time – with modern variable weight dumbbells this is not great issue, since weight can be changed often in just a few seconds. Variable or not, dumbbells are great for many exercises and it is nice to have them.

Variable bench is often next piece of equipment to be purchased. This bench must be capable of several decline and incline positions and of course, flat position. When buying a bench for home gym, it is good to choose a bench which have a stand for barbell and extension for leg exercises (for quads and hamstrings). Such benches cost little bit more, but in the end, they are worth that extra money.
After bench, one needs good, solid barbell with some weights according to your needs. When considering weights, choose weight plates with rubber coating. Rubber coating prevents rust to occur, they are much quitter when used, protects walls and plates from getting damaged etc. Also, consider weight stand to store your weights and some rubber mats to put around your bench – your floors will last longer.
As one progress, squat rack is next to be obtained – it requires space and strong floors, but for various squats, it is a must have equipment.
On the other hand, if you don't have much room for various weights, bars, barbells, racks etc., and you just need 'something' to work out on, consider all-in-one home gym exercise machine. There are several types of them and most of them look like medieval torturing devices, but in the end, they get their job done. Just don't expect levels and type of resistance as if you are working out with regular weights.

 

Home Gym Maintenance
Maintaining a home gym is rather easy. Each exercise machine must be maintained as recommended by their manufacturer. This often includes lubrication, changing pulleys, cables, batteries and similar.
Good AC unit is required for keeping proper temperature and humidity levels. Be sure to regularly clean air filters on your AC unit, since filters decrease amount of dust and other airborne particles in the gym.
Strong vacuum cleaner with various cleaning attachments for reaching corners and tight areas is great thing to have. Such vacuums doesn't have to cost much and can be a general home vacuum, like ordinary Shark NV356e or any similar vacuum cleaner. Once a week, clean entire area and if you have time, clean the equipment with wet, disinfecting wipes. Maybe this sounds too much, but clean home gym is more pleasant environment for regular workouts than a dirty one.

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40-Minute Metabolism Boosting Workout | Class FitSugar

This full-body workout will get your heart rate up while building
metabolism-boosting muscle. Plus it's fun! Grab a set of dumbbells
between five and 10 pounds, press play, and get ready to sweat.

Seven Great At Home Exercises For Women

Don't have time to go to the gym? The busy lives of women just became easier with these 7 best at home exercises for women. Who says you need all the fancy equipment in the gym?


What you do need is the foundation behind weight loss and muscle building so you will begin to see inches falling off in record speeds. There is a right and wrong way to exercise. You can spend hours doing the wrong form of exercise and never see a difference in your body.

Cardio Vs. Cardio
Ever see a heavyset marathon runner? Here's why. Our body is a master at adapting. Our body will regulate to almost any condition we throw ourselves into. If we do steady state cardio, such as the treadmill at the same speed, elliptical at the same level, walking, or even jogging, without changing any factor; our body will adapt and our heart rate will regulate. Start sprinting or running up stairs and BAMM! Bye bye adaptation and fat. When we change the state our body is experiencing, our body will not be able to adapt to the constant change.

Aerobic Vs. Anaerobic

Aerobic exercise is what most people refer to as ‘cardio'. This type of exercise is done at a low to moderate pace where your heart rate is approximately 50-70 percent of your maximum heart rate. At this pace, and with reasonable conditioning, you should be able to supply the muscles with sufficient oxygen to keep them contracting and performing for some time. Aerobic means with oxygen.
Anaerobic exercise, in contrast, is done at an intensity in which your muscle requirements for oxygen succeed the amount you can supply. Anaerobic meaning without oxygen. You will be forced to stop this type of exercise sooner because your muscles will cease to function. At this intensity, your heart rate will be at 90-100 percent of your maximal heart rate.
Here is why anaerobic exercise is much better for weight loss: When we are using the aerobic system, the body will regulate itself, creating enough energy to carry out the exercise. With anaerobic exercise, you will create a huge deficit of oxygen that will stimulate the body to continue to use energy to replace this deficit for hours after your workout. Our body uses macronutrients for energy and if we are eating just enough to cover the amount of energy needed to supply the body in normal conditions, anything above this will cause our body to look for energy elsewhere; fat tissue.

Foundation of Weight Loss
The key to weight loss is calories out > calories in. This does not mean you need to go on a low calorie diet. Our body needs nutrients in forms of protein, fats and if we are exercising, carbohydrates. Our body uses carbohydrates for energy. There isn't a place to store excess carbohydrates in the body. All extra carbs that are not used for energy will be stored in fat cells. Too bad our body wouldn't just get rid of them instead.
If you are very active, you need carbohydrates for energy and recovery.
The key is using carbohydrates for those two purposes and those two alone; exercise and recovery. Now that you know the basics of exercise and nutrition, let's look at how using the right exercises will help to create the body of your dreams, give you energy long into your later years of life, and will create a positive self image.

Foundation of Muscle Building

Muscle can do one of two things:
1. Grow larger and/or stronger
2. Shrink and/or get weaker
The only way to create muscle tissue is by breaking down the muscle tissue and rebuilding stronger and bigger cells. The most effective way of doing this is through resistance training.
With proper training your muscles grow stronger and larger. Benefits of muscle include:

• performing daily activities more easily,
• burning more calories daily,
• building stronger bones, preventing osteoporosis,
• improves your flexibility, stability and balance,
• improves strength and posture
• improves body composition
• reduces loss of muscle mass due to inactivity.

Muscle Balance
Earlier I stated that there is a right and wrong way to exercise. One key aspect of a workout program is the focus of creating balance throughout every muscle. Each muscle has an opposing muscle, the antagonist. Let's use squats and lunges as examples. Here, the quadriceps is the agonist (dominant muscle being used), while the hip flexors are the antagonist (opposing muscle) and hamstrings become the synergist (stabilizer or helper) muscles. When you are performing more quadriceps dominant exercises as opposed to hamstrings or hip dominant exercises, your pelvis will tilt, causing pain in the lower back, and knees that are prone to injuries.

We can fix this by adding hip and hamstring dominant exercises to balance out all muscle groups. As a rule, you should never do more quadricep dominant exercises than hip movements. Always keep the volume balance between each muscle.

Large Muscle Groups

Any exercise plan needs to involve large muscle groups, focusing on working the antagonist in the same amount as stated earlier. Knowing the proper exercises can ensure you will also target the smaller muscle groups, creating harmony throughout the entire body by incorporating stability muscles as well. And in doing so, you will also cut the amount of time needed in the gym by leaving out certain body parts that were already targeted in other exercises.
You also need to be aware of the muscles being worked with each exercise to ensure you keep balance throughout all muscles. A simple chest press targets your pectoalis major, but also uses pec minor, deltoids, trapezius muscles, and your rotator cuff for example.

Importance of the Core
The core encompasses more than two dozen abdominal muscles, lower back muscles, and hip muscles that stabilize your spine to keep your torso upright. Your core allows you to bend forward, back, side to side, and rotate. Your core plays a major role in movement. Working your core (stability muscle) is crucial to optimal performance.

7 Best At Home Exercises For Women
By now you understand the importance of exercise. You don't need fancy equipment for you to benefit from exercise. Here are just 7 at home exercises, especially for women, that will not only better your appearance, they will better your health.

Chin-up/Pull-up-These exercises target your lats but also hit your tere major (stabilizer muscle) and biceps (more so with chin-ups). Your core and middle back are also involved in assisting in the movement or acting as stabilizers.

Pushup-This exercise targets your pectoralis major but also involves your front deltoids and triceps. As for stability muscles, your rotator, traps, serratus anterior, and abdominals all assist with this movement.

Inverted Shoulder Press-The shoulder press targets your front deltoids, middle deltoids, and the triceps. They also activate your upper traps, rotator cuff, and serratus anterior which act as stabilizer muscles.

Squat-These exercises target your quadriceps, but also activate your core, and every muscle in your legs including your glutes, hamstrings, and calves. This exercise burns a ton of calories and is a must-have home exercise for women.

Stability Ball or Towel Leg Curl-This exercise is great for targeting your hamstrings and glutes, and also activates your lower back muscles and core. Because the glutes are the largest muscle in the body, any exercise involving your glutes will burn a lot of calories.

Single-Leg Toe Hops off Bench or Chair-This exercise targets your calves, but also incorporates your quads, hamstrings, glutes and gets your heart rate up to the fat-burning zone.

Side-plank-This exercise improves the strength in your back and will help with performance. Planks target the entire core, making this exercise a must-do for health and appearance sake.

Your At Home Workout

The workouts are split into different combos with 3-4 exercises in each combo. Each exercise is preformed 3 times before moving onto the next combo. Do the different exercises back to back, then repeat for a total of three sets. You must always warm up for 10 minutes and cool down for 10 minutes.
After you are able to do these workouts in 45 minutes or less, add 20-30 minutes of cardio following your workout on three of the five days. Two days of cardio should be HIIT and the other day should be steady cardio for endurance training. Stretching is also vital following the workouts.
Use these 7 at home exercises for women for 6-8 weeks to improve strength, build muscle and burn fat.

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