Fitness Equipment—should You Buy?

There are dozens of health clubs and gyms out there, offering you discounts on membership, low down payments, and so on and so forth, but should you shell out the big bucks every month to belong to a club, or buy your own fitness equipment and simply workout at home?

You can purchase exercise equipment nearly everywhere—local discount retailers, sporting goods stores, used sporting good stores, online, or even at garage sales. Having your own home gym fitness equipment means that you will save money. You won’t be paying money endlessly, month after month, to a health club. At the end of the day the equipment you use will be yours to own, rather than just use at the gym. And since it will be right in your own home, you will most likely use it more, meaning you can more easily achieve your fitness goals.

If you are the type of person who does not like to wait around for cardio equipment or weight stations to open up, you will also be better off purchasing your own home gym or fitness equipment and working out at home, where there is never a wait to use the equipment and you can workout at your own pace, not on someone else’s schedule.

If you are thinking of buying fitness equipment for your home, it is important to have both cardio and strength training equipment. Doing cardiovascular exercise will burn the fat off your body and help you lose weight, but you also need to strength train in order to build muscle, which helps to keep the fat off. The more muscle you have on your body, the higher your metabolism, meaning the body will burn more calories at rest.

A well-balanced workout routine has both. For cardio, you might consider purchasing a treadmill, a stationary bike or an elliptical trainer. Find what you like to do, and purchase that piece of equipment. If you hate to run and purchase a treadmill, it will simply sit there collecting dust, so make wise buying choices. If you have bad knees, an elliptical may be your best bet, as they are low impact and do not put pressure on the joints.

For strength training, purchase a good, varied set of dumbbells, ranging from light to heavy in weight, or go for an adjustable set, such as Power Blocks or the SelectTech dumbbells from Bowflex. These take up less space, and can be adjusted in increments from light to heavy.

If you would prefer to skip the dumbbells, you can purchase resistance bands that work with your body’s weight to provide resistance, giving you a great strength training workout. Other equipment that you might choose to look into for strength training include a medicine ball for core work, a resistance ball and a mat. These will become invaluable tools to you as your workout at home.

By: Robin Dwyer

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Robin Dwyer is a fitness enthusiast and consultant for FitnessLyceum.com. We sell leading brands of elliptical trainers as well as all types of fitness equipment from leading manufacturers at competitive prices.