Cheap Workout Gear

One of the nice things our new house came with is garage which included a fully carpeted and lit room which the former owners used as an office. Now that we’ve cleaned up the garage a bit, I’m thinking of turning this space into a gym for those days when I work from home. At the same time, we’re still looking to minimize expenses which means I’ve been trying to think of cheap ways with which to furnish a home gym. Here’s what I did:

What Workouts Are You Planning To Do?

This is the first thing you need to consider when creating a home gym, what workouts are you planning to do there?  For example, if I’m never going to do cardio at home then why do I need a stationary bike?  If I plan on doing cardio but there’s a really nice running track close by then maybe I could use that instead.  In other words, don’t just go shopping for equipment based on “oooh, that looks neat!”  Actually figure out what kind of exercise you’re going to do first.

My list of home exercise was:

• Body weight exercises like pushups
• Resistence training
• Light cardio
• Stretching

Make A List, Check It Twice

Once you know what sort of exercise you’re going to do, the next logical thing is a list of the gear you’ll need.  Keep it simple, that makes it more reliable and cheaper.  You don’t need a $600 bowflex when a pair of $20 weights will do.  The weights are far more versatile and they won’t break as fast as that overly complex bowflex.  Based on the exercise list I wrote up, I made up the following gear list:

• Dumbbells that can go up to 80lbs on each side.
• Jump rope
• Weight bench
• Punching bag (just because I’ve always wanted to try this workout)
• Running shoes for home (my usual pair stays at work)
• Exercise mat

Go Cheap Where You Can

Now if I was going to buy all that at retail, I would probably end up spending about $600 to $700 dollars.  Not too bad but considerably more than what I wanted to spend.  So now I needed to get creative.

• A trip to goodwill netted me a really nice exercise mat for $5.  This thing was in almost new shape.
• I already had dumbbells, I just needed some extra weight plates for them.  I managed to get those from Freecycle.  There’s nothing special about weight plates, they’re just metal disks with a hole in the middle so I wasn’t really concerned with their condition.  Still, the ones I got are great.
• Weight bench I also found on freecycle.  The one I got is in good shape and looks brand new.
• Jump rope came from our swap meet over the weekend.  My wife and I had a lot of extra stuff after our move so we came up with the idea of a swap meet party.  We put all the extra stuff on the drive way and then invited neighbors and friends over to bring their own unneeded things and take away anything they wanted for free.  We got rid of a lot of our stuff and I ended up with a new jump rope.
• Punching bag I’m still looking for.  I saw one on Craig’s list but it was snagged before I could get it.
• Running shoes I ended up buying.  This is the one area that I don’t want to skimp on so I went to the store and bought a pair of good running shoes for $70.

Total cost for my new home gym is under $100 (I’m including some money for gas to go and pick up the freecycle items).

Resources

• Craig’s List - Plenty of free and cheap stuff here if you know where to look
• Freecycle - Rather than throw stuff away, list it on freecycle and see if anyone wants it
• Goodwill - You buy cheap (gently used) stuff and your money goes towards a good cause
• Swap meet - Setup your own just like we did

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A home gym doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.  In fact, I would argue that the expensive home gyms are usually the ones that end up collecting dust or being used as expensive storage racks.

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