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You've got lots of stuff that would be hard to get at home like basketball, squash courts; swimming pools; saunas, cold plunge; lots of free classes (well, included in the cost). If you have a YMCA, they will even do a sliding scale based on your income.
It's like going to the library. Yeah you could do much of that stuff at home, but it's good to get out.
I loathe gyms, they are usually full of smelly obnoxious people.
The alternate I found is putting on running shoes, headphones, and go outside.
You're absolutely correct that you can do all that at home. Will you? I find that going to a place puts me in the right state of mind to do the thing. They do have a lot of equipment available, but you can mostly replace it at low cost by running outdoors or buying a few dumbells.
Likewise for the costume - when I started going, I was very worried about making sure I had gym shorts and running shoes and a sweat wicking shirt and a gym bag. I got that stuff and it did help, just mentally put me into the place for it. But after a while I realized I could just go in casual clothes (though my gym bans jeans) and it's fine. Up to you what's more motivating - workout clothes or reducing friction by wearing what you've got.
Depends how consistently I've been going. Early on I'll pick majority muscles like bi/triceps, glutes, pecs, or abs to break them into work out routine. Like I'll pick 3 and wear them out because that easy to do early on. As conditioning kicks in over the weeks then I can pick 2 category for a day like chest/abs, arms/legs, shoulders/back, etc so that more specific muscles get trained.
When I was working out regularly I'll say that home workouts are great. I didn't have the equipment or weights at the gym but dumbbells can be used to target very specific muscles that won't get in the way of next two workouts days
Even just the full set of free weights at a gym is the price of an annual membership (more than some discount gyms), let alone the expensive machines.
I think it was like 150 dollars a month for a membership here which is what made me go hell no!
That’s not a gym, it’s a full on spa
Nah. Just silly short sighted thinking.
Are you only going to exercise for a year or two? Yes? OK, well THEN you might have a point about gyms being cheaper...
but even a full set of weights and some minimal equipment is maaaaybe 5 years of gym memberships, for the cheap gyms.
Are you going to work out for less than five years of your life? If you answer "no", even financing some weights might be worth considering.
Sure, if “financing” didn’t involve interest
Sometimes there are no easy answers and you have to do something more than complain. Is it a perfect, convenient solution? No. Do you need a perfect solution before you fix anything?
Just go and do whatever you feel like. Eventually you will set up a routine and might even get into science based optimisations. Don’t overthink it. Doing anything is better than doing nothing.
The first visit to a gym could be free. Or it can be a "a current member can bring one friend for free once a month" thing. You can just go and check what's out there. Most people probably just lift weights or use the machines that they don't have and don't want to buy at home. There's also the factor that if you're at the gym, you're there to work out. When you're at home, you can be distracted by whatever.
Run on a treadmill and lift some weights?
Yup.
Gym memberships are insanely expensive. Are home workouts actually effective?
They can be. Depends in your goals and all that. Home gyms require space and money up front.
I've been following this routine for a while at home. It's been pretty good. I initially started with their 3 day a week dumbbell exercises.
https://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/6-day-dumbbell-only-workout
I've also probably spent over $1.5k on a quality bench and adjustable dumbbells. A far cry from what you can use at a gym, but it's good enough for me.
You can probably buy some cheap weights to start out and then move on from there.
Also, don't expect immediate results. Give it a solid 3 months.
With good knowledge of anatomy, dumbbells and a bench cover every single muscle in your body.
You do not need much at all what so ever to exercise every muscle in your body. Believing otherwise is rather ignorant and only provides more pull to gyms, which are not necessary for 99.999% of people!
Yea, I would agree with that.
You could even get away with not knowing much anatomy if you can find a good routine and make sure your form is right. At least I feel that's how I've gotten as far as I have.
The hardest part for me with working out at home is getting heavier weights. They get real expensive real fast and take up more and more room.
I assume there's some kind of social aspect to going to a gym as well. I have no idea because I prefer the opposite, lol.
Yea... I haven't explored the variety of "adjustable" weights outside of the classic bar + plates, but if any are reliable enough to run a routine with, 10-50lb adjustable dumbbells would cover like 95% of peoples' needs with two items.
I originally had some plate dumbbells that screwed on, but it was such a pain in the ass to change them.
I eventually used the core home fitness dumbbells for about a year before upgrading to the Nuobell dumbbells.
My healthcare plan reimbursed me for most of the cost, which was very nice.
That's a lot of questions, but I'll try.
What do you do at a gym? Use dedicated equipment to lift weights and build strength, work with a coach to help set workouts, and workout with other people who have the same goals.
A gym membership can be a way to meet other people and build community. If you see the same 5 people regularly due to similar gym schedules, you might build some friendships.
Primarily a gym can become a place where you are expected to exercise, so you're more likely to do it. If you have a treadmill and some dumbbells in your bedroom, your brain might not give you the motivation needed to use the equipment. You might hop on for 5 minutes, but then get distracted and stop using it. But if you traveled 20 minutes to a dedicated exercise location, then you're much less likely to stop and leave right away.
So what do you do? Well, depends on what your goals are. Did you want to get healthier? Some cardio where you get your heart rate up improves your cardiovascular health. Lifting weights, can help build muscle and bone health, which would make it much less likely to be injured, and much more likely to recover from an injury quicker.
If you can motivate yourself to workout at home, and if you can find a good routine that meets your goals, you can certainly do that all at home, even without much equipment at all. The problem is, are you actually doing what you need to do, or are you just moving around and wasting time with little actual effect? A coach that knows what their doing would be able to help you actually use your time.
jeans and a t shirt pretty much daily
Not great but acceptable gym garb.
I feel like I could do all of that at home.
You could do it at home with light weights. But heavier weights and equipment are really expensive and otherwise problematic to keep at home. Also, I find that there's something about being at the gym that makes it easier for me to work out. I did home workouts during covid but it just wasn't the same and I didn't get as good of a workout.
Also gym membership prices vary widely. Planet Fitness if you have one near you at least used to be as cheap as $10/month. Ignore anyone who says it's not a real gym, it's good enough for like 99% of people.YMCAs and other community centers tend to be on the cheaper side.
Also YMCA has income based pricing. Iirc it was like $50/year when I was working for minimum wage.
I never liked gyms. I get great workouts at home with a little open floor space and a stationary bike.
If you're wondering what the point is, you can just go to one and ask for a tour.
I pay $65 a month for a membership to my local YMCA mainly so I can use the pool.
You have some very good answers here. I’m just going to add to this and say what you pay for a gym membership compared to what you wouldpay for decent quality equipment at home. It’s cheaper to have the gym membership because you have the maintenance and the upkeep on the equipment andthe replacement cost on the equipment if you own it. Where as at the gym you go there The stuff is working.
Given a lot of it, you can replace in a fairly low cost way. But you still have the upkeep and maintenance. And you also have the space needed.
True. And you have to move the equipment around haha. But I wonder if I need more than some weights and an elliptical for winter time when I can't bike
My advice, do a lot of research figure out a gym that is easy to join and easy to get out of the membership or I should say to end the membership.
Then go there try all the different weights. Try the different pieces of equipment. And take notes to what you would really need, what you would really want. That should tell you how much space you would really want or need, and also the cost
Maintenance is an assumed cost. You do not NEED machines to exercise any muscle, and if you think dumb weights need maintenance beyond a wipedown/cleaning once in a while... then I have to question your knowledge or motives.
Wasn't talking about dumb weights. Obviously those don't have up keep costs.
As for the rest of my comment. It comes down to what the end user wants or feels comfortable with. Goes without saying you can exercise without machines. But that isn't the point. Each person wants something different.
So why the need to attack me?
OP: "I feel like I could do all of them at home"
You: "Still have upkeep and maintenance"
Me: "No, most things don't require tons of upkeep and maintenance, especially limiting it to things you'd 'need'."
Who do you actually agree with?
To answer the title question, you work out your body. That specifics of that question highly depends on your current situation. Like age, current fitness level, what you are training for (strength, cardio, weight loss, etc), and what you have access to.
Not that I liked the gym, but for lazy people like me it's way easier than figuring that shit out on my own. There was a trainer who made a plan of which exercises to do when. And there were special machines for training different muscle groups that were very easy to use. You'd visit a lot of those machines after eachother and do for instance 3 sets of moving the weight 10 times up and down again. And apart from that there were the threadmills etc.
Now I don't know about you, but I don't have threadmills in my house, nor any of the other equipment, nor someone who knows enough about fitness to know what exercises would help me best.
That being said, I never liked it, I prefer to just start with something and keep doing that same thing for an hour or so. Currently I've been running multiple times a week for a few years already. Way cheaper and it also works better for me.