How to Create a Workout Space in a Small Apartment
A home gym allows you to embrace a healthy, active lifestyle on your own terms. However, living in a small apartment can make it challenging to plan and build an inspiring workout space. You need a clear vision, a well-thought-out process and spot-on equipment selection. This guide will provide the insights you need to create the home gym of your dreams in a compact apart.
The Benefits of a Home Gym
Creating a home gym for your apartment is a great way to invest in your health. Training in your own workout room offers benefits like:
Time savings: Working out at home saves you time by eliminating the commute to a commercial gym and back. This allows you to devote more time to rest, hobbies or other commitments. It also makes it easier for you to sustain your exercise habit through every season.
Cost savings: Your cumulative savings compared to years of gym membership fees and fuel costs from gym commutes can offset an upfront investment in home gym equipment.
Privacy: If you feel self-conscious about exercising around others, a home gym is the perfect private space to build your muscles and your confidence away from strangers’ eyes.
Flexibility: Even if you also like training at a commercial gym in your area, a home gym gives you another option for days when you have less time or feel like training in your own space.
Motivation: A home gym is an environment you can fine-tune to maximize motivation. Choose your hype music, plaster motivational quotes or images on the wall, and write your goals on a whiteboard. Every aspect of the space is yours, so you can engineer your own fitness inspiration.
Small Home Gym Ideas
If you want to tap into these benefits, making intentional equipment selections is essential. The right equipment choices for you depend on the exercises you want at the core of your routine, which depends on your fitness goals. If you’re looking to strengthen your muscles while building overall fitness, consider starting with these space-efficient basics:
Adjustable dumbbells: A single set of adjustable dumbbells can replace dozens of regular dumbbells. This space-saving solution allows you to scale up or down as you progress in strength and rotate through exercises without purchasing more weights. From side lateral raises to split squats, you can explore multiple exercises for every part of your body with adjustable dumbbells.
Adjustable kettlebells: Similar to adjustable dumbbells, adjustable kettlebells offer a range of weight options while occupying minimal space. You can use these to perform a range of swinging and snatching movements that help stabilize your core, hone your coordination and develop power throughout your body.
Adjustable bench: A fold-away adjustable bench is easy to store and unlocks exercises like bench presses, incline presses and tricep dips.
Resistance bands: Bands occupy almost no space but allow you to add tension to exercises like squats and pushups. They’re also great for warmups and mobility work.
A pullup bar: A mountable pullup bar can fit at the top of any doorway in your home. It takes up no floor space and allows you to strengthen your grip, arms, back and core through pullups, hanging leg raises and other exercises.
Cardio equipment: If you want to build aerobic fitness, consider adding cardio equipment like a spin bike, foldable treadmill or jump rope. If you live in a rental community with a swimming pool or walking path, you can always swap your indoor cardio for outdoor movement when the weather is good.
Workout mats: Exercise mats provide a comfortable surface for bodyweight exercises like situps, leg raises and pushups. They can also spare your neighbors from the sound of weights hitting the floor during your workouts.
Vertical storage: Vertical storage helps optimize limited floor space. Use weight stands, shelves and hooks to avoid cluttering the floor of your small workout room.
7 Steps to Build a Small Apartment Home Gym
When you’re ready to make your home gym a reality, follow these seven steps to bring your personal workout room to life:
Gather inspiration: Use Pinterest, Canva or any app you prefer to gather inspiring pictures of home gym designs you love. This will help you decide what to look for when creating your own workout space.
Choose a room: Pick a room or section of a room in your apartment to become your dedicated exercise area. It should have enough space to perform the main exercises you plan to do and enough ventilation to keep you cool.
Create an equipment wish list: Drawing from your inspiration pictures and the recommendations in this guide, list all the equipment you’d include in your ideal home gym.
Map out the space: Using an app or plain old pencil, map out your workout area roughly to scale. You can use this to plan a layout to fit your equipment.
Refine the wish list: If your mapping indicates that not all items on your equipment wish list will fit, prioritize space-efficient items that cover all your bases. For example, a squat rack and barbell may not fit your layout, but you can get similar benefits from goblet squats with an adjustable dumbbell or kettlebell and an optional resistance band.
Get approval: Get your landlord’s approval, especially if your home gym design involves large equipment, wall or ceiling installations, or anything else that could damage your apartment. If they hesitate, you can suggest solutions like safety mats to protect the floors from heavy equipment. Have an honest conversation and respect their ownership rights. This may involve some compromises, but you’ll likely get their thumbs-up to bring in reasonable fitness equipment.
Buy and install equipment: With your landlord’s go-ahead, you can order your equipment and assemble the home gym you’ve been dreaming of.
Activate Your Lifestyle in a Triple Crown Corporation Apartment
A home gym can help you embrace a healthy lifestyle and achieve your fitness goals in the comfort of your apartment. You’ll experience the best home workouts when you settle down and set up in a place you love to live. If you’re looking for a new place to call home and kick-start your fitness journey, explore Triple Crown Corporation’s rental communities.
We have more than 20 rental communities in Pennsylvania and Easton, Maryland. Options range from studio apartments to three-bedroom townhomes, so you’re bound to find a home that suits your taste and accommodates your home gym. Several of our communities have amenities like pools, parks and walking paths to complement your healthy routines.
Contact us today to learn more about Triple Crown Corporation rentals.
