As we continue our professional journey, juggling work and fitness becomes an uphill battle. While fitness is directly related to our health, we often ignore both. But now, that can be changed with a smart home gym.
I know that dedicating time to hit the gym at least four days a week is a tough job, especially for working professionals. Been there, done that! This is what a smart home gym can change because smart gear, when coupled with reliable home WiFi like the one from Spectrum Internet, changes the game.
You can build a gym setup and a workout routine, even though you have a small space to move around.
This is exactly what I will explore today. I will talk about the hardware, and beyond that, like tips on how to set it up, and what things you should absolutely avoid while building your smart home gym.
If that sounds great to you, let us talk about exactly that in detail.
Why Build a Smart Home Gym
There are multiple reasons that motivated me to build a smart home gym. Let me just share them with you:
Convenience and Flexibility:
The first thing that is on top of my mind right now is convenience. As I stated earlier, when you are working professionally, sometimes (with the tight deadlines) it gets tough to visit the gym regularly. But when the gym is sitting right there at home, you don’t have to worry about visiting a gym. So, it’s easy.
Plus, there is the benefit of flexibility in timing. You don’t have to follow a specific timetable. If you are working in the morning, you can exercise in the evening or at night. If, for some reason, you had to pull a night shift, you could always hit the gym in the morning. So, it is great having a smart home gym at home.
Data-Driven Progress Tracking:
Next up, you can record your progress with the help of data. That you might not be able to do at your neighborhood gym because of inflexibility and hardware constraints. At your smart home gym, you can use your own dedicated hardware to train your body, and get unique insights for how well you performed, where you lack, and excel. There is so much that you can do with your own dedicated fitness space.
Long-Term Cost Savings Over Gym Memberships:
According to statistics, Americans spend at least $40 to $70 a month on gym memberships. Now, if you calculate that cost over a year, this will increase to around $500 to $700. If you plan to keep yourself fit via the gym always the cost will eventually increase.
All such costs are eliminated if you can build a small but smart home gym that fundamentally checks every box you need in a gym. The costs might sound way too high initially, but eventually save you in the long run.
If you, too, think that a smart home gym is a great idea, let us talk about what you should look into while building your first smart home gym.
Smart Gear Essentials: What to Look For
These are the top features that you should be looking into while building your first-ever smart home gym.
The hardware should be compatible with your home and other hardware. It should have reliable connectivity with the internet, so that you won’t have any trouble keeping track of your progress.
Another thing that you should keep in mind is that it is a home gym and not a full-fledged one, so the space will be tight. This means the gear shouldn’t be so huge that you’d have trouble finding space for it, and even if you do, you lose space for other equipment in your smart home gym. So, avoid huge machines and rely on body weight for such workouts.
Last but not least, you have to choose the budget and the more premium range. The premium equipment, like a treadmill with a built-in multimedia screen, is nice to have, but not only would it be huge to fit in, it will also cost you a lot. If you can afford the price tag and the space, then for sure, you can get them. Otherwise, just avoid the expensive equipment, and invest that money in your diet.
Now, let us head into the necessary smart home gym equipment that you might need.
Best Smart Home Workout Gear by Category
Smart Fitness Mirrors
The first and foremost thing you need in a gym is a trainer. They help you correct your posture, motivate you, and overall help you achieve your fitness goals. But how can you have a trainer at home?
No, you won’t have an actual human trainer at home, but you would need something else – a smart fitness mirror. Smart fitness mirrors are partially mirrors in which you can see yourself, and the other half is a display that shows the necessary information like correct posture, rep count, and more.
Smart fitness mirror works just like a trainer and helps you do everything that a trainer does. Although it cannot entirely replace the actual trainer, it does help somewhat, and can be of great help if you, too are willing.
Echelon Reflect 50 and Lululemon are two of the best smart fitness mirrors that I have personally tried. If you can find them used on eBay, it will be an absolute bang for your buck.
Connected Cardio Machines
Cardio is an important aspect of any fitness, and that is not going to change, especially for people like us with white-collar desk jobs. We keep sitting for long hours, and there is zero physical activity. So, cardio is important.
How can you do cardio at home? Unless you are a billionaire with a running track at home, you won’t be able to do cardio. The only solution left is cardio machines like smart bikes, treadmills, and rowers.
They might not be affordable, but they are one of the best things that you can gift to your body. Jacobs Ladder Treadmill Climber and Yesoul T1 Treadmill are reliable choices in the smart cardio machines niche, so, do check them out. Also, if you cannot afford to buy new, you can always go with refurbished ones, or used ones in good condition that are almost the same as new.
Wearables That Enhance Your Home Workouts
A smart gym at home would be incomplete if you don’t have a smart wearable piece of tech sitting on your wrist. They are one of the coolest and most useful pieces of tech that you can buy for your home fitness.
They keep track of everything that is important to your health – heart rate, sleep, steps, and, in some cases, SpO2. Also, they come in cheap, and can offer some more features like notification, calling via Bluetooth, calendars, alarms, and most stuff that your phone can do.
Apple Watch Ultra, and FitBit bands are great when it comes to tracking your health. If you don’t own an iPhone, avoid Apple Watch, and get a Galaxy Watch instead.
No Non-Sense Basics
Last but not least, you have the basics of any gym, like dumbbells and curling rods.
You don’t have to go smart for them, just make sure they are adjustable. I mean, you don’t need to spend on a new set of dumbbells for each weight increase. You can change the plates with the adjustable dumbbells, and you will be fine.
Also, don’t make the mistake that I made, which is buying iron dumbbells. One spill of water, and they start getting red with rust. So, do get the ones with rubber on them.
So, that’s been it. Let me conclude by providing you with a subreddit where people share their experience with smart home gyms. The advice given there is priceless and can help you avoid the hiccups that may come while building your home gym.
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