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Get fit on a Budget:Home gym on a budget

March 5, 2010 By Kelly

This is a guest post from Liz Muirhead, who blogs about health and fitness at Looking Good (for a mom). Liz is a thirty-something working mom of two wonderful kiddos, who got fed up with using her kids to explain her flab and found a way to get the best body of her life!

So you want to get in shape, do you?

Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to go into debt to succeed! I’m Liz, author of a fitness and nutrition blog called Looking Good (for a mom). While I write about eating healthy and staying fit on my own blog, I love reading about personal finance and living frugally. That’s why I’m thrilled to be writing for The Centsible Life to help Kelly’s readers get in shape and healthy on a budget.

In the first post in this series, I’ll be helping you determine what equipment you need to start getting in shape. Rather than spending $20-$100 per month on a gym membership, or $3,000 on gym equipment for your home, there are a few ways to build out an inexpensive home gym.

When investing in items for a home gym, focus on resistance training (weight training). It’s more effective and efficient than traditional cardio for weight loss, so you’ll get more results out of an investment in resistance training materials than you would in spending $800 on a treadmill or elliptical machine. Besides, cardio is cheap! You can run outside, jump rope, or do calisthenics to get a great, high-intensity cardio workout.

Bargain home gym  (about $40)– all you need to start bodyweight resistance workouts:

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  • Stability ball — Generally priced from $15-$30, a stability ball is a versatile piece of equipment that open up a wider range of bodyweight exercises.
  • Chin-up bar — The bargain in this category is the portable Iron Gym at $20, while the Cadillac systems generally affix permanently to a wall and cost around $80-$100.

Mid-range home gym  (about $150-200)– start with the above and add:

  • Weight Bench — You can get just a bench (that inclines, lays flat, and declines) for about $50-$60. There are more expensive configurations, but they’re generally full of gimmicks or for people with an olympic weight set.
  • Adjustable dumbbells — You can buy an inexpensive adjustable dumbbell set for around $50, but it will take a lot of time to change from one weight to another. If you want a really versatile quick-changing set that’s easy to use, you should expect to spend closer to $400 (the price of the Powerblock dumbbells in our home that go up to 50lbs per hand).

-OR-

  • Suspension trainer — As an alternative to the weight bench and adjustable dumbbells above, you can take your bodyweight workouts to the next level by investing in a TRX Professional Suspension Training system for $150. The TRX increases the range and intensity of bodyweight exercises you can do, and is a great system that’s earned the respect of many professional trainers.

Although the items listed above are fairly affordable, you can occasionally score items for an even better price if you watch Craigslist or his a local second-hand store. One of the best times to find items is just before summer, as people who purchased items at the new year come to terms with the idea that their purchases are just glorified dust and/or clothing collectors.

Want a bodyweight workout you can use with your $40 bargain home gym? Subscribe to get email updates from Looking Good (for a mom)’s RSS feed and Liz will send you one!

Creative Commons License photo credit:  DrJimiGlide

Kelly’s notes: I am thrilled that Liz will be coming on as a sometimes writer for the ¢entsible life! Look for her posts in the Health section.

About Kelly


Kelly Whalen is the founder and editor of the Centsible Life. She started the blog in 2008 as her family faced a mountain of debt and the fixer upper they purchased became a FIXER UPPER. The website was born out of her desire to share what was working (and what was not) on her family's journey to financial security. Kelly lives in Minneapolis with her family.

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Filed Under: Health Tagged With: fitness, Health, home gym


Comments

  1. Steven Lupton says

    March 14, 2012 at 2:45 am

    Eating cheaply rules out Whole Foods entirely, no? That’s actually now my closest grocery, but I try not to buy anything there. They’re like the Walmart of natural foods-predatory, spread like maggots, no thought to local produce or products. I much prefer Rainbow, or even the local Mexican produce markets. I mostly eat at home, but if you stay away from the chains, you can eat cheaply out. I can get a burrito and agua fresca for $5.20, or a huge Vietnamese tofu soup for similar price, and what I make at home never tastes quite the same.

  2. Liz says

    March 8, 2010 at 3:47 pm

    Thanks, Rahim! Glad you liked it. I do think it's easy to work out at home, but some people (myself included) have trouble being motivated to do so when there are so many things that can distract them! I'm so glad it works for you.

  3. Liz says

    March 8, 2010 at 3:47 pm

    Thanks, Rahim! Glad you liked it. I do think it's easy to work out at home, but some people (myself included) have trouble being motivated to do so when there are so many things that can distract them! I'm so glad it works for you.

  4. Rahim Samuel says

    March 6, 2010 at 12:00 am

    This was a great article. I work out at home and have been doing so since the beginning. The chin up bar, dip bar and elliptical machine are my 3 tools of trade.

  5. Rahim Samuel says

    March 6, 2010 at 5:00 am

    This was a great article. I work out at home and have been doing so since the beginning. The chin up bar, dip bar and elliptical machine are my 3 tools of trade.

Trackbacks

  1. Looking Good (for a mom) » Blog Archive » Frugal Fitness – Home Gym on a Budget says:
    March 5, 2010 at 12:03 pm

    […] first article went up today, and it’s about building a home gym on a budget. Think you can’t afford to exercise? THINK AGAIN. AKPC_IDS += "481,";Popularity: unranked […]

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Hi! I'm Kelly Whalen, writer, frugality expert, debt slayer, and money nerd. Welcome to the Centsible Life, my corner of the internet, where I help women live happier, healthier, and wealthier lives. My goal is to help you save time + money, so you can spend both how you want.

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