H and I are off enjoying our honeymoon. I wont be responding to comments, but I will be posting new article and I’ll read all my comments when I get back. Thanks for reading! This is a guest post from Nathan at Real Sustainable Habits.
Staying fit is an important priority, but it sure seems expensive nowadays. Home gyms run close to $500, can be costly to maintain, and don’t really include a way to get in a good cardio workout, which might incline you to fork over another $400 for a treadmill or some other complicated piece of motorized equipment designed to induce calorie-burning movement of your bodily appendages. Even a modestly priced membership from, say, Planet Fitness is likely to run $23.33 a month,1 plus travel, premium classes, and the fancy new active gear you might find yourself picking up in order to blend in with your fellow gym members. The upfront costs and small but steady stream of monthly financial hemorrhaging might seem just enough to drive the frugally-minded batty. The operative word, here, however, is seem. I’m going to illustrate that, despite appearances, one of these options provides a pretty darn rosy picture for the health-conscious penny-pincher. To put it in as few words as possible: Gym memberships are for suckers. All you really need to whip yourself into shape is a little bit of time and the resolve to follow a low-cost, good old fashioned workout routine that can be done pretty much anywhere.
Gym Memberships are for Suckers
Despite the higher initial price for the home gym equipment, taking this route to maintaining and improving your health ends up being far cheaper than paying for a gym membership in the long run. Let’s compare the cost of these two options, both in terms of money and time, over the period of a year. For sake of simplicity, we’ll assume the following scenario pertains to you:
- You exercise 5 days each week after work,
- your home, gym, and workplace are each 4 miles from one another, taking you approx. 7 minutes to get from one to the other while traveling an average of 35mph in a car,
- gas runs $3.25 a gallon,
- and your car gets 27 miles to the gallon.
Moreover, due to crowds, waiting for others to stop hogging the work out equipment, the time it takes to change in the locker room, and other miscellaneous nuisances, the exercise routine you follow at the gym takes an average of an hour and 15 minutes. A similar workout takes 45 minutes on your home gym & treadmill.
Lastly, there will inevitably be maintenance expenses for the home exercise equipment, and clothing/shoes will need to be replaced. Let’s say maintenance averages out to $20 per year over the lifetime of the equipment (a 20 year lifespan) and clothing costs $60 a year. The clothing costs will likely be much less if you’re exercising at home, seeing as you can wear whatever you want (or wear nothing at all!), but to be on the conservative side, let’s say the clothing costs for at-home exercise end up running $30 a year.
Given the information above, the annualized expense for the two scenarios works out as follows:
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Even with expensive equipment, working out at home saves $370 and just over 161 hours per year. That amounts to $4,654 and just over 67 days saved over the course of a decade!2 That’s pretty impressive, but the frugal-minded can do better still.
A Simple, Effective Home Exercise Routine
Exercising at home doesn’t require fancy gadgets and expensive bulky equipment that you probably don’t have enough room for, anyway. All you need to get a full workout with results as good as you’d get in a gym are a) some dumbbells (or resistance bands), b) a pull-up bar (or resistance bands), and c) your very own body. This will not only cut costs; done properly, it’ll significantly reduce your workout time even more.3
Here’s what brand new sets of the above-mentioned equipment are running for nowadays:
- Cap Dumbbell 5-25lb Set: $250
- Black Mountain Pull-up Bar: $30
- Black Mountain Resistance Band Set: $30
Even if you were to buy all of the above-mentioned equipment brand new (check craigslist, yard sales, and thrift stores first), your cost would still be $590 less than buying a home gym and a treadmill. What’s more, maintenance costs will be virtually $0 and, with the exception of the resistance bands, the equipment may never need to be replaced. But let’s just say for the sake of our analysis that the weight-set and pull-up bar last 40 years before they need replaced and the bands need replaced every 10 years. Given this, our “bars or bands” workout will run a whopping $9.75 a year, with a total annual cost of $39.75 after accounting for clothing replacement. This will save at least an additional $1,608 over the course of a decade, but probably much more.4
So we’ve got the cost part down; now it’s time to address how a “bars or bands” exercise routine can cut down your workout time, too. The key is to sneak cardio into your strength training by keeping the rest period between sets under ten seconds, just enough time to jot down the number of reps completed in a journal and get ready for the next set. Give yourself 20 minutes to complete a series of 5 to 6 sets, and do as many sets as you can in that period. The aim is not for speed, but to keep the body as active as possible during the 20 minute window. Do this for 4 days each week, and on a 5th day, spend at least 40 minutes or more engaging in intense cardio activity (e.g. running, biking, swimming, basketball, etc.) I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and it works like a charm (not to mention that I lost 39 pounds over the course of the first year following it). Here’s one variety of my own workout routine, to give you an idea of how it works (determine a weight that will provide enough resistance & adjust reps as needed):
Day 1: Arms & Shoulders
- Bicep Curls: 25 reps
- Straight Arm Shoulder Fly: 20 reps
- Tricep Extensions: 25 reps
- Shoulder Press: 25 reps
- Concentration Curls: 25 reps
- Repeat above until 20 minutes are up
Day 2: Back & Core
- Sit-ups: 25 reps
- Wide Grip Pull-ups: 15 reps
- Pulse Ups: 25 reps
- Pull-ups: 15 reps
- Bicycle Crunch: 25 reps
- Chin-ups:20 reps
- Repeat above until 20 minutes are up
Day 3: Chest & Arms
- Push-ups: 40 reps
- Chair Dips: 40 reps
- Military Push-ups: 25 reps
- Static Dumbbell Curls: 20 reps
- Plank: 90 seconds
- Repeat above until 20 minutes are up
Day 4: Legs & Core
- Lunge: 25 reps, each leg
- Pendulum: 30 seconds each side
- Squat: 30 reps
- Mason Twist: 30 reps
- Calf Raise: 75 reps
- Repeat above until 20 minutes are up
Day 5: Cardio Day
- 40 minutes or more of intense cardio activity5
Foregoing a gym membership and following this routine or a routine like it will preserve at least $5,349 of your riches and give back 105 1/2 days of your life,6 while keeping you in at least as good a shape all the while!
A Few Brief Tips on Staying Motivated
Given the numbers above, it’s hard to argue that one shouldn’t abandon the gym membership to adopt a home exercise routine. There may still be some leftover concerns, however. Gyms provide a community, and workouts take place in a semi-public atmosphere, all of which helps to keep one motivated to continue exercising. By foregoing the gym, you might worried you’ll sacrifice those motives and eventually sputter in your routine. This is a legitimate concern that I had when I switched exclusively to working out at home. Here’s some things I did that have kept me motivated:
- Keep a “Journal:” That is, use something to track your progress (I use a LibreOffice spreadsheet), so that you can see where you’ve improved and what you need to work on. It’s a big boost of confidence to see over the course of a few weeks that you’re completing more sets in less time, doing more reps, or increasing your weight.
- Make Your Goals Public: When you let others know that you’ve committed to a particular goal, this can help get you to follow through with it. Not only will others hold you accountable for your action/inaction, they will likely show encouragement and support, as well.
- Find Partners and/or a Community: This can be done in either of two ways, local or online. The former is probably more difficult, but if you know of friends, acquaintances, or family members in the area who are health conscious or are looking to get in shape, you could find find times to collaborate workouts. But even if that isn’t an option, seek out an online community for assistance, encouragement, and to challenge one another to improve.
Do you exercise at home or at a gym? What is your experience with them? Do you have any further tips or effective exercises you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments!
1. $20 service fee per month, plus $40 annual membership fee.
2. The ten year savings estimate assumes the yearly savings ($370) receives a conservative return of 5% on investment, compounded over the ten year period.
3. Or, alternately, you could spend the same amount of time and get more from your workout.
4. The ten year savings estimate assumes that the remainder of the home gym & treadmill expense minus the expenses for bars & bands ($590) and the yearly savings ($55.25), receive a conservative return of 5% on investment, compounded over the ten year period.
5. Every few weeks or so you’ll want to swap these exercises with others that work the same muscle group. This helps keep the muscles from acclimating to the repetition, which slows growth.
6. More time to read! Woohoo!
I love the detail in this post! But you are making a lot of assumptions about the way people like to work out. Personally when I weight lift I don’t like to use dumbbells but barbells mostly to get a more full-body workout, which I am not prepared to buy. I also know a LOT of women love workout classes where they have that group/team atmosphere led by a professional that you just can’t replicate at home. Another limitation is your home itself – we have a very small space and live on the second floor so my neighbors don’t appreciate me jumping around at odd hours. And not everyone can pick up their workout equipment of choice as inexpensively as you can – what about the hard-core ellipticalers, or people who like to use a lot of different cardio machines?
All that said, I do prefer working out at home to going to a gym (even though I have a free gym membership at my work so it’s very convenient). What you mentioned about the wasted time getting to and from and in and out of the gym is the main reason I prefer to work out at home or in my apartment complex’s gym – all that time really adds up!
Thanks for the comment, Emily! You raise a lot of great points. Obviously some will prefer a workout routine that’s different than the one presented in the post. Someone could follow that routine if they’re looking for a fast and dirty way to get started working out at home (which needs very little room), but it’s definitely tweak-able for those who prefer other styles. In other words, my own workout equipment and routine is used here as something of a “proof of concept” for those who perhaps haven’t thought about the time and money expense involved in gym memberships vs. home gyms.
The point about attending classes led by a professional is a good one. I have friends who pay for Crossfit training. It’s valuable to them, so it’s worth it. I wouldn’t tell them stop going and turn away from something they value merely to save some money.
Great breakdown of the costs of a gym membership vs. a home gym. I have a recumbent bike in my office (at home) and I also work at a place that gives me access to a gym for free. I usually prefer to do my working out at home though.
Good to hear that you’re already in the habit of exercising at home. Even if the gym access comes free from your current job, that might lead to greater costs if you grew accustomed to such exercise and changed to a job without such a perk.
It is very simple, eat less calories than you burn and keep moving. If you take that statement to heart, you almost can’t go wrong. I have a home gym, I bicycle and walk to stay fit. I maintain a reasonably healthy diet too.
Yes, that’s right! For most people it really is that simple. Diet is just as important as exercise, perhaps even more so.
Couldn’t agree more with everything you said. I’m a blue collar guy and so my “workouts” are just my job everyday. But my wife does what you suggest. She walks, runs, and has some weights at home. She’s lost A LOT of weight since having our last baby and could do it without a gym membership. Also, she’s been big on using youtube for at-home workouts. It’s amazing the workouts that you can find on youtube for free!
That’s great about the youtube workout videos. I hadn’t thought of that! I’ll have to check some out.
Good points, especially about the cost of fuel and the long-term cost of initially expensive seeming equipment. You also left out the intangible negatives of loud music and the meat market aspects of some clubs. At 68 years of age, and living alone in a small space, I like to get out, mingle with people (particularly with people who quietly place more value on good habits than the average), and have a variety of variable resistance machines. The occasional swim and rewarding dip in the jacuzzi is nice, too. I accept your points, but see it as an affordable and rewarding luxury.
Yes, the social aspect of going to a gym can certainly be a positive that makes it worth the cost. This is most especially the case if working out with others in a non-gym setting is impossible or impractical.