Rip: A Home Gym May Be In Your Immediate Future

[Mark Rippetoe]

A Home Gym May Be in Your Immediate Future | Mark Rippetoe

[golftdibrad]

I'd like to contribute a personal observation.

I once read somewhere while I was still going to commercial gyms that there are basically 3 types of people that use the gym, and I found it to ring very true.

1. People going for social aspect. Spin, zumba, and that kind of shit.
2. People that go only because they pay the fee, and they are going to use the services they pay for. The traditional model depends on a large number of these people getting lazy one day.
3. People genuinely there to improve their body / health.

Starting Strength will generally self select for the third group heavily.

I was part of group three for a couple years before we had our kid. After he came, both the travel time to the gym and the time there didn't blend well with a very young child so I got my bar, weights, bench, and a rack. About the same time I decided that if i was going to have all this crap I should stop 'fucking around' in my little self built weight room and do a program, and that's when I found Starting Strength. One of the best things I've ever done for myself was reading the book and doing the program. I'd watch the SS youtube videos on form on repeat while training.

If you are here and have the space in your home, ditch your gym membership (unless its at a SS gym / one with a SS coach) and buy the equipment. You can get started for about 1k with decent quality stuff, less if you browse the cesspool that is facebook market. It's the best investment in your health you will ever make.

[David A. Rowe]

I like to tell people "Having a home gym is a great investment! I could lift naked. I don't, but I could... and there's a special freedom in that."

[Chris_Richard]

I’ve been training at home for over a decade. My equipment and set up is the best part of my house. People spend so much money on shit that doesn’t matter, doesn’t last, etc. These are purchases that generally should last a very long time if not a lifetime. The return on investment is immeasurable when you consider not paying for a gym membership, having no commute to the gym, removing excuses not to train, creating a place for personal development and mental solitude, etc. etc.

[Gerhard Häring]

I have a stupid question about these spotter arms displayed in the article's picture, partly because that is what I have available to train with in the gym. I am certain they are fine for failed benchpresses. And probably for a failed squat that you don't get out of the bottom. Are they generally safe, though? I wonder if anybody needed to bail out of a squat from some more height and 200 kg of weight came crushing down on this construction, which is ultimately held only by a single (welded on?) pin. Can I trust these things for real?

[Jason Donaldson]

I like to tell people "Having a home gym is a great investment! I could lift naked. I don't, but I could... and there's a special freedom in that."

It's uncanny that you bring up such a similar comment to ones I've made to people before... Must be a Marine thing...

I have a stupid question about these spotter arms displayed in the article's picture, partly because that is what I have available to train with in the gym. I am certain they are fine for failed benchpresses. And probably for a failed squat that you don't get out of the bottom. Are they generally safe, though? I wonder if anybody needed to bail out of a squat from some more height and 200 kg of weight came crushing down on this construction, which is ultimately held only by a single (welded on?) pin. Can I trust these things for real?

I have that exact model myself, so I can speak from experience. The safeties are very sturdy - a single pin holds them in place, but the long, flat surfaces of contact along the front of the upright provide a significant amount of bearing surface to distribute weight and impact. If you set them to the right height for squats, then on a failed rep, you lower yourself back down into the hole and collapse slightly forward to lower the bar a matter of inches onto the safeties, in a fairly gentle manner. No crashing involved.

If you're going to bail out and pitch the bar off your back, you may as well do so to the deck, not to the safeties, because the safeties are adding nothing but risk at that point.

[IlPrincipeBrutto]

I've been training on my terrace for almost ten years now (back in the days of E&P, some people found this equally amusing and scary).
My set-up has a couple of important limitations; I don't have a bench, and no squat safeties.
Also, although I don't mind solitude, having a training buddy would have been helpful; but inviting a stranger home at 6am is not really on.
Still, even this incomplete arrangements have made a huge difference in terms of convenience, freedom and, last but not least, cost.
If you have the space and an understanding family, I would say you should give a personal gym a try.

IPB