Time to Exercise: Setting Up a Home Gym

My old cumbersome dumbbells

A few years ago, I reached a point in my walking where I was no longer making progress. I was walking at least an hour each day on outdoor trails. My weight loss reached a plateau. I realized that all the walking strengthened me to the point where an hour walk is no breeze, and my recent weight loss meant it was taking less effort to walk. I tried extending my walks, or taking two daily hour walks. It was nice to spend all that time outdoors, but with work, my daughter, housework, and other things, it became difficult to find that kind of time.

My PowerBlock Dumbbells

To boost my development, I decided to go back to weight training, something I had done briefly as a teenager, and then again in college. However I did not like gyms. The thought of getting into the car to go to a gym, to exercise in front of other people no less, robs me of half the motivation to work out. If only I had a set of weights at home, I thought, then I'd have no excuse to skip workouts. The only problem was that I hated my old set of weights. To change weights, I had to screw or unscrew the weights one by one, which was cumbersome.

I looked around and found a set of easily adjustable dumbbells from Powerblock that take little space. Weights stack within each other, while a sliding clamp can be used to quickly change weights. That was nice as I did not have much room for equipment. In addition, I needed an exercise bench. Found one from Bowflex that fit my budget and my space. Overall, I am happy with my choices, as those dumbbells and bench make it more convenient for me to work out in my bedroom, and have enabled me to exercise more consistently.

Dumbbells are a better choice than barbells for home use for two reasons: (1) they occupy less space, especially those stackable ones, and (2) most dumbbell exercises do no require someone to spot you as you can simply drop the dumbbells to the ground if need be. Also shown in my setup, underneath the dumbbell set, is a foam roller and tennis balls, a yoga block, yoga mats, and ankle and wrist weights. I will explain more about these in future posts.

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Staying the Path

Sooner or later, every exercise plan stumbles upon obstacles, such as work demands, travel, weather, or injury. Following are the ones I encountered over the past five years. I will address each in turn in later posts, along with my response to each challenge. Finding the time to exercise. Schedule disruptions such as illness, travel or extended work commitments. Monotony: Boredom from doing the same routines and running over the same trails. Being a single-parent: I have shared custody of my daughter, which imposes the added challenge of integrating my exercise with my parenting. Weather: a significant factor for exercising outdoors. Trail conditions: ice, rain, mud, potholes, construction closures, etc., can interfere with our planned activities. Injuries. Specific adaptations because of lifestyle. For example, I live in a townhouse, so end up doing stairs twice as often as usual, while my work involves sitting in front of the computer for long hours. These ha...

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