How To Start A Simple Home Gym For Under $200. Steemit Bought Me a Gym & I'm Gaining Strength After Years of Recovery From a Near Fatal Car Crash!

After a year of Chiropractic care and 9 earlier years of various therapies and a lot of pain, I have finally healed most of my spine following a near fatal car crash over 10 years ago! Now I need to strengthen my body to return to full health and so I decided to build a little gym. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it can now be done for a very low cost and even better, I could use my Steem payouts to do it!

Back when I was a teenager, around the Victorian Era in England (jk) - I would visit the local gym a couple of times a week and also studied martial arts - so I was getting quite fit, but once I reached university that all stopped totally as I was so busy doing other things. Ever since then my avoidance of exercise has been a problem for me and once my spine was seriously knocked out of alignment in a car crash, I was actually unable to do much exercise even if I wanted to. That has all changed now though, since I have finally found the correct approach for healing my spine - which was, as it turned out, a combination of nutrition changes, emotional trauma healing and also expert chiropractic care. I'll post later about the my chiropractic experience as it will really help some people who otherwise would not understand how under-rated chiropracters are.

This post, though, is about how to build your own home gym for minimal amounts of money and almost match much of the exercise options that are available in full size gyms. At the very least you will be able to work all of your muscles in a small amount of space for less money than many gyms charge for an annual membership!

Best of all - I paid for this health boost using my hard earned post payouts from Steemit - So thanks again to my fellow Steemians, for helping me get fit and also to be able to further share the love by inspiring others to do the same. :)

The Basics

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Getting fit is not really so complicated - especially if you are someone who has already learned to deal with complicated things.. like using a cellphone or brushing your teeth :)

However, there are numerous ways to do it badly and a few important things you need to understand to do it well. I am not a trained expert, nor a qualified teacher - so I'm just sharing some simple things that work.. If you are looking for expert help then go find an expert! ;)

Basically, you need to be building muscle and also burning fat. Burning fat requires us to create a 'caloric deficit', which really just means Using more energy than you take in through your diet. By eating the correct nutrition, with enough nutrients, carbohydrates, protein and healthy fats - you will greatly help your task, since your body will have the building blocks it needs to build new, quality tissue - plus will be forced to use up your fat reserves as you go through your day. For me, this means minimal to no refined sugar products (which is ideal for health anyway), plus sticking to a plant based diet (which I do anyway). Contrary to common misconceptions - vegans can EASILY get enough protein in their diet from plants and in fact the plant proteins are more easily absorbed by the body since they are simpler and require less energy to break down during digestion than the animal proteins do.

So do your research, learn a bit about nutrition, and your exercise will be vastly more productive and less likely to involve injury.

Aerobic exercise is also vital for burning fat and also for maintaining overall health and oxygenating the body's cells. Cycling, swimming, running, canoeing, yoga and classic 'aerobics' are all great ways to get the body moving, the blood pumping and cells working. This will also ensure your body's lympathic system is moving, which means your body's 'junk' can be cleared out properly - which will greatly enhance your health, appearance and longevity in life. Hint: The legs act as the pump for the lymphatic system, so walking/running and cycling are all great for detoxing.

Resistance training is your friend!

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When I started out years ago, there were only really traditional dumb weights available on barbells/dumbells and also big, heavy machines that specialised into working one or more muscle groups - training them with various amounts of weight. Since then though, we have seen an evolution of 'resistance bands' - which are various forms of strong rubber bands/tubes that are used to give our muscles some resistance to work against when exercising.

Resistance bands can be used in conjunction with other forms of exercise, such as yoga and pilates - plus can be used in their own right as a replacement for traditional weight training systems.

For example, you can put the bands under your own feet while standing up straight and can then perform exercises that you would usually use a barbell for - such as standard bicep curls. The Resistance bands are also highly versatile and can be connected to any solid objects you may have to allow you to use them at different angles and so to exercise different muscle groups.

As you can see, I attached a couple of heavy duty metal supports to the wall in my office/gym and so I can now run the resistance tubes through them and then perform a variety of exercises that you would typically do in a gym with much more expensive equipment.

I bought two sets of resistance bands on Ebay, that were both around $10 - the first set is the 'big rubber band' style which can be used on their own and are very light weight, so are great for travelling. The second set are the tube type which also came with handles and ankle straps - plus an adapter that can be connected to a door to allow you to anchor the tubes to points at various heights. These are really introductory products, but that's all I need at the moment as I am only moving from a rehabilitation stage and into the beginnings of regular muscle building and exercising. The pros will also use resistance bands, but they typically use much sturdier and larger bands - which typically retail for about $20-30 each.

If you only have a few dollars to spare, a set of resistance bands from Ebay will go a long way to helping you get stonger - I highly recommend them. There are many good videos on youtube which demonstrate ways you can use them.. The only risk is that you might buy poorly constructed ones and if they do break while you are using them there is a chance you could be struck somewhere sensitive by a high speed plastic part/handle and that would NOT be fun! So take care!

Use your own body weight to train

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The more fat we are carrying, the quicker we can burn it off - so if you start exercising and are greatly over weight, you will see quicker results than someone who is not so overweight. Equally, you are also in a more 'economically beneficial' position when weight training, since you can use your own weight as a tool to build your strength by doing exercises that life your body up.

The rest of the money I spent in my gym was on devices that work in that way - specifically to allow me to exercise my back and stomach, since these are the core areas that I need to strengthen the most and which I find difficult to exercise without some kind of exercise device to help.

All of these devices were from Ebay and were all pretty cheap considering that they are strongly enough built to support much heavier people than myself. The only tool I needed to buy was a masonry drill bit that was big enough to drill holes for the metal supports that need to be embedded into a strong wall to support two of the devices (I already had an electric drill).

This one allows me to support my weight with my arms/shoulders/back and then life up my legs to exercise my stomach and lots of other muscles too:

This is a standard, angled sit-up bench that I also use to do some simple chest exercises with dumbells. These weights are actually the original ones I bought when I was 16 years old - still going strong! (Note: Don't do what I did then and go to buy a heavy weight set on a bus, not thinking about having to lift them all home via the bus! lol).

Finally, I bought a pull up bar and fitted it over my bedroom doorway. I find this to be the hardest of all of the exercises as it forces you to support your entire body weight with your own arms and shoulders. This also works the stomach muscles hard too. There are ways to make this easier for beginners though, including using a big resistance band to help support your weight.. Just loop the band around the pullup bar and then put your foot/feet through the other end - so that you can bounce up and down on the band (Make sure your band is strong enough for this first though!).

The Results

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I've only been using these for a couple of weeks and have only been doing 30 minute sessions every couple of days. It is important to allow the body to rest, since the exercise periods are actually breaking the muscled DOWN and it is only during rest that the body then repairs them and builds them UP - which results in greater strength and muscle tone/size. Even from just these few sessions I can see an obvious improvement in the shape of my body and feel MUCH stronger. Previously, I might feel aches and weakness when just doing basic things day to day - such as lifting slightly heavy objects or supporting myself as I get up from the floor.. Now though, I have no pains or aches and life FEELS much easier and less stressful. Success!

I will carry on with this now as it is really helping me and there are so many ways to add intensity to workouts with this equipment that I could probably keep going without investing any more money into it for years - continuing to improve my strength and health. I recommend this approach to anyone who spends a lot of time in doors, maybe working at a computer like I do - it's essential for feeling/looking good and maintaining health!

Videos

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I found a few great videos along the way while researching this topic. I recommend these two youtubers for a wealth of training advice and inspiration:

Wishing you well,
Ura Soul

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