Here are some tips on how to set up your own gym and work out in your own living room with Featness
After a long period of curfew and restrictions, you’re never better served than by yourself when it comes to sporting activities, getting back into shape and embarking on a serious fitness regime, don’t you think? So why not take up sport and turn your living room into a gym? There’s nothing nicer than exercising in a familiar place. However, having your own gym is not something you can improvise – quite the contrary!
Follow our 7 tips to go all out in your living room and become a home gym pro… Let’s go!
1/ A room specially dedicated to your sports training
We’re calling this article “7 tips for turning your living room into a gym”. There’s nothing to stop you improvising your own home gym, fitness room or training room, in your garage, or any other room you feel is suitable for working out at home.
The living room seems to us the simplest option in the sense that :
- You need a large room, at least 10 m², to practice with ease. This large space gives you the option of setting up your own sports area with exercise machines or other sports equipment (such as a treadmill or elliptical trainer for cardio training). If your wallet allows it, why bother?
- The choice of this room is a good one, as you can easily ventilate it to avoid suffocating in a stuffy atmosphere;
- If you have a spacious home, create a custom room dedicated to sports. Among other things, you can install a hidden micro-room behind a concealed door… Why not in your living room with its sofa / Netflix & Chill side, and on the other, intensive sport and perspiration?
2/ Bodyweight exercises, a must for easy training in your living room
You don’t need to invest thousands of dollars in expensive sports equipment to lose calories, sculpt and firm up your figure and improve your physical condition. Bodyweight exercises are the basis for effective training in your converted living room. There’s only one thing you need to do these exercises: buy a sports mat, so you can exercise without disturbing your neighbors. As well as cushioning you from injury, the mat also eliminates the risk of noise pollution.
Bodyweight training: a few exercises to easily build up your different muscle groups :
- The squat works your lower body like your quadriceps, thighs and glutes. It provides an effective workout for your cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory systems. Its variant, the sumo squat, calls on your adductors and requires a good mastery of basic posture and technique to avoid any risk of muscle tears.
- Abdominal or belly training, on the other hand, works your abdominal girdle and strengthens your deep abdominal muscles, in particular the transverse abdominis muscle. Aiming for a flat stomach, the abdominal plank will tone and firm all your abs. Our top tip for toning your tummy and building your buttocks: abs and glutes, the essential physical exercises you can do in your home gym!
There are, of course, many other bodyweight exercises that we invite you to discover in your personalized six-week training program with our Featness subscription.
3/ Lightweight sports equipment for super-efficient training
You don’t need to buy a huge elliptical trainer or a heavy, imposing piece of weight-training equipment to get an effective workout at home. Even if you like bodyweight training, having basic equipment at your disposal means you can vary your sessions and diversify your sporting activities.
With a sports program adapted and personalized by your Featness personal trainer, exercises with sports equipment add that little touch of intensity, resistance and fun to spice up your sports session.
The strength of basic, inexpensive accessories such as dumbbells and elastic bands is based on the principle of progressive overload. What is progressive overload? This is the continuous increase in your performance during training, by increasing the load, sets, number of repetitions, duration of exercises, etc. As a result, you get out of your comfort zone, push your body’s limits and see results fast!
4/ The must-have sports accessories for your home
- Floor mats: a must for muscle-strengthening, cardio, fitness, sheathing and abdominal exercises. Buy a comfortable mat to enjoy your sports sessions, which you diversify every day.
- Elastic bands: extremely useful accessories for strengthening both upper and lower body muscles, elastic bands are perfect for working all your muscles, while protecting your joints (knee flexion, for example).
- Dumbbells: 10, 20, 30 kilos… Dumbbells will help you build muscle mass. A must-have accessory for strengthening muscles, work muscles steadily by increasing the weights in stages.
- TRX : do you want to become a sheathing pro, develop your strength and train in an original way? Opt for suspension straps that hang super-easily from your living room door.
- The pull-up bar: a top accessory if you want to follow a bodybuilding program and work your upper body like your pectorals. Install it easily and it will become your sporting ally.
- The skipping rope: a real Proust’s madeleine for some, reminiscent of childhood games, it’s as much a great cardiotraining accessory for slimming your figure as it is a real warm-up tool for your lower muscles.
- The weight bench : investing in a weight bench will one day become indispensable for exercising effectively at home. Combined with a pair of dumbbells, this bodybuilding accessory lets you work out just like in a real gym! With a weight bench, you have access to several types of bodybuilding exercises. The bench press and incline press, to develop your pecs. Dumbbell rowing and pullover, to build up your back and trapezius muscles. The military bench press and seated lateral raises, to work your shoulders while protecting your back muscles (keep your back straight!). At the end of the session, move the dumbbells back and start stretching, right on the bench. A dual use for sculpting your body and stretching!
5/ Why not use the equipment at hand to train?
With the corner sofa and coffee table pushed into a corner, it’s time to add an important element to your home gym: the mirror. In fact, in addition to admiring yourself, it allows you to see how well you’re performing the exercises, and to correct your position if necessary.
The first accessory to divert is the carpet. There’s no need to buy one from a sporting goods store – the one at home will do the trick. It can be used for a wide range of exercises, from sheathing to ab work, not forgetting push-ups.
Now it’s time for chairs, a seemingly innocuous object… and yet! By placing your feet or hands on it, you can modulate the level of difficulty of the push-ups and give your abs a smart workout. With them, you can perform many variations of push-ups, such as jack-ups or dips.
Another low-cost training tip: for the abdominals, wedge your feet under a chest of drawers to lock them in place. For the obliques, you can use a broom placed behind your head. Then turn your head and torso to the left and right.
6/ Install speakers to motivate you… just like in a real gym!
It’s a proven fact that we work better with music. And, while headphones can be a sufficient solution, they quickly become limited when you want to move around, especially in the context of HIIT or high-intensity training sessions . Put on your favorite playlist and launch it on your Bluetooth speaker… and you’re off to burn calories! If you want, since you’re in your living room, start a training video to motivate yourself 😉
7/ Featness, a digital personal trainer that adapts to your sporting needs
In the end, it doesn’t really matter where you practice your sport. The most important thing is to personalize your sports program. Mass gain, muscle strengthening, weight loss, getting back into shape… Featness can help you achieve your sporting goals! We also offer a wide range of training videos accessible directly from your smartphone with Featness. Exercising has never been so easy!
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