Grandma's Ninja Training Diary: Affordable (and Necessary) Gyms at Home



(graphic by Casey Johnson, She's a Beast)

I love the output of "She's a Beast" website and newsletters. Perhaps the best to date is a recent discussion of how to build a home gym. Everything they say about how to build a gym in "How to Set Up a Home Tinygym," I have found to be right on.

I realized early on when I was doing my ninja training that got derailed by covid shutdowns and family tragedy (and discovered reality) that I would need an at-home gym for a number of reasons:

  • No gym was close by so going in several times a day was out of the question, but at home any time I go past the pull up bar, I can make some pullup attempts. When I am listening to the evening news I can grab some weights and work out while watching.
  • On days when I had full work requirements that would not let me off for any amount of time, I had the gym at home where I could work out. (Disclosure: Much of my work is at-home, so I have an advantage there.)
  • When the gym closed for covid, I was happy and relieved to have an alternative at home.
  • Sometimes, you just want to do a little more a little later than you did at the gym; having equipment at home makes that possible.
  • If you are sick, especially with something contagious, you can still work out if you have home equipment.
  • And there is no embarrassment at home -- you can work out in pajamas (even nude if you want to), and you can try out things that may seem stupid to you that you might not want others to see (though, frankly, I have rarely met anyone at a gym interested in anyone or anything except their own workout).

The realities of a tiny gym, of course, is that it cannot take the place of all those fancy (and expansive and big) machines at a commercial gym. While at-home gyms, planned well, can come close to developing all the muscles and skills that you hope for (pay for) in a professional gym, they do not come with professional trainers. You might, with the help of websites devoted to fitness -- and there are very good ones, with self-help videos -- develop as an amateur self-trainer, there is a significant difference. That is why I have returned to a post-covid, post-family-tragedy visit-the-gym routine and am looking for a new trainer (the old one found another job when the gym was closed during covid shutdown) who can address my ninja appetite.

For more posts from Grandma'sforthcoming diary, click HERE.


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