Designing a home gym during lockdown

The novel coronavirus has affected our lives in many ways and put us in quite a frightening and unsettling situation. Finding a way to adapt to the new condition is the main challenge now. Everything is being done within our homes, including office, schooling, and to some extent, physical exercise as well.

If we have plenty of vacant space, it is not that difficult to create our own workout area. But, with a small space, we should design an at-home gym that does not need any fancy equipment, as none of us prepared for this lockdown. Space limitation will impact the size and layout of the facility you set up.

A home gym during the lockdown is more than just an accumulation of pieces of equipment, rather it is a designed space which is functional. It can also be a small separate zone in a part of the living room, study, or extra bedrooms.

A convenient corner in these rooms can be arranged by creating a side drop or covering the floor to keep it safe from any damage. Moreover, yoga can really be an effective exercise as it takes only a suitable place and comfortable attire, and a yoga mat.

As engaging in various workouts can turn the room hot and humid, many prefer to set this facility up in a cooler place inside the house. Keeping a portable small cooler or fan also helps to keep the space comfortable.

Giving the space a new look by pasting different paintings or vibrant wallpapers will work big time on our mood and motivation. We can use energy-efficient LED lights over the place to keep the temperature low.

Mirror is an essential interior item for gyms. During exercise, we can watch ourselves to correct our postures, movements, and reduce the chance of injuries, especially when we are working out on our own and have no one to guide us. So, putting a full-size mirror can help with your workout sessions and also create a visual illusion of having a big space inside your home.

Small music systems will help us in our keep-fit sessions. Just mount the system on the floor or use a ceiling bracket or put in a niche of the wall. Include your youngsters with you by providing them small yoga mats, physio balls, and teach them to practice light warm-ups at a specific time every day. It will boost the immunity and mental health of your whole family too.

You also need to be careful as the children might end up hurting themselves from your heavy equipment. So, keep a semi-open cabinet beside the area to accommodate all the small and heavy gym sets away from them. If you already have a treadmill or elliptical machine, keep an eye on your kids so that they do not use them without your supervision.

We can also use our terraces, balconies, rooftops in similar ways. Many of us have an extra vacant room on rooftops or beside the parking space. We can use those too and it might be the new normal gym after this pandemic ends.

Many apartment buildings have a dedicated gym space for the dwellers. The building committee can easily declare a schedule for a definite number of users according to their convenience.

This will also ensure the social distance and safety measure. While designing a gym space, we just have to keep in mind that it will encourage us more and not make the workout feel like a chore.