Are Home Gym Workouts As Effective As The Gym?

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I started working out at a commercial gym around 2015. And when the pandemic hit in 2020, I started exercising in my home gym and have been ever since.

So can home gym workouts be as effective as a commercial gym?

Before anything else, what does the effectiveness of a workout mean to you? A few results that you’re likely looking for when comparing a home gym versus a commercial gym are strength, endurance, body composition, energy levels, and lessons.

Results	Home Gym	Commercial Gym
Strength	Build strength with free weights	Build strength with free weights and machines
Endurance	Build endurance with machines or jump rope	Build endurance with machines
Body composition	Healthier body composition through nutrition and exercise	Healthier body composition through nutrition and exercise
Energy levels	Increase energy levels, reduce stress, and improve quality of sleep	Increase energy levels, reduce stress, and improve quality of sleep
Lessons	Improve self-discipline	Increase social interaction

Now, there are a few differences between home gyms and commercial gyms. You can read more about it in Home Gym VS Gym Membership. But the two environments can yield similar results with the right equipment in your home gym. Let’s dive deeper.

Table of Contents

Build Strength

Strength can be defined in many different ways depending on the person. You could be building your strength for everyday activities or sport-specific goals. Whatever your goals may be, you can work towards them through a home gym, just as you would with a commercial gym.

So when it comes to strength training specifically, the only difference between home gyms and commercial gyms is the variety of machines. In a home gym, body weight, resistance band, dumbbell, kettlebell, and barbell training are all accessible and feasible in smaller spaces. The commercial gyms offer additional machines that isolate specific muscle groups. However, weight machines restrict your range of motion to unnatural positions that could increase the risk of injury.

Build Endurance

While endurance training, it’s expected for your heart rate to elevate over a prolonged period for activities like walking, running, biking, rowing, swimming, or jump rope. People often ask, what’s the best form of endurance training? The best form of endurance is always the one you enjoy most!

There’s no need to go to the gym for endurance training. You can find access to endurance training anywhere – walk or run for free and jump rope and biking are inexpensive too. And for those chilly days, you can buy endurance equipment for a small investment.

Healthy Body Composition

The scale will show your weight, but it doesn’t tell you what comprises the weight. Therefore there’s not much value in focusing on the weight scale or body mass index (BMI). It’s an arbitrary number that doesn’t tell the story of your health.

So instead of focusing on weight loss, why don’t you consider body composition?

Body composition breaks down the human body into individual components like fat, muscles, bone, and fluid. It’s the best measurement of physical fitness and indicator of certain chronic diseases. A higher percentage of body fat, especially visceral fat that lines your organs, puts you at a higher risk for developing chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. On the other hand, lean muscle mass promotes a better metabolism because muscle is more metabolic than fat.

So how does exercising in a home gym differ from a commercial gym for building a healthier body composition? There’s no difference. If you can sustain strength training and eat at a caloric deficit, you can lose fat and gain muscle. Everyone’s body is different, so experiment and have fun with it!

Increase Energy Levels

Another reason you might exercise is to boost energy levels. Energy levels increase from boosting your heart rate and overall blood flow and oxygen to the brain. I’m not exaggerating when I say, exercising regulates your energy, stress, and sleep. If there are ever days where I don’t move my body, I feel groggy throughout the day and struggle to get quality sleep at night.

The boost to your energy will be significant, regardless if you’re exercising in a home gym or a commercial gym. So find any opportunity to move your body.

Learning And Developing Yourself

The most notable difference between a home gym and a commercial gym is the presence of other people.

In the absence of people in a home gym, it offers a peaceful environment to exercise at your own pace. But the one thing that will get you into a home gym consistently is self-discipline. It’s a critical skill to have in your toolbox to thrive with anything in life.

A commercial gym provides a social environment where you can make friends. Simply being around others presents the opportunity to learn from them. You can choose to passively or actively learn from their form. You’ll have to decide on whether or not the advice is valid.

All the lessons that you learn from fitness are transferrable to various places in your life.

Type of Training	Exercises
Strength Training	Push Pull Leg Routine (with bands, dumbbell, kettlebell, barbell) Squat, Bench, Deadlift (with bands, dumbbell, kettlebell, barbell) Pull-Ups
Endurance Training	Walk or Run Jump Rope Cycle Row