Building a Safer Home Gym

One of the differences in designing a commercial fitness space, personal training studio, or a residential gym is in the necessity of safety and how that safety needs to be created.

 

A lot of that has to do with the level of supervision. When you're creating a hotel gym you have to count on the fact that clients may be working out alone, which is why nearly all hospitality spaces  stop at 50 lb dumbbells and don't go heavier, and then put in a cable gym.

 

It's also one of the advantages of multi-gym and cable machines over free weights. Especially in the home, where accidents can happen and nobody's there to spot anybody. It's very important when you're setting up a home gym to understand who is going to be working out there and what the style of the workout is. We generally prefer having many safety factors, like a Smith machine, or hoist fitness Mismith when we do olympic bar lifting.


42% of all exercise injuries are using freeweights, by far the highest category.   And according to the same study, freeweights cause 90% of all weightlifting injuries, compared to machines.  This isn't to say freeweights are bad, it is just important information.

Also, the quality of the equipment directly affects the safety of that equipment.  Department store equipment with weaker steel, spot welding, and worse quality control is never going to be as safe as high-end residential equipment, let alone the commercial equipment, the safest of all.  Also, a company like Hoist, Cybex, or Torque that makes commercial equipment has a much better understanding of biomechanics than companies that are mainly residential.

 

One of the other areas where we can also create better safety is in understanding the biomechanics of the different cardiovascular pieces of equipment. Treadmill cushioning is very misunderstood, and a lot of treadmills with inferior cushioning systems can cause damage to the knees back or ankles of a client. Older style elliptical machines are also inferior to most of the newer more adjustable units.

 

And when we have clients using treadmills, it's better to have treadmills that read heart rate and especially those that adjust the difficulty based on heart rate to train more safely, especially for higher exertion training.  

 

We should also remember that while you may spend 20% of your time on a treadmill or 15% of your time on a bike, you spend nearly all of your time in the gym on the floor. And newer stacked flooring has over three times the amount of cushioning and absorbance of vibration than older hard rubber floors. And in terms of ease on your joints, but also safety in case you fall, newer stacked flooring is much safer than a cement floor or a hard rubber floor.

Please feel free to contact us to help design your gym!