Home Gym Decorating Ideas
A home gym?
Relatively few persons have a gym in their own private homes, but it is a great thing to have. After all, you can get the kind of exercise that you need — and without having to walk or drive all the way down to your local public gym or health club, where you also have to pay periodically for membership. Whether your gym is exclusively for the use of you and your family, or whether you invite your friends over to get into shape along with you, you will get even greater benefit from it — from a psychological perspective, at least — if you spruce it up with the home gym decorating ideas given in the sections below. The truly wonderful thing about having a gym of your own is that you can decorate it any way you wish.
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Posters of your favorite sports stars
If you happen to be a big fan of sports, then you might want to show off the stars that you love to follow by pinning up posters of them all over the walls. That way, every time you work out, it will seem to you as if they are looking at you from all around the room, encouraging you to tone up your body until it looks like theirs!
Motivational messages
In addition to being a place for posters of athletes as just described, the walls of your home gym can also be a place where you can put up messages that motivate you to get your muscles stronger and burn off all of that extra fat. One person with a home gym has the words “Shut up and squat!” posted on the wall thereof. Whatever you put up there, the idea is to make sure that it is big enough for you to see it from wherever you are in the gym.
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A plan for your workout
Still another of our great home gym decorating ideas that involves your wall is using it to pin up your complete workout schedule. That way, you can always refer to it each time you come in to work out, although in time you will also get used to performing each of the exercises in a given order.
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Graffiti and other forms of art
Decorating your walls with art is another of our great home gym decorating ideas. After all, you will be subjecting your body to a strenuous workout, so you want your stay there to be as enjoyable as possible, and esthetics is an important element for this.
In general, when choosing colors for an interior, you should take into account the natural lighting of that room. At one time, home gyms were almost always located in the garage or basement, which receive less natural light than the rest of the house; consequently, they tended to be rather depressing. If your home gym is located here, use bright, warm colors like pink, orange and yellow to counteract the dark quality and bring plenty of energy to your workout. Do not use colors that are too bright, though, or the effect will be overstimulating! Nor should you forget to install plenty of artificial light sources.
Tips on proper form
When you exercise, it is crucial that you maintain the correct posture in order to gain the full benefits thereof. The next item on our list of home gym decorating ideas, therefore, is a pinned-up list of tips on proper form, accompanied if possible by illustrations since with this kind of thing it is not enough to describe it verbally.
Mirrors on all the walls
Just as it is a good idea to have illustrations of proper posture on your walls, so too you should have mirrors all around the gym so that you can see how you are holding yourself when you work out. As with your schedule, you should eventually develop a “feel” for the right posture and become accustomed to it. Looking at yourself in the mirror will also enable you to develop great pride in yourself by letting you see how far you have come since you first started your exercise routine. The image that you see when you peer at your reflection is, after all, the true indication of your physical fitness, not the figure that you get when you step onto a scale.
How about a TV set?
Public gyms often have TV sets mounted from the ceilings so that members can watch them while they work out, so why not have one in your private gym? Watching your favorite programs can make what would otherwise be a strenuous and tedious workout go by much faster and be more enjoyable as you are concentrating on the events taking place on the screen, not on your movements. A DVD player should be included too, and the screen should be designed so that you can tilt it and thus be able to see it from all parts of the gym.
A stereo system
Your home gym can, in fact, be a major source of entertainment for you and your family, so why should you stop at having just a TV set? You can put up a whole stereo system in your gym that consists of a radio, a CD player and an iPod dock, making sure that you have a remote control so that you can change the channels without having to interrupt your exercises.
Miscellaneous home gym decorating ideas
There are many other things that you can include in your home gym for reasons of both esthetics and practicality. A small refrigerator, for instance, is great for keeping water, which you should always have on hand when working out, and sports drinks such as Gatorade can be stored there as well. There should also be a rack for storing CDs and DVDs, and each piece of exercise equipment should itself have a place where it is kept when not in use.