My Home Gym Evolution Saga

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I thought it would be fun for you to get a behind the scenes tour of the exact exercise equipment I’m currently using in my home gym.  I’m pulling out all the stops and sharing every sorted detail of how I ended up going from Home Gym 1.0 to Home Gym 3.0 while spending over $25,000 dollars on equipment and creating this blog along the way.

Ready for a little trip through home gym history? Good, because I have a little story to tell you…

My First Home Gym, How It All Started

(Home Gym 1.0)
When I was (ahem) a couple years younger and didn’t have any kids, I had a huge unfinished basement in my house, a penchant for weight training and loads of free time to squander without a care in the world.

Since I was really into lifting weights (it’s a guy thing) I decided I would build the home gym of my dreams that I could enjoy by simply walking down a flight of stairs.

With my own home gym in the basement I could workout anytime the mood struck me. Day, night, twice a day. It wouldn’t matter anymore. I wouldn’t have to drive to the gym, wait in line for equipment, pay another membership fee or monthly due – I’d have it made in the shade!

With my new vision of home gym nirvana guiding me, I proceeded to invest a truckload of money on specialized weight lifting equipment to outfit my new gym, and for good measure I even bought my first piece of cardio equipment to make it official.

I loved my new gym, and the equipment suited my purposes perfectly at the time, but I constantly found myself on a never ending quest to buy more “gear” (this condition is known as GAS or Gear Acquisition Syndrome).

In other words…

I was hell bent on creating my very own health club in my basement – here’s everything I bought:

• a full squat cage (aka power rack)
• an flat, incline, decline weight bench
• a full set of hex dumbbells
• a 300 pound Olympic weight set
• three additional Olympic specialty bars
• a weight tree
• a lat pull down and low row machine
• a leverage squat machine
• a leverage bench press machine
• an elliptical trainer
• and various accessories

If you’re thinking I got a little bit carried away with building the perfect gym, you’re 1,000% right!

I spent tons of money, drove my wife crazy, and gave up half my basement in the process, but it in my mind it was worth it. At least until it was time to move that is (cue scary music)…

The Transitional Home Gym That Turned Into a Monster

(Home Gym 2.0)
Before I moved to the house I’m living in now, I sold off all my home gym equipment listed above and started over.

I didn’t sell it because I was giving up on working out, I sold it because I didn’t have enough room in the new house and I didn’t have the ambition to disassemble it, pack it in a truck and reassemble it again. Talk about a major pain in the neck.

When it came time to outfit my new Home Gym 2.0, I decided to consolidate some of the old equipment that overlapped in function and invest in some high end stuff that was more flexible.

The first piece I ended up getting was an Octane Q45e elliptical that set me back nearly $4000 bucks!

Once I had a great piece of cardio equipment, I set my sites on getting some free weight equipment (the Octane was mostly for the wife).

I bought a high-end Smith Machine, 400 pounds of Olympic weights, a full set of dumbbells with a custom rack and some misc. weight bars and attachments.

About this same time, my wife Grechen got certified as a Personal Trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and started training clients out of our home.

Getting certified as a trainer was a natural extension of what she was doing at the time which was competing in bodybuilding and figure competitions and winning a couple along the way (go Grech!).

As it turned out, she’s a natural personal trainer. Passionate about helping people, a good listener and a real people person too.

The Personal Training Studio With Lounge and Stretching Area

(Home Gym 2.5)
Before I knew what hit me, Grechen had a full roster of training clients streaming in and out of our house at all hours of the day.

While I was very proud of her hard work, and her success in attracting a loyal training clientele, her successful business created logistical problems for our scaled down home gym and the only solution was to buy more equipment and more expensive equipment to keep the clients and my wife happy.

Here’s the equipment from the personal training studio and lounge (Home Gym 2.5):

• linear smith machine w/ full selectorized weight stack
• a high-end functional trainer
• a big-buck elliptical trainer
• a hot rod treadmill
• misc. bars and attachments for the smith machine
• 400 pounds of Olympic weights
• a full set of dumbbells w/ rack
• three stability balls
• an adjustable weight bench
• a suspension trainer
• a wobble board
• foam rollers
• kettlebells in various sizes and weights
• a glide board gym (Total Gym alternative)
• exercise bands
• new carpeting
• exercise mats
• 2 lounge chairs
• 2 freakin’ flat screen LCD TV’s!…

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea ;^)

The “transitional gym” I envisioned building had turned into a full-fledged monster that consumed the entire basement of our home except for one little 10′ x 10′ room where I was able to squeeze in a small home office.

When my wife “retired” from competitions and personal training a couple years later, I knew it was time to reclaim my basement and cut the gym down to a manageable size we could both live with.

So here’s what I did… —> click here to read the rest of the story