If you’re thinking of buying home exercise equipment, read this post for 7 of my top tips that will keep you from bad buying decisions.
Buying your own home exercise equipment serves a multitude of purposes. You could avoid expensive gym memberships, do your exercising on your own equipment in the privacy of your home, forget worrying about picking up unhealthy germs at the gym, and much more.
However, you don’t want to make impulse buying decisions and buy equipment for your home that you can’t use or just don’t like. There are definite considerations like where to put it, size restrictions, will it do the job, and more — before you ever make the purchase.
How to Make the Best Purchasing Decisions
1. What Do You Need?
When it comes to buying the best cardio equipment or any home exercise gear, you’re going to need to decide what “bells and whistles” you just can’t do without.
Sometimes you can pay quite a bit more for added features and find that you never use them. In fact, here’s a Schwinn recumbent bike review of a basic model 230 that comes quite a bit cheaper than the Schwinn 270. By deciding if you can do without some of the bells and whistles of the 270, you might save a couple of hundred dollars?
Other than looking at features and deciding on them beforehand, you’ll want to make sure you’re buying your top choice. In other words, think it through and if you really want a treadmill, don’t buy a bike because it’s less expensive.
2. Where Will You Put It?
Never purcase a piece of exercise equipment before deciding where it will be located. This is really key! A friend bought a gigantic blowflex machine thinking it would go in a spare room. He wound up watching TV through it in the living room because it was too large for the spare room. Until his wife sold it while he was at work, that is?
Decide on the exact location with specific information you gain from the reviews you read. If you intend to watch TV while exercising, make sure it will work there?
3. Is It Too Large?
The size of your equipment vs the size of the space you intend to locate it in is another key consideration. I’m looking at my Schwinn Airdyne as I write because it is in the corner of this room. Bad news, right there!
The exercise bike fits there fine, but it’s cramped quarters for riding every other day. To tell you the truth it’s not hard to ride in that space, but the size of it and where it’s at makes it hard to mount and dismount.
Most reviews or sales pages will include pretty exact measurements, so do yourself a favor and look for those measurements before you order. And don’t confuse the shipping measurements and weight with what it is put together.
4. Have You Tried It Yet?
Are you ordering something you’ve never tried? If you’ve never used a treadmill before, it could be a good idea to go somewhere and try one out before you order. There’s nothing like having a new something to workout with, and trying to figure out how to motivate yourself to exercise with it.
Setting up your home gym with equipment you’ve never actually exercised with or on, could be a mistake? Be careful that you don’t wind up spending top dollar on equipment that’s only a close similarity to what you use at the gym.
Without the best reviews and careful attention, it’s easy to buy something similar to a piece of gym equipment only to learn it’s smaller or a cheaper model you weren’t expecting. Do your homework!
5. Is It The Best Quality?
Let’s be honest here: sometimes I am forced to buy lesser quality simply because I can’t afford what I know is the best buy.
But in the end, the higher quality products usually work better and last longer. Shop for the best quality home gym equipment you can find. I have learned from experience to put off buying lesser quality while I save for cardio equipment that’s going to last longer and give me more service.
So my advice is to not believe everything you hear on infomercials and try to take your time and make informed purchasing decisions.
6. Does Your Family Agree?
Unless you live alone, your family probably has opinions on you setting up your home gym? It could be a good idea to share your intentions and get input on locations, what works best, who else will be exercising on it, etc.
The fact is, I could see my exercise bike in the living room. My wife doesn’t see it like myself, and besides that I have to sorta keep it away from grandchildren who would destroy it in no time. And I doubt cardio exercise would be their intentions?
7. Will You Use It?
Have you ever decided you just couldn’t live without some product, only to find out you didn’t use it after you owned it? I have and now try to consider if I will gain from my purchase before I buy it.
If you’re having trouble with your knees, it might be a good idea to see if these knee sleeves help before investing in a treadmill, right?
There’s really not much point in buying any exercise equipment just to store it for a year or two before you have it in a garage sale. Just because your friend has it, or it looks good at the moment: Think it through and decide if your exercise equipment will be advantageous to your workout routine.
If the answer is yes, decide where you’ll put it, if it will fit, is it quality you can depend on, and if everybody concerned is in agreement.
Conclusion
Buying the top home exercise equipment is easier now than ever before because of the numerous online reviews. So take your time and make the best buying decisions possible — your best health depends on it.