Drew Baye’s High Intensity Training

Home Versus Commercial Gym

Home and commercial gyms both have advantages and disadvantages. Which one is right for you will depend primarily on your available space and budget, and what best meets your training needs and lifestyle.

Space

If you don’t have the space in your home or apartment for a gym, this is a moot point. However, the amount of space required to get a good workout is actually very small. A doorway chin up bar takes up no floor space, and a pair of adjustable dumbbells which take up almost no space at all can provide a complete workout. Check out Matt Brzycki and Fred Fornicola’s book Dumbbell Training for Strength and Fitness for examples.

With nothing but an Olympic bar and enough plates, which only requires about a 10 x 4 foot space, you can perform exercises that hit all the major muscle groups:

1. Deadlift (hips, thighs, lower back, upper back, traps)
2. Press (shoulders, triceps, traps)
3. Curl (biceps)
4. Push Ups (chest, shoulders, triceps)
5. Standing Calf Raise (calves)
6. Weighted Crunch (abs)

There are dozens more you could do, but you only need a few. If you have a little more room you can fit a power rack and a flat bench, and add squats and bench press. Many power racks have chinning bars built in them as well, and I recommend this or a free-standing chinning station rather than a doorway chinning bar if you are over 200 pounds or if you’re doing weighted chin ups.

Our gym at home occupies room that is only about 10×10 feet, and includes a power rack, Olympic 7ft bar, shrug bar, and EZ-curl bar, Olympic dumbbells, a vertical dumbbell rack with dumbbells from 10 to 50, a plate tree with a few hundred pounds of Olympic plates, and miscellaneous grippers and grip training equipment. While it isn’t exactly spacious, there is plenty of room to do everything necessary, and with the power rack positioned midway between the walls there is plenty of room to safely load and unload the bar.

Equipment

A commercial gym will typically have two or more full lines of selectorized and plate-loaded machines as well as a free weight area with a variety of racks and benches. While this is nice, if you have the space and budget for a basic free weight set up in your home, it isn’t necessary. Most research shows no significant difference in results between training with machines and free weights, and while machines provide some safety advantages, with a bit of common sense and knowledge of proper technique you can train just as safely with free weights.

If for some reason you need to have certain machines for your workout (rehab, physical limitations, etc.) or just prefer training with machines and you either can’t afford or don’t have space for them in your home, then you will need to join a commercial gym. Be aware, however, that not all machines are equal. There are dozens of major strength training equipment manufacturers, most selling equipment so poorly designed you couldn’t be blamed for wondering if they’d been made in a shop class at a school for the blind and mentally retarded. Sadly, but not surprisingly, most gym owners don’t know enough to tell the difference, so many gyms are full of poorly designed crap. Unless you’re lucky enough to find a gym with a line of Nautilus, MedX, David Fitness, or Hammer Strength, you’re better off training with free weights.

Efficiency

Depending on your schedule, some gyms may be very crowded during the times you want to train, or not even open, if you prefer training very early in the morning or late at night. If they’re crowded, a workout that should take you less than 30 minutes to complete could end up taking an hour or more as a result of having to wait for equipment. However, at home you never have to wait because some idiot is curling in the squat rack. Training at home also saves you time driving to and from the gym which could be spent with friends or family or on other more enjoyable or productive pursuits.

On the other hand, if you have too many distractions at home and no practical way to eliminate or minimize them, and if the driving distance is short, you might be able to complete your workout more efficiently at a gym.

Convenience

If you have a gym in your home, you can work out whenever you want, whether it’s the middle of the day or the middle of the night. You don’t have to deal with the circus atmosphere of most big gyms or the ridiculous restrictions of places like Planet Fitness. While these don’t make it impossible to get a good workout, they can make it more of a pain in the ass than it needs to be.

Although not training related, some gyms offer services and amenities that may make working out there more convenient than training at home. For example, if you have small children, it may be easier to work out at a gym with day care center, depending on the age of the children, the hours day care is available, and whether there is someone else to watch them at home.

If you workout with a partner other than a spouse, roommate or close neighbor, it might be more convenient or time efficient to meet at a gym. You may also prefer to work out with others somewhere other than home simply for privacy reasons or if you do not have enough space to comfortably accommodate more than one person training at a time.

Cost

Gym memberships can vary significantly in cost depending on the location, quality of the gym and amenities and services offered, ranging from as little as $100 per year to over $100 per month. According to IHRSA, the average monthly gym membership in the United States in 2008 was $55 per month, which averages out to $660 per year, plus all the fees gyms like to add on like sign up fees, yearly maintenance fees, etc.

The same $660 will buy you a decent power rack with chinning bar and a 300 pound Olympic barbell set. The cost of the additional sign-up fee most gyms add would also get you a heavy duty flat bench. If properly maintained, these will outlast you.

For the cost of 10 years of a gym membership you could add a few used Nautilus or Hammer Strength machines if you have the space, which will also outlast you if properly cared for.

Assuming you are in your 20s or 30’s and will be working out for at least another 40 years – and probably 50 or more – in the long run a home gym is far more cost efficient. Being optimistic about inflation and taking into account the cost of travel, the cost of a membership for only one person for only 40 years, including the sign up fee and all the other fees they tack on would probably be well over $30,000. You could get a very good home set-up your whole family can use for their entire lives for less than 5% of that.

Training

If you don’t know what you’re doing, most gyms offer personal training, and many will provide a number of complimentary sessions to new members to orient them to the equipment, and to try to sell them a personal training package. While there are a few, very rare exceptions, most of these trainers don’t know what they’re doing either.

The majority of what is written and taught about exercise in the mainstream fitness and bodybuilding publications and by the major personal training organizations is utter bullshit. The field of personal training in particular is driven more by unscientific fads and gimmicky devices than real science. For example, every month I receive various industry magazines, geared towards personal trainers and gym and fitness facility managers which contain articles about exercise and nutrition, usually espousing the latest trend, and much of it is nonsense. Some of these include catalogs for various fitness related products and equipment, most of which is gimmicky crap that serves no purpose other than to entertain or provide something new and different for novelty’s sake, but contributes little or nothing to real physical improvement.

The majority of personal training certification workshops and continuing education courses teach the same silly bullshit being recommended in the magazines, incorporating much of the gimmicky crap from the above-mentioned catalogs. Many personal trainers then pass this bullshit on to their clients, wasting their time and money with training that is relatively inefficient and ineffective at best, and downright dangerous at worst.

Unfortunately, many people assume that because a trainer has a good physique they know what they’re doing. However, many owe their physique to their genes, and are in good condition in spite of their training, rather than because of it. Doug McGuff, MD and John Little’s recent book Body by Science contains an excellent explanation of this.

The three biggest mistakes most people make, and which most trainers are especially guilty of, are:

1. Training too long
2. Training too often
3. Not training hard enough

A proper exercise program involves workouts that are very intense, and relatively brief and infrequent. A knowledgeable trainer will not have you perform long, high-volume workouts or train more than three, non-consecutive days per week, if that much. If a trainer recommends any of the following, they don’t know what they’re doing and you shouldn’t waste your time with them or take any of their advice too seriously:

• Workouts lasting significantly more than 30 minutes
• Working out more than 3 times per week (and even this is relatively inefficient and may be too much for some)
• Performing fast or “explosive” repetitions
• Doing “cardio” (with the exception of some sport-specific metabolic conditioning)
• Doing plyometrics
• Stretching to warm-up before a workout
• Using light weights and high reps for “cutting” or “toning”
• “Periodized” workouts
• Exercising on inflatable balls or discs, balance boards or similar gimmicks
• Doing certain movements or types of exercises to “lengthen” your muscles
• Doing different exercises for the “upper” versus “lower” abs
• Doing different exercises for muscle “shape” versus “size”

If you can find a personal trainer who is knowledgeable about and teaches high intensity training, you’re in luck. If not, while books will never replace hands-on coaching, an informative book is much better than an uninformed trainer. These are the top three I recommend:

1. Body by Science, by John Little and Doug McGuff, MD
2. The Wisdom of Mike Mentzer, by John Little
3. High Intensity Training The Mike Mentzer Way, by Mike Mentzer

Some time in the next few weeks I will post about what to look for when joining a gym and how to handle gym sales people, including strategies for handling various common sales tactics and getting the best rate possible. I will also post tips for setting up and training in a home gym.

Drew Baye Training