Nowadays, there are more and more gyms or fitness centers running to serve both men and women who want to change their bodies and achieve better health. Some people usually spend their free time after hard – working hours getting exercises at the gym. However, another number of exercise–loving people only prefer practicing at home, not simply for the charge because recently, the gym has become more familiar to us, so the price to get a full year membership card in a fitness center can be quite reasonable. In fact, both exercising at a gym and at home can create good results for your body. They all have advantages if you practice in the correct way and both also have certain disadvantages. The question that so many people raised for themselves is “Should we go to the gym or just get exercise at home”. Let’s compare both of these in several aspects so that you can make the decision for yourself.
#1. Price
First and foremost, money is always the most important thing that everyone cares about. Of course, investing in a long-term membership card at a gym will cost much more than exercising yourself at home. It is not to mention the other hundreds of expenses used for the diet and other supplementary foods that you need to gain muscles while reducing fat. Moreover, in almost all fitness centers, if you only pay for a membership card, you can only come and use all the machines and tools available there. Nobody will direct you on how to exercise or give you advice during the time of exercising. Normally, if you are totally new to the gym, you will need someone who is professional in the field to ask for experience. In this case, it would be better if you have your PT (Personal Trainer). However, the fee for hiring a PT is not cheap at all, even higher than the amount you spent for a full-year valid card. So, think carefully before deciding to invest in the gym!
#2. Space and motivation for exercising
In this aspect, the gym would surely win over our home. Fitness centers are designed for people to focus on exercising, so there will be a variety of machines, equipment, and tools serving for the main purpose. Imagine if you are surrounded by such a big number of types of equipment while seeing people around you getting exercises with passion, what else can you do except try to work out for achieving a miracle for your body? On the other hand, home is something very comfortable and relaxing. If you decide to practice at home, you must have a big passion for exercising and a really big motivation to keep working in a long term. Otherwise, you will easily be distracted by other factors around your house. So, remember: the environment is very important to deciding the final result of your workout. So, remember: the environment is very important to deciding the final result of your workout.
#3. Chance of making the acquaintance
To many people, this will never be a point for them to care about. They just concentrate on their main goals and try to get them done. However, there are always outgoing people who need to meet, talk and discuss with other friends the same thing they are doing together, and the gym would be a good place to make more friends, have more relationships, try together and reach goals together. Furthermore, in some cases, if you have someone to exercise with, you may have a tendency to compete with that person, which might lead to a better result.
#4. Convenience
For this point, of course, working out at home would be much more convenient. You can get exercise whenever and wherever you want at your house. All of us want to save our time, so the best choice is to do exercises in the early morning so that you can have time for the rest of the whole day. But if you are practicing at a gym, you would have to get dressed, prepare everything then go out to the fitness room. This is sometimes quite disturbing, especially when you are lazy after hard working hours or in bad weather conditions. Instead, if you just get exercise in your living room, you can turn on the TV, look for some directions or music on the internet then enjoy the workout. Sounds really interesting right?
#5. Freedom and comfort
People, especially women, are often affected by other people’s judgment. We have the word “body shaming” to define the action of humiliating someone by making critical comments about their body shape or size. And most of us are usually afraid of being discussed or made fun of by surrounding people. That’s why many women don’t want to exercise at the gym in front of a crowd’s eyes. In this case, perhaps practicing at home would be more comfortable when you can wear gym clothes without the fear that somebody else may look at your body fat. Nevertheless, if we look from the other side, the whole story may be different. When we are judged by others, we will have more motivation to overcome our fear and try our best to get a perfect result. It depends on how you see everything!
#6. The people
As mentioned above, there are a lot of people going to the gym with the same goal, which can be a good chance to make acquaintance and create motivation for us to get exercise. However, sometimes you will feel a bit annoyed when there is a crowd surrounding you. You may have to wait for several minutes to use the equipment if there are too many people working out at the same time, or you will feel uncomfortable and cannot focus on practicing due to the activities of the others: talking too loudly, not putting everything into its original place after exercising, etc.
In summary
In summary, both going to the gym and practicing at home can produce good results if you are really consistent with it. You can choose one of those two ways, all you need is patience and then you will finally get what you want!