This article explores the growing trend of people choosing to exercise at home, and all of the social implications that flow on from it. We talk about the motivating reasons for people to exercise at home, instead of at a gym or outside. We also examine whether exercising at home can be effective at satisfying those motivating reaons identified by people who want to work out at home.
People are exercising at home more and more. Let’s look at some of the most commonly cited reasons for exercising inside, at home.
COVID-19
Of course, the pandemic is the most common reason for people who go to the gym, to instead workout at home.
Safety concerns
Many people, women especially don’t feel safe exercising outside, especially at night, because of concerns about being accosted or attacked in a strange park during your nighttime run. Because many people are working later and later, and their commute is getting longer and longer, daylight is a scarce resource. As such, you may be finishing your run just as the sun is going down and the scary people are coming out. While I can imagine that is a motivating reason to run faster (throw everything you’ve got at the goal!), I don’t suggest sacrificing your safety by running at night in a dangerous neighborhood, and similarly to protecting your body, don’t sacrifice your mental health: running is supposed to be a way to de-stress, not an acute anxiety-inducing event.
Enjoyment instead of judgement
If you’re overweight, and trying to lose weight, most people are cheering you on. I personally always think to myself "good on you, go you" when I see an overweight person at the gym, exercising and sweating. But, from their perspective, they may understandably have a very different experience. From their point of view, they’re surrounded by thin, muscular, strong people wearing lycra and expensive gym gear, while they’re sweating it out in a huge grey tracksuit. I wish there was a way to help them feel less judged. Alas, it’s a scary thing to go to the gym, and so I understand that it isn’t always enjoyable for those feeling judged. As a result, it’s more likely that they’ll first stop attending, then eventually cancel their membership. So, a very viable alternative is to gym from home. People can prefer to exercise at home because they prefer the privacy of their own home. They feel that they can focus more on their goals that way, without being constantly distracted by who is looking at them, by how little weight they are lifting, and so on.
Convenience
If you’re a person with a lot of money, and not a lot of time, then you can easily afford both a gym membership and your own home gym. Then, your commute to exercise is seconds, not minutes or hours. Being able to have your own equipment is highly convenient, and it means there’s no more waiting for weights, waiting for machines, waiting for the gym staff to open up the gym in the morning so that you can start your workout. It’s purely a matter of convenience for some. Sometimes, it’s easier for a person to fit in a home workout when they have a busy schedule.
Cost
It can be cheaper to buy your own equipment, and the recurring nature of the cost of a gym membership can be a turnoff for some. Ultimately, the amount of money you spend at a gym is fixed, ongoing, and high. But the amount of money that you want to invest in your home gym can be almost nothing! You can get away with doing body-weight exercises, as many people discovered when the pandemic struck and their gym closed. Or, you can go all out and buy an entire basement of extremely high end gear, adjusted to your height, and you know exactly who has been sweating all over it. Don’t be fooled though, those two extreme ends are not the only options! You can pick out a very reasonably priced and effective item of equipment that is versatile enough to use for many different exercises, such as a balance board. Ultimately, it’s up to you how much you want to spend, and when, so it’s really the most flexible option if your budget varies over time.
Social effects
With gyms closing all around the world, what are the social effects of the gym-from-home trend? Firstly, the gyms themselves are often small businesses or franchises (run by large chains), and the financial effect on their business has no doubt been catastrophic. Many people cancelled their membership as soon as the pandemic struck, and many more cancelled since. Revenues for the gyms have completely dried up. Like many other industries, they have made the mad scramble to move online, rapidly producing live exercise video-streaming-as-a-service, to attempt to capture back some of their lost patronage. It’s unclear what effect this has had on all the employees of the gyms; do they now work as personal trainers, while socially distancing? Is there now a huge demand for personal trainers, or is everyone exercising at home, and consuming streamed workout videos instead? We will have to wait and see how this plays out for the unfortunate gym employees.
On the customer side, many gym attendees had social friendships formed at the gym, whether loose or close. Many existing friends began a gym habit together, which rekindled a distant friendship. Have these effects distanced people further, and made our society more disconnected? Perhaps. I know that some gym buddies have in fact decided to team up to run together (socially distanced, of course).
It’s too early to conclude the long lasting effects of the gym lockdown, but we’ll be watching closely to see how it all plays out.