Ask Lemmy

I've seen plenty of jeans at my rural gym. Just don't wear them on leg day.

You can jog on the treadmill for 30 minutes and that way you don't have to be out in the blistering sun.

jeans and a t shirt pretty much daily

Not great but acceptable gym garb.

I feel like I could do all of that at home.

You could do it at home with light weights. But heavier weights and equipment are really expensive and otherwise problematic to keep at home. Also, I find that there's something about being at the gym that makes it easier for me to work out. I did home workouts during covid but it just wasn't the same and I didn't get as good of a workout.

Also gym membership prices vary widely. Planet Fitness if you have one near you at least used to be as cheap as $10/month. Ignore anyone who says it's not a real gym, it's good enough for like 99% of people.YMCAs and other community centers tend to be on the cheaper side.

I never liked gyms. I get great workouts at home with a little open floor space and a stationary bike.

I wear jeans and a t shirt pretty much daily

I have some guys in my gym that wear very similar. If you have generally free-range of motion, you'll be fine. Will just be hotter than normal. Walmart has some decent clothes for not a lot of money that you can get a set of and just use that. Nobody at the gym is going to judge you for wearing the same thing every day.

I don’t get what you do there

This depends on what you are looking to get done. Each person is there for their own thing, and it depends on their goals. Weight-loss, muscle toning, strength training, socializing....

I don't do anything on the treadmills or bikes because I structure my weights to do the cardio bits as well. This is just a personal preference because I get bored and zone out during long walks, runs, or rides.

Get a plan together and be consistent with it. I have 3 plans in circulation depending on what my needs and schedule is. Arms, legs, and combination. If I have the time, I'll do arms Monday, Wednesday, Friday; Legs will happen on Tuesday and Thursday. If I know I can't get to things on a timely basis because of schedules I'll do a combination MWF. I'm flexible with my time so I don't beat myself up for not going.

I could do home workouts just fine, but the cost of equipment is too high and I need the space in the house, which I don't have. I'd love to get a place that has a finished basement, or unfinished, and have a place to go that doesn't cost me monthly. The only issue with home workouts is replacing broken or worn equipment. Also, my gym has a row machine that I wouldn't have access to or money to purchase. Just little things like that. Weights are super expensive for full sets.

If you have the funds, I'd recommend finding a local gym that has a trainer that you can utilize. Even if it's for just a few sessions to get you going.

Good luck if you decide to get into it. Don't make it part of your personality and have a goal.

Gym membership where I live is cheap. Like it would take years of monthly gym payments to equal the cost of a good set of weights and stuff to work out with. Husband has a lot of free weights so I do lift at home but do yoga at a studio, and when I did use the gym, I took aerobic dance classes, did stairmaster and watched people lift weights, used machines and lifted weights myself and didn't have to take up half the bedroom with weights.

I personally enjoy going someplace to work out a lot more than doing it at home, but I do both.

Clothes don't matter, don't you have any loose shorts? That's what I see guys wearing at the gym, they are probably like $5 at Walmart.

ETA: on your actual question yes home workout can be effective, of course. Plenty of people do fine just going out for a run and doing some pushups, pullups, unweighted squats, planks, etc; and yes I enjoy more going to the gym, and once there, will work out - at home always something else needs to be done and it's harder to focus.

I throughly enjoy my time at the gym. 6 days a week I lift weights, run or swim a little, and then soak in a hot tub.

I’ve found that it makes me feel better, and not just physically. I’m less stressed with regular exercise than I was without it.

It’s also time I get to spend totally alone. Yes, other people are around, but I have headphones on and don’t have to talk to anyone. I teach for a living, and so it’s just nice to have a little time each day where I don’t have to be “on.”

Seeing yourself get stronger is also feels fantastic in ways that I don’t think really make sense until you do it. I could only bench 95 lbs when I first started lifting; now I’m pushing 225. That’s something I’m proud of.

To answer the title question, you work out your body. That specifics of that question highly depends on your current situation. Like age, current fitness level, what you are training for (strength, cardio, weight loss, etc), and what you have access to.

It really depends on what you want to do. If you're trying to build muscle, lifting weights and a little bit of cardio will make you strong and feel just generally better (less mental fog, have more energy, etc). You can generally get a good deal of the benefits if you're just starting out at home, provided you are actually being consistent with your workouts. Workout clothes are much more comfortable than just wearing a pair of jeans and working out, plus they won't chafe if you get them wet from your sweat. A lot of the reason I have a gym membership is that it provides an incentive to actually get my money's worth by going to the gym (I am rather cheap), thus I'm less likely to not workout. I think we all remember how awful gym time at school was, but a paid for gym is a much better environment, as you can go take a shower after rather than having to be sweaty in your clothes for the rest of the day, or even just working out at home with the opportunity to shower after sweating.

You have some very good answers here. I’m just going to add to this and say what you pay for a gym membership compared to what you wouldpay for decent quality equipment at home. It’s cheaper to have the gym membership because you have the maintenance and the upkeep on the equipment andthe replacement cost on the equipment if you own it. Where as at the gym you go there The stuff is working.

Given a lot of it, you can replace in a fairly low cost way. But you still have the upkeep and maintenance. And you also have the space needed.

Depends how consistently I've been going. Early on I'll pick majority muscles like bi/triceps, glutes, pecs, or abs to break them into work out routine. Like I'll pick 3 and wear them out because that easy to do early on. As conditioning kicks in over the weeks then I can pick 2 category for a day like chest/abs, arms/legs, shoulders/back, etc so that more specific muscles get trained.

When I was working out regularly I'll say that home workouts are great. I didn't have the equipment or weights at the gym but dumbbells can be used to target very specific muscles that won't get in the way of next two workouts days

If you're wondering what the point is, you can just go to one and ask for a tour.

I pay $65 a month for a membership to my local YMCA mainly so I can use the pool.

Just go and do whatever you feel like. Eventually you will set up a routine and might even get into science based optimisations. Don’t overthink it. Doing anything is better than doing nothing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sHvWYAzIRo

You've got lots of stuff that would be hard to get at home like basketball, squash courts; swimming pools; saunas, cold plunge; lots of free classes (well, included in the cost). If you have a YMCA, they will even do a sliding scale based on your income.

It's like going to the library. Yeah you could do much of that stuff at home, but it's good to get out.

It just depends on what your goals are.

Are you just wanting to burn off calories? You may as well go for a run in your neighborhood.

Are you wanting to build muscle? That's what I used to do. The gym has a lot of equipment that I wouldn't be able to have room for at home. All the variety of free weights, barbells, racks, etc.

They also have classes and trainers you can hire to help you reach a goal. There's also basketball courts, tennis, and often swimming pools.

But really at the end of the day, you gotta have a goal in mind I'm order to plan an effective workout routine. Randomly running on treadmill or lifting whatever won't do much.

Also I didn't really wear anything special. Just a T-shirt and some sweat pants. I did pick up some shoes for the gym because my others were too squishy and causing me problems when doing squats.

Even just the full set of free weights at a gym is the price of an annual membership (more than some discount gyms), let alone the expensive machines.

According to Atomic Habit, we tend to form a habit when there is a reward.

First you you can't wear jeans to work out. If people have to argue, then they have never worked out before.

Then, reward. When you workout by yourself, then is almost no reward, no motivation. In the gym, you can see how for some people are and that motivate you.

With no goal and no motivation, hiding in the basement/garage lifting some weights and wearing jeans, I doubt that person will work out much.

Figuring out what to do is a big part of the challenge for me too. I workout at home and follow video guided exercises using the Fiton App which is free for most content. I started with no weights, but have since gotten a few sets of dumbbells at different weights.

Yes, going to the gym can be fun. Once you start feeling better and seeing results, there is a feedback cycle that makes you want more.

You should buy a pair of gym shorts and have a spare tshirt for working out.

Without knowing your goals it is hard to tell you what to do when you arrive to the gym. Typically you check in by scanning your card. If you don't want to change at the gym, show up in your shorts and shirt ready to work.

So now you've entered the gym with some proper attire, then what? If you don't have a plan, a good default is to limber up by stretching for a bit. Then find your favorite cardio machine and warm up on that, maybe for 15 mins or so.

Then you can do what you please. Go lift weights, continue with the cardio, play a game like basketball with some people; variety is the spice of life.

If you don't know how to lift weights, there are tons of resources out there ranging from books and YouTube to personal training.

Circuit training on machines is a great way to get started, especially if you don't have someone to work out with.

Home training is ok, but you have to have a lot of discipline to not end up on your phone or the couch. Going to a gym, especially with a workout partner, seems to work best for me.

Not that I liked the gym, but for lazy people like me it's way easier than figuring that shit out on my own. There was a trainer who made a plan of which exercises to do when. And there were special machines for training different muscle groups that were very easy to use. You'd visit a lot of those machines after eachother and do for instance 3 sets of moving the weight 10 times up and down again. And apart from that there were the threadmills etc.

Now I don't know about you, but I don't have threadmills in my house, nor any of the other equipment, nor someone who knows enough about fitness to know what exercises would help me best.

That being said, I never liked it, I prefer to just start with something and keep doing that same thing for an hour or so. Currently I've been running multiple times a week for a few years already. Way cheaper and it also works better for me.

Thank-you all, this was actually super helpful and motivating. I've been doing what I can at home and maybe looking into a gym membership but I still feel that may not be for me as I don't really want to be around others while working out. Im going to keep biking and keep looking for some gear for the basement

Build one of these out of old pallets, concrete and other scrap stuff