Fitness centres at home

Though a wide range of equipment is available in the market for home gyms, experts warn fitness freaks that gymming at home is not all that easy.

A recent visit to the DLF Club, one of the best clubs in Gurgaon, only reiterated the point that Indians are becoming increasingly health and fitness conscious.

While a sizeable number of people are stepping into sleek gyms, getting advice from instructors on fitness modules and health and diet charts, there are some who don't have the time to step into these fitness arenas.

What should they do? Simple: Create a home gym. But what sort of equipment is necessary and suitable for home gyms? How should one start the process of setting up home gyms? Read on.

Experts suggest that before creating that much-needed fitness space at home, some experience of gymming is a must. Says Raj Dhingra, owner of Delhi-based Power Gym: "Poorly designed equipment is likely to do more harm than good. It's worth waiting a while to buy the right equipment."

But how does one do that? Apart from sports majors like Reebok, Adidas and Nike, there are very few organised retail points for buying gym-related equipment. Reebok is considered to be one of the main players while Nike and Adidas have fringe products.

For instance, Reebok has treadmills, steppers and joggers, while Adidas has a range of products that includes dumb-bells, exercise mats and other equipment related to weights.

Says Andreas Gellner, managing director, Adidas (India), "With more people becoming fitness conscious, it is a segment which is bound to grow." Out of all the fitness equipment, treadmills are quite common in most homes. Treadmills may be motorised or non-motorised.

On a basic treadmill you simply walk at a fixed incline. The motorised treadmill available widely in the market is much better and has a longer and wider walking strip besides a display monitor showing the calories burnt and a wider walking strip of 3-4 ft.

"Most people don't know how to set the machine, and strain themselves with a workout that their body cannot take", says Balwinder Parihar, gym instructor at the Delhi-based Siri Fort gym.

The stepper is another common exercise machine used at homes. It simulates the action of climbing steps and gives a cardiovascular workout and is good for the lower part of the body. The exercycle is another thing which is pretty common in most homes. The cycle comes for around Rs 4,000 to Rs 12,000 with features like calorie meter and rowing arms attached with it.

Says Delhi-based fitness expert Dr Gaurav Jain, "Home gyms are not really advisable because if one doesn't know the right way to exercise it can damage the body severely. Any wrong equipment can harm the body in the long run"

Jain feels that having a home gym can only help if you already are fit and don't need much to do to keep your body in shape. Even in that case, after a while one stop getting results. "While there are people who are moving towards the trend of setting up home gyms, it is not profitable in the long run," he says.

Home gyms are good for low-pulley exercises like bench press, leg extension and seated butterfly. But most importantly, a home gym should be properly aligned, and should allow you to be comfortable in all positions.

Home gyms can be quite expensive depending on the equipment one chooses to install. A multi-purpose machine on which one can do crunches, bench press and shoulder exercises costs anywhere between Rs 1.5-5 lakh. A lot of branded equipment from Taiwan and US is available in the Indian market.

Working out at home can also become monotonous, especially if one is used to going to nearby fitness centres. However, Gellner confirms, "An increasing number of Indians are becoming aware of the need to look good and stay fit in a fitness industry that is growing rapidly."

Staying fit is the new mantra for the Indian consumers who may choose to go for a yoga class or even a session of aerobics. Now there is a growing industry of fitness equipment for those who want to set up home gyms.

But Jain warns, "People are looking at fitness seriously, the idea is to do it properly." So for all those who thought gymming at home was easy, well it's not. Not if it isn't done properly.