When someone makes the decision that they want to get in shape, they have a decision to make, should they train at home or should they join a gym or a fitness center. Both have advantages and disadvantages. To train properly and safely at home using weights you need to have the space available to put the proper equipment. The minimum necessary equipment is a power rack, Olympic barbells, and an assortment of dumbbells. If you do not have the space for this type of equipment and you want to train with weights and train heavily, then a commercial gym is your best option. But if you have the space such as a garage or basement, there are many advantages to training at home.

One advantage is that you are able to concentrate on what you are doing. Most commercial gyms are very busy, there are a lot of people moving about, many different conversations going on. There maybe music playing that you do not like. People may want to talk to you while you are trying to get ready for your next lift. But at a home gym you can set the environment so you will have no distractions.

There are also many "experts" at a commercial gym who are always trying to give you advice. However, I feel the best advice comes from reading books and training articles by the old time strongmen who used tried and true exercises like the squat, dead lift, and bench press.

Also, a home gym can be as safe, if not safer, than a commercial gym. You can do squats and bench presses safely using a power rack. At a gym you may have someone spotting you who could become distracted and the bar could slip and wind up on your face. I have also seen instances of near misses in gyms where someone is not paying attention and almost walks into someone doing a set of squats.

At a home gym you also avoid the peer pressure of competing against everyone else in the gym. The only person you should be competing against is yourself. You need to be measuring yourself against your own goals, what you lifted last week, and what is possible for own body. You don't need to be focused on what other people are doing or how much they are lifting.

As mentioned earlier, the equipment you will need for a safe, productive, weightlifting program is a power rack for squats, presses, and pulling movements, a flat bench, an Olympic barbell and weights, and assorted dumbbells. With this equipment and by sticking to the basics, you will get in shape.

There are many programs that you can use all centered around the basics but a very basic, productive routine that has been used forever and will get results is a 3 day a week program of 2 to 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps of the following exercises. Squats, dead lifts, bench presses, bent over rows, military presses, barbell curls, close-grip bench presses, and bent-legged crunches. There are variations of this for advanced lifters where you do squats and calf raises on Monday, dead lifts and bent rows on Wednesday, and bench presses and curls on Friday.

Some of the all-time great strongmen trained at home in their basements, garages, and back yards. These were men such as Reg Park, Fred Howell, Bob Peoples, and many other others. If you are not familiar with them, look them up, and you will get some great insight into home training and the benefits you will receive.