As a Nigerian guy who have over the years be familiar with workouts from home as an avenue for me to stay fit and healthy, so far I will say it is much more cost effective when you will compare it with others options out there in our society.
Talking about the gym which is a popular and constant solution for many people out there for their workout routines, the cost of the gym membership most especially when you find yourself in big cities like Lagos or Abuja, I must confess it can really be quite expensive. The recent trends happening right now is people reshaping and running back to home workouts as apart from the cost effective, it offer you this flexibility to be able to exercise at any time you want.
But even with those benefits home workouts offer, I will say there is a popular challenge one constantly faced and that is it can sometimes get in your way when you are trying to maintain a minimalist lifestyle. I am talking from experience.
Before I even go deeper to talk about the challenges between the home workouts and the Minimalism, I will like to establish that when one talk about minimalism, it talks about living less, less materials, less possession, less distractions and shaping your lifestyle to focus on that which really matters in order of priority. Instead of the popular mindset a lot of people have in the aspect of acquiring more and more, minimalists like me focus much more on quality over quantity and thereby achieve simplicity.
Coming back to talk about the home workouts, the constant issues is that the fitness tools or equipment most times does not fit into the minimalist lifestyle I have just described above. I personally love working from home, I have discovered I begin to accumulate more materials, tools that even though it's needed and helpful to achieve my fitness goal, but it also brings along its spatial challenges.
If you are in this situation, you will discover that there are certain part of your home which even though was once open has become a workout zone and turned to a storage area for your fitness equipments and gadgets. This will lead me to the important question and that is "How can one balance the need for fitness and at the same time still achieve your dreamed minimalist home?"
Well I discovered it is not really that difficult as many of us assumed. But before then, let me briefly talk about the few challenges of home workouts. Earlier I stated a lot of the benefits it bought, but even with that, there are still challenges that if not quickly tackled, can really be frustrating.
If you are that which have fitness gadgets like Kettlebells at home, you will agree with me that even though they are good for your strength training, they can really be weighty and most times hard to high. You can start with just one Kettlebells and before you knew it, you have find yourself adding more and more of it. Even though the reason to acquire more of it is to help increase the varieties of your workout, but from my experience with people who have it, if can become difficult to store them neatly.
Not only even Kettlebells, even fitness gadgets like the Yoga Mats, Resistance Bands, Exercise Balls and many more. They can really be difficult at times to ignore and this can disrupt the intended arrangements every minimalist home should have. Take for example resistance bands, they can easily be misplaced and at the end might even contribute to the overall clutter at home which should not be so for a minimalist.
Now the big question is, how can I find the balance? Finding the balance is not as difficult as many assumed like I said. The first recommendation I will give is to invest in what I call the multifunctional equipments. Instead of you buying those peices of gadgets, look for those that can multifunction. Take for example the resistance band I mentioned earlier, it is a perfect example of multifunctional equipment as it can do the work of the strength training, stretching and other exercises like the rehabilitation exercises.
The second recommendation I will give to create the balance is to design a workout storage area in your home. This is what a lot of people does especially people who will prefer to workout their fitness routine from home instead of going to the gym. If you are a minimalist like me who is devoted to maintaining your minimalist home, you can have a particular space in your home for your workout gadget and fitness activities. This will help to keep things in order and helps to reduce the clutter that might want to happen in your home.
As I conclude, even though home workouts can be cosy effective, sometimes it can really have a lot of challenges that might threaten you having a minimalist home but there can still be a balanced between both. At the end of the day, you can still have your dream minimalist home and at the same time have your home workouts. Everything still points down to adequate balancing between both.