The Importance of Personal Workout Spaces - Our Gym Flooring

[UPDATED in 2025]

In the last few years, working out at home has taken on a whole new meaning. Previously, a home gym was seen as a luxury. Now, a personal workout space is part of the bigger picture of health and wellness.

Home fitness has accelerated massively following the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. What’s come out of the pandemic is just how necessary fitness is to so many areas of life. More people are investing in a home fitness workout space and taking their home exercise to a whole new level.

In this article:

5 Types of Home Workout Spaces
Why is it Important to Have a Personal Workout Space?
4 Things to Consider When Setting Up a Workout Zone
What Tools Do You Need to Create a Workout Space?
Reap the Benefits of a Home Workout Area

Personal workout spaces- 5 Types of Home Workout Spaces

When it comes to home workout spaces, homeowners are starting to get creative with their space. Many of us might not have a whole room to dedicate to fitness whereas others are ready to build a purpose-built gym in the garden to fit a precise specification. The good news is, there are several types of home workout spaces that work with all budgets, timescales and lifestyles, so getting your routine fix of exercise is more achieveable than you think.

Let's look at some popular home workout set-ups:

Home Gym

A home gym is a broad term. Your home gym is a personal workout space that contains all of the gym equipment necessary for you to get in a workout. Creative home gym ideas could include a yoga studio in an under-used conservatory or a free weights zone in a spare bedroom for example.

A home gym can be full of rigs, high-tech equipment like treadmills and smart rowing machines or a space for you to perform a HIIT workout with kettlebells and weights. In other words, a home gym is exactly how you want it to be and where you need it to be.

Living Room Nook

The nook-style home gym applies to any room in the house. It could be in a dining area or living room. With this, you create a separate area through home gym flooring or temporary room separators. Many people don’t have an entire room for a workout space, so integrating fitness equipment into your living area is a great way to incorporate a home gym.

Garage Gym

garage gym

A garage is often a go-to spot for a home gym. This is because garages already have a solid foundation that can handle heavy equipment and weights. It’s separate from the home, so it is good for keeping the noise down and not waking up the family. If you’re wondering how to turn a garage into a home gym, a great place to start is by choosing the right flooring for comfortable training and to install useful features like good lighting and temperature control.

Outdoor Gym

Nowadays, more people are looking to maximise the home space. That means using your outdoor area effectively. An outdoor gym could be a shed, summerhouse, or outdoor gym. Outdoor gyms are a great way to incorporate home fitness without taking up a room in the house. For those that need that spare room for a home office, building an outdoor gym is a fantastic solution.

Attic or Basement Gym

Another type of home workout space is either an attic or basement home gym. These types of spaces often accumulate household 'junk' and a home gym is a great excuse to declutter and repurpose space that is not being utilised to maximise advantage.

Why is it Important to Have a Personal Workout Space?

It’s no secret that fitness is good for your physical and mental health. Moving your body has so many benefits to your overall well-being. The 2020 pandemic put the spotlight on home fitness, and having a personal workout space is more important than ever.

Some of our gym flooring customers created at-home workout spaces in 2020. Here's what they had to say about the importance of accessible exercise space:

Mental Well-Being and Self-Care

For many of our customers, a home workout space represents self-care. It gives them the opportunity to take the time and focus on themselves. In a world full of constant connectivity, it can feel challenging to disconnect and take a few deep breaths. This is where having a fitness space at home can support your mental health.

“Having a dedicated place to workout is imperative because it means you have your “go-to” place when you want to exercise and the beauty of having this at home is the fact I don’t have to pay for a membership and travel to and from a gym and can easily work out in my own time which is one less thing to worry about. Even my wife loves using the equipment, which is a bonus! If you’re ever worried about the cost of buying equipment, all you have to do is buy things over a period of time, and eventually, you’ll have your very own gym, which is what I’ve done, and I’m still buying more and more as the months go on."

“My garage gym has saved me. I truly believe that having the little sanctuary to train and continue some part of normality that is working out for me has helped me create good habits during the lockdown. It has created somewhere for me to go, to forget any stresses or anxious thoughts and just work hard with some good tunes playing.

Having a Safe & Comfortable Place to Train

Throughout multiple lockdowns, public messaging actively encouraged fitness but with gyms and fitness studios closed, it was tough to get a workout in. Finding a safe place to work out that meets your needs is important in allowing you to hit your goals and continue to work out.

“I think it's massively important to have a safe and suitable place to workout. Having a dedicated place to work out means while you are there, you should just focus on your sessions without any distraction from normal day to day routines. I find that even putting my phone away during the session helps as it's very easy to pick it up, and then before you know it, time has passed from texting and searching the web or Facebook etc.”

Training Clients

A number of our amazing clients are personal trainers. Creating a studio space for clients to work out at home allowed them to generate income and support their clients through those challenging times.

"I have a new gym at home in the garden, built during Covid, and with space now at home, it is much easier to access time and space to workout. It is for working with weights, conditioning and mobility. I use this space myself and with my clients.

Focus on Family Time

When you only have to take a couple of steps to work out at home, all of a sudden, you gain a ton of time back. Think of all the times you were stuck in traffic on the way to the gym. Or when you are limited by your gym’s opening times and can’t work out exactly when you want. All of this time back means you can spend time and focus on the family without your fitness suffering.

For now, I have converted my garage so that I can be on hand when those nappy’s need changing. It’s all about getting quality training when the window of opportunity presents. Having a small workout space at home is proving to be extremely beneficial. Not only for me but my family too. I believe introducing children to exercise at a young age will encourage them to live a long, happy and healthy life—something we all want for our children. We love our rubber flooring, and my son enjoys practising his burpees and roly polys on a nice soft floor."

Improve Motivation and Stay Focused

Motivation and consistency is key to fitness. When you show up for yourself regularly and work out, it encourages you to form a positive attitude with exercise and keep your motivation levels high. Sticking to a consistent fitness schedule is essential for achieving your goals.

"It keeps you motivated as you’re in an environment set for it, and it also means it’s safer to do so. I am also able to have friends exercise with me due to having the correct space, this makes it more fun and mentally rewarding as it helps others."

4 Things to Consider When Setting Up a Workout Zone

When setting up a workout zone, there are four key elements you should consider. These are the elements that can change from person to person. If you go through this list of factors, you will be in a great position to set up your personal workout space.

Make a Plan

Think about what goals you are looking to achieve. If you want to increase muscle mass and strength, it makes sense that you would build a free weights area in the home. Whereas, if you’re looking for a versatile space, you would choose fitness equipment that allows you to work multiple muscle groups.

Create Space

Figure out where in the home you have the space to create a fitness area. You could look at your garage, a spare bedroom, a shed, and even a basement if you have one. Measure the space you have available so that you can fit equipment to the area you have. Your space will dictate how much and how large your fitness equipment will be.

Determine a Budget

You can create a home gym on a small or large budget. You don’t have to spend a ton of money on building a home fitness space. At the same time, it’s easy to invest a fair amount of budget into your home. It all comes down to your budget and the investment you have available for this project.

Think About Noise

Another factor to think about is noise. Do you have neighbours, a young family, or like to work out late at night? If you plan on doing a lot of yoga and low-impact exercise, you likely won’t make a lot of noise. But if you do a lot of jumps, high-impact activity, and drop weights, you will need to think about sound insulation by installing noise-reducing anti-shock rubber tiles.

In summary:

What Tools do you need to Create a Workout Space

The next stage of creating a workout space is thinking about what kind of tools you will need. To start with, consider the heating, ventilation and insulation. If you want to work out all year, you need to make sure that your home gym temperature is stable even in cold winters or sweltering hot summers. Think about your lighting as well as this can impact the overall feel of your workout space.

The correct type of fitness flooring will also set you up for success. A safe foundation will provide plenty of traction so that you don’t slip over during exercise. It’s a good idea to align your home gym flooring with your type of exercise so that you can set up the best foundation for fitness possible.

Other tools you may need to create your workout space include:

Equipment staples - Squat or Power Rack, Dumbbells, Barbells and Plates, Spin Bike or other Cardio Machine
Equipment storage - Weights Rack, Shelving Units and Wall Mounted Racks

Reap the Benefits of a Home Workout Area

The bottom line is that anyone can set up a workout space at home. You don’t need any expert DIY or fitness knowledge to get going. Integrating a personal workout space into your home gives you access to exercise around the clock. When you can exercise consistently and show up for yourself, you can take time to stay present, reduce stress, and even support your personal training clients.

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