There’s a “myth” going round that many people seem to believe in: you need massive amounts of space and a lot of equipment to be able to exercise effectively.
In my experience, this is simply not true unless of course you are practicing sports like athletics, basketball or gymnastics, etc. but you know that… right?
If you’re starting your fitness journey from zero and you want to shed weight, feel stronger and look amazing you don’t need a lot of space at all!
As a general, very rough, guide… if you can dance in your front room without bruising your elbows or bashing your knees on the furniture you have enough space.
If you can fit a giant tv screen on your wall you definitely have a room big enough to exercise in. And if you can fit a double sofa bed in the room, well… you guessed it: you definitely have plenty of space.
When I first started out as a Fitness Coach I used to visit clients in their homes. I’ve seen a huge variety of them: some had fully equipped home gyms, whereas others had limited amounts of space and had to make do with what they had available. Just like I do.
I can assure you that the body transformations that happened in every case had nothing to do with the amount of space available, but they had everything to do with the person’s attitude and commitment to make improvements to their health, wellbeing, fitness, weight, and the way they looked.
Location, location, location
Your first step is to look around your home and find a space that you can designate as an “exercise” area.
Ideally, this is somewhere in your home that can be permanently set up ready for you to step in and do your workouts. This will help you remove the barrier of “I can’t be bothered to dig out my equipment” because it’s always there, ready to be picked up and used.
And all you have to do are the exercises you said you were going to do, but you’re still trying to find excuses not to do.
How big?!
The clients who live in smaller homes and have limited equipment, still achieve the most amazing transformations in the space of a small rug because, sometimes, that’s all the space they have between the coffee table (that we pushed against the sofa) and the opposite wall.
We do weight lifting, we do cardio, we do stretching, we do Animal Flow, we do functional training, and we do HIIT workouts in a tiny space.
And then, of course, if it’s Summer and you have a garden, you have extra space to move in.
But obviously, weight loss is not just about the workouts, is it?
Exercise is the least important thing in the list of priorities for fat loss or for just body transformations, to improving your health. It’s important, but it’s the least important component of such a journey.
There are other things that are way more important than exercise, but you still have to do workout because the metabolic benefits from doing regular structured exercise are so good that you don’t want to miss out on them.
Honour your personal space
The last thing to consider when it comes to finding a suitable space to exercise in is honouring your personal space.
You see, if you’re not keen on exercising, you really want to avoid any kind of distractions like people or pets suddenly appearing and invading your space and making it difficult for you to complete your workout.
It’s so easy to get angry and give up. Especially if you then struggle to get back into the right headspace.
So, if you can, find somewhere with a door that you can shut and leave everyone out for a short while. This will help you focus 100% on what you’re doing and ensure you’re always using perfect form. Otherwise you’ll risk an injury and you’ll get lame results thus reinforcing the idea that you hate exercise.
If you made it this far reading, you may want to check out the video above. At around 13 minutes in I show you my dining room, which, size wise, is an insult to all dining rooms out there. BUT it's been big enough for fitness photo shoots and my own body transformations.
The list of equipment you need to achieve an amazing body transformation
- nothing
- nothing
- nothing
Get it? 
Don’t feel “less than” because you don’t have a fully equipped home gym. There’s no need.
Sure, weights and machines will give you more choice but, trust me, they’re not necessary. Your own body weight plus gravity will give you plenty of resistance to work with.
Most people don’t use any equipment unless they have to address a very specific deficiency in their physique or want to achieve a certain look.
As you progress on your fitness journey you can start adding bits and pieces of equipment. When you get to this stage, I highly recommend a set of dumbbells that you can buy cheapissimo from Amazon or your local Decathlon store.
You can then expand on this as and when.
Remember: equipment will help you achieve your goals, but commitment and consistency will give you outstanding results.
Where to start?
You can sign up to my Free Fitness Tips and my newsletter here 👇👇