9 Essential Home Gym Safety Tips to Follow

Make no mistake, working out regularly is great for your health and overall wellbeing. With that said, the gym can turn some people off because they may view it as dangerous. While there are some ways you can get injured at the gym, it’s easy to remain safe if you work out correctly in your home gym. Follow these essential home gym safety tips.

1. Have a Spotter

To truly see improvement from the gym, you will need to challenge yourself. This means you will work out until the point of exhaustion, but that can become dangerous if you’re not careful. While you don’t necessarily need to lift incredibly heavy weights every time you work out, when you do, have a spotter there. This is incredibly important when you perform bench presses or back squats at maximum strength. There’s a chance that you can’t get the weight back on the bar, which can put you in a dangerous potion. A spotter can help you in case you can’t get it back up.

2. Perfect Your Form

If you just started your fitness journey, you may want to try and lift the most weight possible. However, this can do more damage to you, and it’s a very misunderstood aspect of working out. Instead, focus on perfecting your form because this is how you will improve in the gym and avoid injury. This means working with lower weights and doing the movements correctly. This isn’t to say that you can’t lift heavy weights at all, or that you should not gradually up your weight, just make the form of the workout a priority. 

3. Research Workouts

Use the Internet to your advantage as your work toward your fitness goals. One of the best ways to perfect your form is to find videos of the particular exercise performed correctly. This will make it easier to emulate, and it will result in an improved workout.

There are also various YouTube channels with information that can give you new workout ideas and help you gain more knowledge. This comes down to some of what we touch on here, but in far greater detail. The smarter you get in the gym, the safer you will be. While you should use the Internet as a resource, try to avoid comparing yourself to others you may find on social media or in videos. It can be self-degrading if you try and reach a certain physique based on another person. Keep reality in mind, and focus on your own personal goals.

4. Warm Up

What you do before your workout can help avoid injury. This is why another gym safety tip is to warm up beforehand. A warm up can consist of many things, from stretching to a light jog. It’s important to get your heart rate up, and your muscles warm, before you move on to your main workout. You, essentially, want to prepare your body for what’s to come, so you can avoid possible injuries.

5. Add/Remove Weight Plates Correctly

Another sign of danger in the gym is incorrectly adding or removing weight. This safety hazard often happens when someone adds or removes weight for squats or a bench press. If you add a lot of weight to the barbell, you should:

• Start by adding one weight to one side
• Then go to the other and add two plates
• If you keep going up, move to the other side, and add three plates
• Continue to either balance or add until you reach the desired total weight

You do not want to put all the plates on one side at once because this can result in the barbell tipping over and potentially hitting someone in the area. The same can be said when you remove plates, just do the opposite:

• Remove one plate
• Then remove two on the other side
• Back to one on the other side and so on…

As you add weights, also be wary of where your fingers are. Push the weight plate in with your palms once you get it on the barbell, so you don’t injury your fingers. Also, make sure you use barbell clips, so the plates don’t move as you lift.

6. Recover

After a hard workout, your recovery is the key to avoid injury. You should drink water before, during, and after a workout, as it helps improve your recovery. Consuming protein can also help your muscles recover after your workout in addition to building them. You should also stretch, and consider taking an ice bath. If your muscles become very sore, there are various creams you can rub on them that can reduce pain.

7. Take Rest Days

If you’re motivated, you may not want to take any rest days, but they’re necessary. No matter what you train for, you should take at least one rest day off per week. Your body needs that day during the week so that it can essentially reboot, plus you probably deserve it too. Try to designate the same rest days each week, so you can continue to follow your routine and reach your goals.

8. Turn Down the Music

It can be difficult to find motivation in the gym, but music is a great source of it. However, listening to music too loud for long periods of time can damage your hearing. Many smartphones today will even tell you this as you turn up the volume on your phone. It can also be dangerous if you can’t hear your surroundings, so keep the music at a reasonable volume.

9. Clean Up After Yourself

Even if you work out on your own personal home fitness equipment, you still want to wipe down your equipment after you use it. This is because a gym can easily spread germs through sweat. Even if you’re the only one who uses the equipment, you still want to maintain and clean it. This is why you should have a disinfectant spray bottle handy along with a towel.