With the pandemic restricting most of us to our homes, going to the gym on a daily basis isn’t really an option anymore. Add the work from home culture on to this situation as well, the result is basically just us sitting about in our home all day. We aren’t running about as we usually would, and nor are we really able to get any regular exercise done. An innovative solution to this problem is home gyms! Home gyms ensure that we work out and maintain our physique within the comforts of our own home. We don’t need to step out, nor stress about the cons of stepping out, we can simply slip into our gym attire and get our daily workout done right in our own home. So, we’ve curated a collection of unique, super functional, and innovative home gym designs that’ll ensure you don’t use the pandemic as an excuse to skip out on your workout anymore! It’s time to get fit and healthy with these designs.
A space-saving work + workout setup designed for your mind & body! It has been one year of WFH and we all have quickly realized the need for furniture that can serve dual purposes and optimize space when we are working at home/living at work. Especially for the urban demographic that lives in compact apartments, it is a challenge to create a home office and also have space left for exercise equipment – another lifestyle change we have adapted to! This innovative desk design uses wall bars at its core with modular attachments that let you use it as your 9-5 set up and then transform it into beast mode. Made in Germany, wall bars offer a particularly wide range of possible variations. In addition to many training options, the combination offers a functional workplace. The desk module is attached in a few seconds, without tools. The height is flexible, so it can be used as a desk or as a high table. After work, the desk module can simply be unhooked and folded in so that it can be stowed behind the wall bars, under the bed, or behind the door. With additions like the slide, the kids can find their movement-compensation on the wall bars even after work. These setups work for the whole family and the wooden finish lets it seamlessly blend with any interior aesthetic.
Oliver Perretta’s Kondition was inspired by a piece of furniture that actually resembles a standard workout bench, IKEA’s BEKANT series. Both IKEA’s BEKANT and Perretta’s Kondition have similar personalities as they appear as modest, simple furniture designs whose true essence shines through in their ability to blend into any given room. At first, an unassuming side bench or low-rise table during living room hours, and then, an adjustable home workout with a sliding bench come gym time. Perretta was certain to make bullnose corners for Kondition’s workout station in order to enhance both the piece’s adaptive nature and its approachability in its inherent baby-proof design. Additionally, Perretta plans to utilize aluminum extrusion in any eventual construction process as that would ensure a high strength-to-weight ratio for more intense workouts. Stamped panels also make for easy and deep cleaning so that job won’t ever feel stressful after a good sweat.
Fitwork’s design sort of embodies a no-excuse mentality to being fit. Whether it’s the excuse of ‘being too busy’, or of ‘not wanting to go all the way to the gym’, Fitwork combats it by bringing the gym not just to your house, but to your workspace. Designed as a product to let you work and work out at the same time, this crazy hybrid of a desk-chair and treadmill keeps your legs active while you work. Whether you’re sitting in front of a laptop or standing in front of one, it’s the sedentary lifestyle that Fitwork tackles. The setup (which is sure to grab a few eyeballs) comes with an office chair attached to a treadmill underneath, and an elliptical in front. Coupled with an elevating desk, the Fitwork allows you to keep the lower half of your body active while you work, giving you cardio as well as keeping your spine engaged, whether you’re sitting or standing while working. While you’re sitting, your legs naturally rest on the Fitwork’s elliptical, allowing you to pedal away while typing out emails or attending zoom calls without really anyone knowing what a fitness buff you are. Swivel the chair back and boost your desk upwards and you’ve got yourself a standing workout workspace. Activate the treadmill and you can walk while working… or as I call it, walking the walk while talking the talk.
Instead of answering the unanswerable (really, who can say what’s up next for 2020), the team behind G-Wall designed their home gym specifically so that it could be stored behind a closet or armoire cabinet’s door. That way the time that you would have spent making room for your home fitness system, instead is spent actually putting it to use. G-Wall’s Home Fitness System has several standout features: variable modules, user-adjustability, and compatibility, to name a few. Each user decides on which modules they want to comprise the larger system. This means that despite the amount of space in your home, G-Wall’s design makes it possible to incorporate a home gym anywhere. The different modules that users can decide on range from cardiovascular equipment, to free weights and even heavy training. The gear that comes with each module is stored in cabinets or racks that easily hang behind doors or however the user deems appropriate for their personal space.
The Altwork desk claims to be the ultimate in productivity and ergonomics….and I agree, I have never seen a desk so flexible that it is practically a gymnast who also cares about your posture. This desk encourages productivity by molding itself to any position that you feel your best in. I personally love to stand and work but I don’t like being stuck in the same place, I work best when I move around and this desk allows me the freedom to do both! There is a demographic that may have health problems which makes it hard for them to sit at a conventional desk and chair in an office. This causes them to lose out on many job opportunities that they might excel at simply because there wasn’t a solution for “How will they sit in the office?” but, thankfully, technology today has given us the ability to work from anywhere and this desk’s shape-shifting form makes it a part of the inclusive design world which caters to the needs of differently-abled. Productivity and health is a universal right.
Designed to fit an entire fitness studio experience into your closet, the Otari setup folds down into something that occupies roughly the same space as a folded comforter or duvet. When it’s time to get those muscles working and that sweat running, the mat opens up to a full-length exercising surface and clips directly (you can actually use any existing yoga mat too) to the Otari Studio screen, within which lies the fitness experience’s secret sauce. The Otari Studio’s ultra-widescreen guides you through the exercises as you go, allowing you to access Otari’s extensive catalog of exercises brought to you by its world-class trainers sourced from top studios in NYC (you can even grab a preview of their training sessions on Instagram). The screen plugs into an external power source, comes fitted with 2 high-fidelity speakers, and runs the Otari Studio program, allowing you to work out in tandem with expert fitness instructors as the AI camera captures your routines.
Swift Creatives, a Scandinavian design studio located in Aarhus, Denmark, recently debuted Smart Fitness, an integrated smart workout system that equips your home workout with all the gym-related accessories you might need. The team at Swift Creatives got inspired by Nike and designed Smart Fitness for athletes at every level of any given sport to have a single system supplied with five smart workout accessories: a foam roller that doubles as a speaker, weighted jump rope, headphones, and water bottle. Foam rollers are a Godsend and essential for use following a heavy workout. Designed to help relieve muscle tension, increase your joint range of motion, and promote blood flow – foam rolling is an athlete’s bread and butter. Since foam rollers are supposed to be firm for purpose and by design, Swift Creatives took the opportunity to enclose a speaker inside the heavy-duty foam so that music can play while rolling.
Recognizing that most people don’t have the space for gym equipment in their home, or the money for a gym membership, or even the willpower to head to the gym every day, Josh Hume embarked on a journey to bring the gym to the household. The catch? It had to be the smallest, most exhaustive (and exhausting!) gym ever made. After multiple iterations, the FITT Cube was born. With its 450mm edge dimension, the FITT Cube occupies as much space as a footstool and comes with a mini-stepper (with its own seven-segment LCD display), a rotating seat, gripping handles, a plyometric platform, and even resistance bands. The FITT cube also comes with a user guide, exercise chart, and nutrition guide to keep you on top of your fitness game.
Whilst gym equipment may look right at home in… well, a gym, it does clash with the décor of most domestic settings. Seeing as we certainly don’t need another excuse not to exercise, it’s about time we have a more desirable alternative to all that clunky equipment! The solution is FUORIPISTA, a piece of fitness equipment that is undoubtedly an aesthetically pleasing object while meeting our functional demands. FUORIPISTA’s transparent legs achieve a visually light design so it can sit unobtrusively within the room. These legs have been paired with a wooden body that makes up the frame of the bicycle; with the design being treated in a manner that complements the existing furniture within the room instead of standing out and creating disharmony. FUORIPISTA also maintains its functionality and usability; with a tablet mounted on the handlebars to take you to any destination you want to while working out in your living room, you now have no excuse not to exercise at home!
The Tempo Studio is a gym-set that comes complete with a display and a motion-tracking camera that actively scans and monitors your exercise in 3D. With built-in exercise routines that are guided by expert trainers performing live exercise sessions, the Tempo is the equivalent of going on a Zoom video call with your gym trainer. Hop onto a personalized live session with a gym trainer of your choice and the trainer on the other side of the screen guides you through your workout. The Tempo Studio comes built-in with a workout mat as well as all the training gear you’d need, and Tempo’s AI-enabled camera module captures and tracks your body’s movement as you work out, allowing the trainer to remotely know where you’re going wrong.
