European Inspired Home Gym With RitFit Smith Machine

Welcome to our European-inspired home gym in the middle of rural New Jersey.

Are you more surprised that a home gym can be European-inspired or that part of New Jersey is rural?

New Jersey is used to being the subject of many jokes, but this home gym we created is no joke.

It’s our new favorite place!

We converted a room in our 250-year-old Carriage House into a European-inspired home gym because that made the most sense, right now, for how we could utilize this space.

It started out looking like this.

Then we made it look worse when we decided the stone walls needed repointing because no one wants to work out in a depressing gym with crumbling walls.

It’s a laborious, messy process that we tackled ourselves. No pain, no gain home gym.

You can read more about process here.

It took us six weeks, but finally, the space started looking better.

The stone walls give it that old-world, European flare, don’t they?

Most folks hoped we were creating a potting shed out of this space.

While gardening can be a workout, we were looking for a workout of a less seasonal nature.

Weightlifting.

This is a small room for a home gym at only 9ft x 13ft.

We needed a weightlifting rack that would not only have all the functionality and safety features that we needed but also fit in our space.

We chose a Smith machine by Ritfit over free weights because we can set safety locks to minimize the risk of crush injuries. This seemed prudent since we have teenagers and also because if I’m spotting for my husband, I can’t lift anywhere near the weight that he can…yet.

What the heck is a Smith machine? So glad you asked.

A Smith machine is a weightlifting machine where the bar that holds the weights for exercises like squats and deadlifts can only move up and down on a fixed vertical track. Since we are weightlifting for general health reasons and aren’t aiming to be competitive weightlifters, the limitations of the Smith machine are just fine for us.

These limitations include not engaging stabilizing muscles as fully as you would when lifting free weights. It also changes your form a little since the bar doesn’t have any horizontal movement.

Between you and me, as a middle-aged woman, weightlifting is tough! The only thing heavier that I’m carrying around is the weight of all my pressing roles and obligations. Ha! So, I’m just fine with the limitations of the Ritfit Smith machine.

The thing that makes it all feel better is if I crank the 80s hard rock, disassociate a little, and pretend that I’m working out in England, not New Jersey.

It’s not hard to do when I have these gorgeous stone walls to look at.

So far, we’ve been lifting weights three times a week for the past month. This is in addition to my daily walks and my husband’s running schedule.

Are we seeing results yet? Well, it stopped being so painful the day after a workout, so maybe my muscles are getting used to it. Ha! My husband says his back and shoulder are already feeling better from the work he’s doing to strengthen them.

What I REALLY like though is that this is an activity that we can do as a family. If you have teenagers then you know that sometimes (maybe a lot of the time) they’d rather hang out with their friends than their parents. It makes me so happy that we’ve found an individualized activity that we can do together and cheer each other on.

What do you think of our European-inspired home gym? Did your doctor tell you weightlifting would be good for you too? I’d love to know. Please leave a comment on this blog post, email us here, or reach out via Instagram or Facebook.

Here are the items used in our European-inspired home gym.

RitFit M1 Smith Machine
Lifting Belt
Puzzle Exercise Mat18 inch Flushmount Cage Light With Fan

Thanks for being here today! If you’d like another blog post to read, I can help you out with that.

Messy Middle – Stone Carriage House Gym Conversion

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Creative Way To Display Race Bibs

That One Time I Went For a Trail Run

*affiliate links used in this blog post