My First Purchase Of Equipment For Our Home Gym – I Bought A WaterRower!

This past weekend, I made my first purchase of equipment for our home gym just for me, and I can’t be bothered about it anymore! I bought myself a WaterRower. (Actually, the only equipment I can think of I want to buy is a set of freeweights.) Anyway, have you heard of it? I’m sure many of you have, especially if you’ve been to an Orangetheory. This is what they use in all their gyms, except instead of the original wood design, their metal and painted in their signature orange color. I got the beautiful original tree design.

But let me back up a bit. I started working out at our home gym earlier this year, and got it from this point…

At this point…

And there remained things. I was wrong to think I could continue working out at the home gym while the guys at my contractor worked in the master bathroom, but I quickly learned that I would continue on their way if I tried it. The scuttle hole in the crawl space under the house and the attic access are the same in this room, and they use this room to store tools, materials and supplies, and so on. So there’s just now a way for me to work internally and not their way.

And after they finished their part in the master bathroom and handed it to me, I asked Matt which room I wanted to focus on first. It wasn’t too surprising when he chose the bathroom. That’s why the home gym has been around for a long time. But I plan to go back there at some point so we can have a usable home gym by the end of this year.

We already have a pair of equipment for the gym. Matt’s Theracycle is his main equipment that he uses every day. (Right now, it’s taking up space in my studio, so I want it out there ASAP. But he uses it there almost every day.) But that’s just for Matt. A Theracycle is a special automatic bicycle that moves the legs of people with Parkinson’s, MS, and other neurological diseases to maintain good mobility.

And then I had an awesome Bellicon rebounder that my mom bought as a “thank you” after I helped her with her kitchen fix (I’m not sure it was a real remake, but it was a lot more than simple change) at the start of 2020. (See: My Mom’s Finished Kitchen – Before and After if you don’t have that.) That’s all we have now. I have a treadmill, but I know I hate treadmills, so I’m going to sell it. That excitement is not taking the room in our gym at home.

And then, of course, I’ll build a Swedish staircase (also called bar stalls). You can see what these look like here, and if you’re interested in how it’s used, you can find many Swedish stair / stall bar exercises on YouTube. This will be something useful for us Matt. So that goes to that section of the wall with the largest teal edge.

I originally expected to add a punching bag to the interior (a heavy bag, that is), but I’m not sure the room is big enough to accommodate that. It has to be in a corner, and that really doesn’t help with a good heavy bag workout.

That’s why I want another equipment for the interior that (1) doesn’t take up as much room as the treadmill does, but (2) will provide almost a full body workout as much as possible. And that’s what brought me to the rowing machine. I keep finding information that says rowing machines work like 86% of your muscles with just one workout.

I used to only use rowers in gyms, so I never used one at home. And frankly, it never crossed my mind that it could be a home-grown class tool until an announcement for one was posted on my Facebook feed last week. But it’s for one of the all black, metal, fast type, with multiple monitors and monthly subscriptions to online classes.

No one appealed to me. If I’m exercising on something like a treadmill or rower or rebounder, I want to turn on Netflix or Hulu and watch a show, or watch a podcast. That way time will pass for me. So all of these big monitors with bells and whistles, and monthly subscriptions to teacher -led classes (sometimes live), might be good for some, but it’s never for me.

And that’s where I caught up with the water rowers. There are all sorts, and at first, I was looking at Ergatta. It will look like the exact same design as the WaterRower, except it has a monitor on it. But instead of teacher -led classes, it uses a play format to keep you motivated and motivated. But again, those were bells and whistles that didn’t appeal to me. I can’t think of anything less appealing to me than play format for my workout. ⁇

That’s what brought me to the WaterRower. It’s like the basic, no -nonsense Ergatta plot. And first the WaterRower. It was designed in the mid -1980s by Yale and U.S. National Team Rower John Duke. That’s why it’s been around for decades.

I bought one of the original designs made of wood. There’s something even more interesting and beautiful to me about a piece of exercise equipment made of wood and water (inside a plastic drum, of course).

What attracted me the most about it (apart from the way it looked) was that it wasn’t electricity. The water inside the tank is simple which provides resistance while rowing. And it produces the most amazing and soothing sound while in use. You can hear what it sounds like here.

I also love that when it’s not in use, it can stand in front of it and hide in the wall, taking a footprint of 20 ″ x 22.25. That’s the smallest footprint of all the rowing machines I’ve looked at, and I watched MANY of them last week. This is what it would look like if it was stored upright on a wall. It’s really not very habitable!

I am so excited about this addition to our home gym! And I’m so glad it turned out to be a verdict. Once I set my sights on a rowing machine, I looked at maybe 100 different brands before judging on one of them. I watched ProForm, Ergatta, Hydrow, NordicTrack, Concept 2 (very fast!), Sunny Heath & Fitness. I mean, the list goes on. But in the end, the WaterRower seemed right for me and how I exercised.

The weird thing is that I found WaterRowers on Amazon (the real brand), and it said it would be available this week. But on the actual website of the company, it says that my order will be placed on the production line and shipped in 2-4 weeks. That’s why I don’t really trust whatever that Amazon has to offer. (That’s seconds?) So I went ahead and ordered directly from the company’s website to make sure I get the real thing.

And when it gets here, and I’ve set up my gym, it’ll live here on this corner when it’s not available.

I think we would have a very usable little gym at home once it was all over. But I need to finish that bathroom so I can start working out in the gym again! I think my goal might be to get the same rooms where they are least available. That is, getting to the bathroom to the point that we can use the shower. That’s the main thing Matt wants ASAP. And then go back to the home gym and get it in a working condition. Afterwards I turn my attention back to the bathroom and put it on all the finishing touches, and then do the same for the home gym.

The use of the same rooms was our first priority. All the nice things not added to the functionality can wait until both rooms are available.