Hello. This is @ietore.jp. I’m a dad of three kids living in Japan.
This is the English page of the muscle training at home gym blog.
This is an English version of the blog for foreigners living in Japan who want to build a home gym in their home or apartment for muscle training.
I train at home in Tokyo using a power rack, spin bike, bench, rowing ergometer on joint mat.
I also have experience setting up and using a home gym in my rented apartment when I moved out in Yamagata Prefecture.
For those of you who are thinking about building a home gym, I will explain the essentials of a home gym – EVA joint mats, mirrors, power racks, benches, and spin bikes – as well as the size and height of the home gym, the size and installation of mirrors, the home gym floor, and the cost of creating a home gym in Japan, based on my experience.
Home gym equipment in Japan, I bought them all on Amazon and Rakuten
Three years ago, at the age of 43, I had a gout attack and decided to get serious about my health and start exercising (muscle training). At the time, I was living in a regional city in a snowy country, so I built a home gym in the living room of my rented apartment for training purposes.
All of the training equipment pictured was purchased through online commerce, so no matter where you are in Japan, it’s just a click away.
The centerpiece of my home gym is the Irotech Muscular Set R140, which was recommended online for newbies to muscle training; after 3 days of agonizing over it, I took the plunge and paid ¥120,000（approx 1,000USD) to buy it on Amazon without telling my wife (I’m thankful that I can buy it through mail order in rural areas).
I’m not serious about muscle training, so my results are poor, but I still went from 91kg to 85kg in 3 years, my body fat percentage went from 27% to 19%, and my uric acid level went from 9.4 to 6.8. After all, zero travel time to the gym and zero waiting time at the free weight corner is the best. As long as you’re motivated, you can train as much as you want without stress.
The good thing about home gyms is that you can take as many intervals as you want during muscle training.
You can do as much muscle training as you want when you have a power rack set at home. I seriously recommend it.
When I bought the muscular set R140, I was 43 years old @ Yamagata Prefecture, but now I’m back in Tokyo and doing muscle training at my home gym.
I bought the home gym set for 120,000 yen and used it for 3 years, so I believe I saved money over going to the gym.
A muscle training home gym made from Irotech’s Muscular Set R140
The Irotech Muscular Set R140 is a set product with a total of 140kg of weights (plates) including wire-based exercises (rowing, cable press down, etc.), a power rack that can also do chinning and dips, an incline bench and a “barbell shaft + dumbbell shaft” weight.
I bought the set on Amazon 3 years ago for 120,000 yen, and it was an innovative set for me as a beginner in muscle-building excercises who wanted to build a home gym.
I took a brief video of the home gym at the beginning of my purchase and you can see the video below.
The bench press is only 30kg and I’m wobbly, and I couldn’t do a single pull-up properly, but please forgive me. Now, after 3 years, I can do 3 bench presses of 75kg, so I’ll replace the video sooner or later.
What we want to tell you is that with just one Irotech Muscular Set R140, you can do all the serious weight training you see in the video at home in Japan. This is what we call a “home gym” in Japan.
The video shows bench presses, lat pulldown behind the neck, pull-ups, leg extensions, leg curls and more. You can train all of these at once.
(I used to bench press with a safety bar at this time.)
The pull-ups that I couldn’t do once are now able to do 10 like I did in middle school. I realize that if you don’t use your muscles, you won’t be as strong as you could be, and I’m so glad I realized this at age 46. I’m going to work out every muscle in my body to extend my healthy age.Before I knew it, I could do 10 pull-ups that I couldn’t do even once.
嬉しい😄 pic.twitter.com/PCmWrLyWtf
— ホームジムで家トレ！ (@ietore_jp) August 9, 2020
Recommended EVA Joint Mat for Muscle Training Home Gym Floor in Japan
If you want to build a home gym in your home for muscle training, you will have to put joint mats (EVA) on the floor. What I’m concerned about, myself included, is how to handle the joints and edges (side parts) and how much space you need. I’ll give a quick explanation of this point.
The set of 6 joint mats is delivered as a single square (60cm square) with one “straight side” and one “corner side” attached. In the photo above, it is the left side. It is delivered as a set of 6 pieces.
There are two types of joint mats: straight sides and corner sides.