Each month we spend a significant amount of our earnings on memberships to fitness centers and clubs. A bunch of us never again see the inside of the gym, for reasons of our own. But keep paying up the fees in hopes of going in someday. A good alternative to that is planning home workout sessions. Before you make up your mind, think about the pros and cons of working out at home.

1. Flexibility
You know, flexibility is one of the best benefits of working out at home. It’s not possible for all of us to match our timings with our local gyms. The ones we do match with are sometimes too far or are pricier than the ones we are willing to pay for. Basically, a bunch of things makes it stressful for us to plan a schedule and successfully stick to it. Some of us have caretaking responsibilities and families to look after. In such cases, it is definitely a major benefit to be able to have a workout session whenever you find the time.

2. Easier to excuse yourself
With pros come cons. One of the most common cons of working out at home is that we tend to keep pushing it back. We do find dozens of excuses, effortlessly, when we aren’t eager to do something. That happens a lot in the case of exercising at home. Our laziness and procrastination win out over our wish to have a healthy and mood-boosting workout. Letting ourselves off the hook eventually can become a norm for some, and that makes it difficult to actually get in a workout session.

3. Privacy
Walking into a fitness center or up to the fitness trainer can be intimidating to some, especially for someone who has no confidence in their fitness skills. But if we just stay home, start up a video to guide us and lead us on our fitness journey, we can be much more relaxed and focused on the job at hand. We won’t be secretly worrying about what someone else is thinking of us or how we look to other people. Thankfully for us, working out at home is so much easier than it used to be in the older times.

4. Less social time
For people who like the sanctity of their own homes, working out at home is a win-win situation. But, for people who like to have a social life instead of being a hermit, it’s not so glorious. Going out to the fitness center or to the park for a run means you get to interact with people, make friends, get social. Working out at home gives you no such opportunities. The only person speaking is the instructor in the video. And you are busy huffing and puffing from the intensity of your workout.

5. Cost
Gym memberships can be costly affairs. With the initiation fees and the monthly membership, you could be spending a pretty penny. That’s not even including the workout gear you have to invest in periodically. On the other hand, working out from home means you save up on hefty monthly fees.

At the same time, if you are thinking of building yourself a home gym full of a variety of equipment, then you won’t be saving anything. In fact, you might instead be spending more.