I have a living room.

Literally.

Instead of the usual sofa, easy chair, end tables, and TV its furnished with free weights, treadmills — yes plural — a rowing machine, three lifting benches, stationary bicycle, manual stair stepper, and other exercise implements from a Bosu ball and weighted poles to medicine balls.

It is also where I keep two of my racing bicycles that these days have become a decoration of sorts given it’s been a good year since I’ve gone for a ride.

All play a role in living, given exercise is a key component of having a healthy life.

One, though, doesn’t have to devote a third of your home’s space — my house is 960 square feet — to have an effective exercise area.

You can do effective exercises for strength, flexibility, and light cardio using a stackable chair, your body for resistance, and free weights.

In fact, using a stackable chair and your own body weight is one of the hardest workouts I’ve ever done.

I learned from group exercise instructor Margy Nelson during a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) class years ago at In Shape to do things with a chair that allowed me to fully understand one doesn’t have to spend a fortune on specialized equipment to get a solid workout.

There are various schools of thought about “home gyms” or dedicated workout areas in one’s domicile.

And that includes the fact it can be a bare minimum with just a couple of hand weights and it doesn’t even need to take up floor space.

The bottom line whether you have invested thousands upon thousands of dollars in equipment, have a garage quality workout area, or improvise is always the same - exercise on a regular basis for a reasonable amount of time, and be consistent.

If you’re doing nothing now in terms of time set aside for exercise, two to three times a week may suffice.

And you don’t have to convert your entire living room into a home gym.

My decision to do so is an outgrowth of who I am and my goals.

For years, I did dedicated exercises but never at home.

It was either cycling, running, group exercise classes, or a commercial gym.

I started adding home workout equipment when I was going to two different gyms that I typically ran to and from.

I started with free weights.

Aside from RIPPED classes, my repertoire of class involved virtually every aerobics class imaginable. I even tackled Zumba classes so I could give people a good laugh.

I began adding things such as the stationary bike when my work schedule and gym class schedules didn’t mesh.

It was about the same time that I discovered working out just prior to going to bed helped me sleep better. With my somewhat unorthodox hours, hitting a gym unless it was 10 feet from my bed was out of the question.

Then, of course, the pandemic hit.

Based on what I had learned with the help of others in exercise classes over the course of 35 years, I wanted to make sure I was able to mix up my routine so I would always be challenging myself.

Toss in the fact of getting older, you need to keep moving and the conversion of my living room, which was a space I rarely used, into a home gym I use every day was a no-brainer.

Plus, it gave me the flexibility to do 20-to-30-minute workouts or two or three shorter periods throughout the of the course of a day.

The only way you could do that without living in a gym and investing time getting there and back is if you can workout at home.

It also helps not to workout it in a musty garage next to the lawnmower, boxes of stuff you’ll never use again, and your three-month supply of Costco paper products or in some spare bedroom where you shut the door and it’s out of sight and out of mind.

It’s next to impossible for me to not think about exercising given my home gym’s high profile and its ease of access.

You may not go the route I did, but here are some things to keep in mind when it comes to equipping a home workout area.

A gym membership, even for a relatively short time, affords you the ability to try out a lot of different equipment.

And it’s more than just using it for an extended period of time, before you invest in exercise apparatus.

For example, I loved rowing machine workouts but hated the noise and what could be somewhat jerky movements.

A 30-day membership at a rowing gym in the Bay Area I used only three times, introduced me to a water rowing machine.

While I don’t use it daily, it is my favorite exercise equipment.

The whooshing noise the water in the high-impact plastic cylinder that is used for resistance makes a soothing, relaxing sound.

And it also allows for a more fluid movement of your limbs as you pull back.

It’s my most expensive home gym item.

The short-term gym membership not only exposed me to a water rowing machine, but it also put my mind at ease three years ago when I plunked down $750 to buy it.

Another thing to consider is going “manual” instead of powered.

It is why I have two treadmills.

The electric one went on the fritz when it was in warranty. The replacement part was free but it was a hassle to get it and a bigger hassle to change it.

And, yes, the replacement motor did the same thing.

I bought a basic manual fold-up treadmill for a fourth of the price.

The other treadmill can be jimmied once in a while to work, but it really is just a place to toss my sweatshirt on when I’m spinning on the nearby stationary bicycle.

One other bit of advice involves why I have three weight benches.

One has a weight rack for chest presses plus the ability to do leg lifts. It is basically flat but is partially adjustable.

The second is an easily to adjustable bench that is close to being a chair. As such, it helps support the use of free weights with your upper body in various positions.

The last is a straight-forward non-adjustable flat weight bench.

It is clearly the most versatile of the three weight benches in terms of what you can do.

The reason I have all three, is I can incorporate a wider variety of exercises in 20 minutes.

I spend more time exercising without needing to make constant adjustments or — in the case of the weight bench with the rack and leg lifts — taking on and off weights to do everything from crunches to lying dumbbell over the head extensions.

I almost forgot.

My home gym has three large photo/paintings for inspiration of my favorite places to hike — the Sonora Pass area, Yosemite, and Death Valley.

There is also the prerequisite tunes device.

In my case it is a CD player.

I can’t think of a better way to spend 20 minutes a day listening to Etta James, The Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra, or Garth Brooks while working on staying in shape to hike California’s mountains, valleys, and deserts.