Get Pumped With These Ideal Home Gym Wall Colors
Setting up your own home gym space can be an exciting way to get fit without ever having to leave your house. But transforming a spare room or basement into a motivating workout environment goes beyond just buying equipment and mirrors. The wall color you choose can actually make a dramatic difference in your gym experience.
Vibrant paint colors and soothing neutral hues set the tone of your workout space. The right palette can boost your energy, intensity and motivation with each sweat session. Before you break out the paint brushes, here's what you need to know about choosing wall colors to get pumped for home workouts.
Why Your Home Gym's Wall Color Matters
It may seem trivial compared to selecting sturdy gear or rubber matted flooring, but your gym's wall color impacts so much more than decoration. The hues enveloping your workout area can affect:
- Your mood, energy levels and motivation during exercise
- Overall workout performance and progress toward goals
- How enjoyable and satisfying your gym experience feels
The reason behind these effects comes down to color psychology. Different shades unconsciously trigger emotional and physiological responses. So coating your home gym walls in colors that energize, inspire and uplift you will make it easier to get through tough sets.
Boosts Of Physical and Mental Energy
Have you ever wondered why so many big chain gyms feature fiery red and vibrant orange accents? These bold, saturated hues stimulate the body and mind, providing tangible boosts of energy. Research shows seeing red actually increases heart rate, respiration and brain activity.
What does this mean inside your home workout sanctuary? Surrounding yourself with hot red or orange walls can give you an extra push during strength training, HIIT classes or exhaustion-inducing metabolic circuits. Even on days when you don't "feel" like exercising, the color could help urge you on.
Improved Workout Performance
If you want to up your performance with new personal records and more reps completed, green walls can help. Olive greens, forest hues and lighter lime tones balance stimulating and relaxing effects. This combination aids athletic performance across a wide range of sports and activities. And lucky for home gym owners, this includes your CrossFit box jumps and battle rope Training just as much as professional athletics.
Blue is another potential performance booster, albeit for different reasons. Cooler tones like azure, slate and robin's egg blue elicit a calming response. This can counteract unwanted stress hormone spikes during intense training, allowing you to push just a bit further. The color is also pleasing to the eye, making your gym space more enjoyable to spend time training in.
Factors To Consider When Choosing Paint Colors
To select home gym wall colors that give you that get-up-and-go feeling, consider these influencing factors first:
Gym's Use and Users
Determine who will use your home gym space and what types of workouts typically take place there. Is it a solo sanctuary for your daily HIIT and lifting sessions? Or where the whole family comes to break a sweat? Here are a few elements that could impact your color selection:
- Solo workouts vs. group training sessions
- Male users, female users or both genders
- Adult gym-goers or teenagers
Teenagers often gravitate toward bold, energizing colors like ripe lime green or vivid violet. While adults may prefer understated neutral hues like beige or light gray for concentration. If adults and teenagers share your home gym, go for a vibrant accent wall that appeals to young energy levels!
Gym Size and Layout
Additionally, the size and layout of your space matters. A compact home gym with walls lined by mirrors may feel slightly claustrophobic coated in dark vampy plums--but an airy basement gym could pull this off. Consider aspects such as:
- Small or large room footprint
- How equipment and mirrors are configured
- Open floor plan or separate closed-off room
Bold coral reef hues would suit a small gym well, preventing too closed-in of a feeling. While a neutral soft gray or greige lets larger workout rooms breathe.
Natural and Artificial Lighting
The interplay of lighting and wall color in your gym space also matters. Be sure to think about:
- Presence of windows and skylights providing natural light
- Sheer reliance on artificial lighting alone
- Brightness at different times of day
North-facing basement gyms may need bolder fuchsia or lime walls to feel cheerful under yellow overhead bulb lighting. South-facing spaces will shift in hue as sunlight streams through.
Best Wall Color Options for Home Gyms
Once you've weighed considerations like gym usage, layout and lighting, it's time for the fun part--selecting shades! Here are some all-star wall color choices to pump up your home workouts.
Neutral Shades
Sometimes simple understated hues get the motivational job done. Neutral whites, grays and beiges create an open, airy backdrop. This allows brightly colored fitness gear, floor mats and accessories to take center stage instead.
Benjamin Moore's Spun Silk is a light neutral with a subtle airy quality perfect for small home gyms. Pair with vibrant blue floor mats and grape accent wall for contrast. Or Sherman Williams' Accessible Beige--a creamy, velvety tone that lets turquoise kettlebells and neon green resistance bands pop.
Primary Color Accents
Vibrant primary colors like crimson reds, cobalt blues and grassy greens make excellent statement accent walls. They instantly infuse spaces with energy, intensity and motivation for working out harder.
If your home gym leans masculine, bold True Red or Race Car Red by Behr elicit an exciting vibe. While lush Julie Greenberg Grass adds a fun retro feel for cardio, cycling or dance sessions. Or invigorating Lapis Lazuli by Benjamin Moore that stimulates without overwhelming smaller rooms.
Soothing Hues Like Blue-Green
For yoga and stretching spaces, cool tranquil blues and greens balance energy with relaxation. These chiller tones lower heart rates, allowing you to sink into deepest mindfulness.
Try Valspar's 5007-2A Aquatint, a relaxing bluish green like shallow beach waters. Benjamin Moore's Mystic Lake offers similar aquatic tranquility. And Revere Pewter by Benjamin Moore adds soothing silver blue undertones to light gray walls.
Where To Use Different Color Schemes
Beyond just choosing paint based on vibrancy and mood, also consider gym wall color placement. Zoning different hues to specific areas creates an intentional flow.
Vibrant Accent Wall Behind Gear
Paint the wall where you've got squat racks, Olympic bars and plate trees mounted in the hottest hue in your palette. Fire engine red, neon lime or cobalt blue are all great choices to spotlight your gear wall. This pumps intensity for strength training segments of your workout.
Tranquil Blues On Wall With Mirrors
Cool azure blues, seafoam greens or misty grays give mirrored feature walls a relaxing vibe perfect for yoga, Pilates and barre flows. The colors' calming effect makes it easier to sink into each movement with zen-like focus.
Neutral Shades Throughout Small Gyms
If your home gym is cramped, neutral walls prevent an overly cluttered, claustrophobic sensation. Light beiges, airy grays and warm cream tones keep the space feeling open. Then use yardage of bright colored fabric behind gear racks for an energizing accent.
Coordinating With Other Design Elements
Tying everything together cohesively, don't forget about other gym design elements that impact the wall colors you choose. Uplifting paint hues for workout inspiration mean nothing if they clash loudly with the floors, decor and equipment shades.
Flooring That Contrasts Wall Color
Rubber gym mats come in every color under the rainbow, so select a floor hue that complements your wall color palette. For example:
- Deep blue painted walls with brick red floor mats
- Lemon yellow walls over gray interlocking tiles
- Peach painted brick walls and solid black rubber floor
Adding Wall Decals and Murals
Wall decals and murals add eye-catching visual element to blank painted walls. When selecting motifs and imagery, be sure your muralsubject matter matches the mood of your paint color. For example:
- A rainbow climbing a stormy sky mural with slate gray walls
- Tropical palm leaves over sunshine yellow wall paint
Don't forget smaller decorative details like area rugs beneath bench stations as another opportunity to pull in accent colors painted on your walls. The handles of your equipment, resistance bands and other gym gear should also coordinate.
By considering all these design factors, your home gym's wall color will contribute to a space that feels intentionally curated to motivate your fiercest workouts. Now dig out those paint swatches and get to envisioning your future workout fortress!