January and exercise seem to go hand in hand. I don’t know why we do this to ourselves, but January 1 is the day we shake off the New Year’s Eve hangover with a power smoothie and a 12 mile run. Perhaps we think it is fitting payback for the excesses of the holidays, but I say the punishment does not fit the crime. I mean, come on! I promise I will not eat pumpkin pie and whipped cream in January, OK? Can we just ease into this thing?

But no, instead we embark on our most ambitious exercise programs in January, a month when the weather is usually not that great, the days are shorter, which means there is less sunshine, and for many people, the work schedule ramps up for the new year as well. I really don’t see what’s wrong with April, but I guess no one makes “April’s Resolutions”. As one friend put it, if you are going to resolve to exercise every single day this year, you are going to have to start on January 1. A tortured kind of logic, I guess.

Whatever the season, exercise usually involves exercise equipment. If you have a spare room you can dedicate to your home gym, you are one of the lucky ones. The rest of us have to figure out ways to stash or disguise. (There are some clever ideas in this Popsugar post about how to do just that – I like the attractive storage ottoman for barbells, etc.) If your exercise equipment is bigger than a dumbbell, like say a treadmill or elliptical trainer, it gets a little trickier. Some people are just fine with having it in the living room because they figure maybe if they can’t avoid it, they will use it. Some people prefer the bedroom, but there is always the risk it will become a very expensive clothes hanger.

Let’s be honest, your commitment to your exercise program will ebb and flow. (I know mine does.) It is very tempting at the “ebb” to just get rid of the equipment and reclaim the real estate. But when a New Year and a new resolution roll around, you may wish you had kept it. Most exercise equipment is built to last a lifetime, and priced accordingly, so finding room in your storage unit will save you the replacement cost of the equipment. And knowing you can store it when you need to, and retrieve it when you want to, may just give your exercise resolve a little boost.

Dollar Self Storage has convenient locations in Arizona, Southern California, and Nevada.