It’s not endorsed by Chuck Norris, but you’d be hard pressed to call the basement of this New Albany home anything else but a total gym.

Rolando and Bety de Aguiar have spent years putting together the best possible home gym setup, and today, their designated workout room is packed with an impressive collection of weights, machines and other exercise equipment.

The de Aguiars have been in central Ohio for about three and a half years, but have been accumulating their collection of equipment for eight years, dating back to their time in Connecticut.

The collection didn’t start as any sort of effort to have the best gym around; its beginnings were as humble as those of any other modest home gym.

“I just wanted to get fit, that’s all,” Rolando says.

The appeal of going to the gym and being able to get a full workout whenever it’s convenient was powerful, Rolando says. Now, he, Bety and their two teenagers have ready access to whatever they might need to stay in shape. In addition to using the gym by himself, Rolando also has a personal trainer who drops by three times a week, and having a personal trainer in the home is much more convenient than having to meet one at an outside gym, he says.

Pieces of equipment in the de Aguiar house include a frame housing both a heavy bag and a speed bag, a standard weight bench, a cross weight station, a treadmill, an elliptical, a racing bike on stationary frames, an inversion table, a floor bar setup for push-ups, a BOSU Ball (“my most hated piece of equipment,” Rolando says) and a comprehensive, 27-position weight station.

The room is filled out by stability balls, shelves holding a variety of hand weights and posters on the walls depicting exercise options. A weight-shaped clock ensures no one loses track of time. And to keep gym users entertained, a very important aspect of the gym is affixed on the wall opposite the door: a flat-screen TV on which family members can watch DVDs or anything DVRed on one of the house’s other TVs.

“Basically, I have everything here that I could find at any gym,” Rolando says.

Though much of the equipment is packed closely together, nothing gets in the way – it’s all been arranged very carefully to avoid that problem. It helps that the four members of the household tend to use the gym at different times – Bety in the mornings, Rolando in the evenings and the kids primarily on weekends, when their workouts won’t interfere with their extracurricular activities at school.

The only thing missing is a mirror, which Rolando says he does not want – though Bety suggests it may be the next thing on her list, as it’s unlikely any more exercise equipment will be added.

“I don’t think that we can fit anything else in here, unfortunately,” she says.

Rolando isn’t intimidated by the numbers game – he uses every piece of equipment in the basement, he says, with the exception of the inversion table, which makes him sick to his stomach. And he has some exercises, like his twice-weekly yoga, that don’t even require equipment.

He has a set routine every day when he heads downstairs. On a Tuesday, for instance, his regimen begins with push-ups on the floor bars, then continues with bench presses, lateral raises with barbells and lateral pulldowns. After that, it’s a shift on the BOSU Ball and lunges with 25-pound weights, for a total pectoral and shoulder muscle workout time of 45 to 50 minutes.

The only exercise Rolando doesn’t do in his basement gym is running, and even that’s only in warm weather – if it’s cold or rainy, the treadmill is right there.

The dreaded inversion table is a key part of Bety’s workouts, as are the treadmill, elliptical, punching bags and 27-position station.

Though the 27-position weight station gets the best reactions from guests seeing it for the first time, those who use the gym generally stick to the treadmill and elliptical. Some daring souls do gravitate toward other equipment, though.

“A few people have come down and tried to use the (heavy) bag, and they get frustrated,” Rolando says, pointing out that boxing is decidedly tougher than some people expect.

But even if they don’t use any of the exercise equipment, guests have plenty to appreciate about the rest of the de Aguiar basement, with its bar and poker, pool, foosball and ping-pong tables – not to mention the huge leather couch situated in front of a large flat-screen TV.

Garth Bishop is editor of CityScene Magazine. Feedback welcome at gbishop@pubgroupltd.com.