Building a Home Gym with the Best Workout Equipment

To go the opposite direction of the worst workout equipment we will now look at the best home workout equipment that you can buy. When picking my top 5 pieces of home workout equipment I tried to keep in mind price, durability and size among other things. For those of us who are not the public gym type of people building a cheap home gym is the best option. Building your home gym has many benefits like no travel time, everything to yourself, and heck you can even workout naked if you choose to. A lot of equipment that people buy are very limiting and they will usually get very bored of their equipment that only allows 3 exercises. That’s why it’s so important to build your gym around the basics that have been used for decades. Don’t buy into the new fad equipment, buy what has worked for years and will continue to work for years. Now let’s take a look at the 5 things I think every home gym should include.

Adjustable Dumbbells

You do not have your own home gym unless you have adjustable dumbbells that can range from 5 pounds to however much you can fit on both sides of the bar. There is so much versatility to these free weights as you can put as much or as little of weight as you want on them. There is literally a limitless amount of exercises you can do as long as you have enough weights to add onto your adjustable dumbbells. You can work out every body part with a variety of exercises and hopefully never get bored because you can always change your workouts around. If you can afford a big rack of dumbbells like they have at the gym, than by all means go for it. The only negative to the adjustable dumbbells is the fact that it can get annoying changing the weights around all the time.

Adjustable Bench

Again we notice that we have another adjustable type of workout equipment. So many fad workout products that you can buy at ridiculous mark ups only offer you a few different types of workouts. When you add your adjustable dumbbells with your adjustable bench you have just multiplied the amount of exercises you can do. The bench is simply going to give you a nice stable place to do most of your exercises on, and you can even sit down in between your sets. You will want to look for a bench that will give you at least 1 option where it sits straight up, one at an incline, one flat, and one at a decline.

Olympic Bar Bell and Weight Set

This one could be aimed more towards men, but I still think it has its place in a woman’s home gym. Combining the adjustable dumbbells with an adjustable barbell really unlocks every free weight exercise you can think of. This bar will also help with the constant switching of weights, and it will allow you to do a lot heavier exercises. This is a pretty simple and somewhat cheap and effective piece to add to your home gym.

Power Rack

A power rack is going to give you the options to be able to do some of the major lifts that most people lifting weights should be doing. With this power rack and your Olympic weight set you will be able to do exercises like squats, bench, rows, shrugs and basically every heavy exercise that you can’t put the bar on the ground for. This one piece is very important to tie all of the other equipment together and get the most of your home gym. This will probably be the second most costly piece of equipment, but it will last forever and you will need one. Also definitely consider finding a power rack that has a pull up bar attached to it cause pull ups can add a lot to your workout. You do not need a very large cage style rack, just something to hold your Olympic bar high enough to be able to squat and slide a bench under to bench press.

Treadmill

Finally the last piece that I think really will tie in your whole gym is a treadmill, which will really only be used if you’re in an area that gets cold or hot extremes. It’s always nice to run outside, but let’s face it, it’s not always practical. Whether it’s for those rainy days, 100+ degree days, snowy days, or you just want to stay inside a treadmill is a great piece to add to your gym. Of course if you have bad knees or something else that limits your running you could always get a stationary bike or elliptical. Don’t forget your cardio when working out and I believe a treadmill is the most versatile piece of equipment for cardio. You can simply go for a walk; you can do sprints, marathons, and anything else to get your heart pumping.

Honorable Mentions

Some honorable mentions include a pull up bar, a weight system with pulleys, a dip/pull up station, EZ curl bar, a weight tree and a nice pair of running shoes.

The theme that resonates through building your own home gym is versatility. It is always a bad idea to buy a piece of equipment that only has a few uses. You can waste your money on hundreds of products that might only work one body part, but at the end of the day all you need is the 5 items listed above. The great thing about building your home gym around these suggested items is you can usually find them used for cheap online. Excluding the treadmill and maybe the bench, these items are just as effective new as they are used. Keep an eye out on craigslist for local cheap items you can pick up. Most people just want these items out of their house so you can get a good deal.