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Home Gym Priorities

30minutephysique

Home gyms can be made easy and relatively cheap. Even if you don't plan to use the home gym as your primary "gym" it's nice to have as a backup for those times when life gets crazy or the world shuts down for a bit. Who knows, it could actually happen...


Ever since I was a young lad I believed every man should have his own little corner of Iron Paradise somewhere in his home. I grew up in a house that had a crummy, rag-tag gym filled with equipment that was gifted to my parents (these things happen when you grow up in a small town and your parents happen to have 4 boys). 


While my dad primarily trained at the local YMCA (the only gym in town at the time), he'd run down to the basement and knock out his pullups on a black steel pipe wedged between 2 beams, pump out some bicep curls with the curl bar or dumbbells, and, of course, rep out some bench press on the old weider bench and York barbell set completed with sand-filled plastic plates. 


I don't know, but growing up around that environment, seeing my father working out, and constantly playing around in the basement, dodging the gym equipment in the unfinished portion had a lasting affect on me.


Later, that little gym would become the place I began my iron hoisting journey at the ripe age of 18 and the owner of a fierce 140 pounds on a 6'2" frame.


Shortly after, I went to college and began training in actual gyms. But I slowly began compiling equipment at home. By 2018 I was training solely at home – albeit – with suboptimal and over priced equipment (all barbells, plates, free standing squat rack, pullup bar, bands, 2 pairs of dumbbells, and 11 kettlebells). I could have made things more simple, and I eventually did after moving across the country.


Now, I have a fully equipped gym that would be considered overkill for most people. BUT, I am a full time personal trainer and train people in my garage AND my wife and I both like to train at home and we are fortunate enough to have the funds to prioritize such a well-equiped home gym. And one of the key words there is: "prioritize." The home gym is a priority to me, so I'm willing to cut costs in other areas of life to justify what I deem as a 'necessary priority.'


But I had what I considered a suitable home gym as early as 2017. And that included the following:


-Door frame pullup bar

-5 kettlebells (16kg/35lb, 20kg/44lb, 2x24kg/53lb, 32kg/71lb)

-handful of resistance bands

-1 pair of 30 pound dumbbells


This was pretty good. It's not what I recommend for most people, though. Hindsight is always 2020, or so they say, so below is my recommendation for most people looking to dip their toes into the "home gym lifestyle."


Necessities:


1. Pullup bar. Everyone should commit to getting better at pullups. It's an elite exercise and you can get pullup bars for cheap. Pullup bars also act as a good anchor for a cable/pulley system or resistance bands. Better yet, get a pair of rings. Those are even cheaper and open up a bunch of extra exercise variations for pullups, rows, pushups, tricep extensions, bicep curls, and even hamstring curls. Whether you go the pullup bar route or rings route doesn't matter. But get something so you can do pullups.


2. Adjustable dumbbells. I've written about the versatility of adjustable dumbbells before, but it can't be stressed enough. With a decent pair of adjustable dumbbells you can do every compound movement pattern and nearly every isolation exercise in existence. I use the Bowflex 1090s. They're a bit of a steep price up front (I think they're $700-$800 now), but when you do the math and consider that you have pairs of dumbbells from 10-90 pounds, in 5 pound increments, you realize what a steal it is. Some people don't like the bulkiness of the Bowflex 1090s. Honestly, it doesn't bother me at all and they've lasted me 5 years so far and are going strong. Feel free to shop around for other options. If you don't need 2x90 pound dumbbells, the prices get much cheaper and the size of dumbbells become much more normal. Multiple brands make great sets that go up to 52.5 pounds.


3. Adjustable bench. I used to argue you didn't NEED a bench. You can do pushups or floor presses instead of bench presses, rows can be done without bench support, you could do lunges and split squats instead of Bulgarian split squats, etc. But the more I try to justify NOT having an adjustable bench, the more I realize how versatile and useful a decent adjustable bench is. Therefore, I now include it in top 3 necessary items. A bench that adjusts is very useful and opens up a world of exercise variations, should you want them. 


In my first full-time garage gym (in my house where I lived in Alabama) I had a bunch of stuff – as mentioned earlier – but I did NOT have a good range of dumbbells nor did I have a bench. This limited my training, but I made do with kettlebells, bodyweight, trap bar, and a barbell.


Other equipment to consider getting, but not necessary (read: optional extra fluff):


1. Resistance bands. Again, these are versatile and can be attached to dumbbells to make both pieces of equipment even more valuable. They also can be helpful as a way to do assisted pullups or to make pushups harder by doing banded pushups.


2. Some unconventional equipment for ballistics, rotation, or anti-rotation work. I love kettlebells and I'll always prioritize kettlebells in my training. But, despite my bias towards kettlebells, kettlebells and dumbbells are pretty interchangeable. Kettlebells are ideal for things like swings, snatches, and clean & jerks. You can do all those exercises with dumbbells, but the kettlebells are better in that area. I also prefer kettlebells for military presses and rows, but, again, that's a matter of preference. Bulgarian bags or a mace/club would be another option here. Both are great tools for training rotational power and strength.


3. A cable pulley attachment to loop around your pullup bar so you can do cable tricep extensions variations or even pulldowns, high rows, curls, etc. I enjoy cables. Many companies now sell cheap little attachments that you can loop over a bar, beam, or limb and attach any kind of weight (kettlebells, dumbbells, or even weight plates) and it feels a lot like your cable machine in the gym. Most companies will give you some sort of handle attachment to go with the cable pulley when you purchase. Or you could buy your own attachments. 


4. A physio ball or sliders – something to do inverted hamstring curls with. Hamstring curls are a great exercise for strength, hypertrophy, AND – most importantly – injury prevention. Some benches come with a hamstring curl attachment. That's great. If not, get something that allows you to do hamstring curls. Physio balls and sliders or gymnastic rings work very well.


5. Lastly, I'd recommend a barbell and some weight plates. Many will skip my 3 necessities and the previous 4 optional items and go straight for the barbell, rack, and bench (bench I've included in my necessary 3). I think a barbell set and rack are fantastic, obviously. But, they're quite expensive and they take up a larger amount of space than the other items I've mentioned. But, similar to dumbbells, barbell training is widely versatile and beneficial. While the dumbbells offer a few more exercise variations and have the benefit of unilateral training, barbell training is king of strength and progressive overload. It's not my top 3, but I've had a barbell in my gym since 2019.


Good Luck


If you've been considering training at home, I hope this article streamlines your purchasing decisions and you can quit piddling about and get yourself some gains.


As always, thanks for reading. 


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