Best Home Gym Equipment
Tired of gym memberships? Want to work out at home but not sure what fitness equipment and gear you'll need? Check out this selection of fitness essentials, so you can optimize your fitness goals
1/20/20245 min read
Exercising at home can be a long term cost-effective route to hitting your fitness goals and creating your very own home gym is an exciting journey towards a healthier, more active lifestyle. It can also be beneficial for those who don't like to exercise in front of others.
Or if you've ever had a gym membership, it's annoying having to wait for a piece of equipment to open up and use. Not to mention all of those people who don't practice good hygiene and don't wash their sweaty, sticky equipment they just used.
But where do you start when it comes to choosing the best fitness equipment for your space? In this article, we'll be your guide through the vast world of home workout gear. Whether you're a seasoned fitness enthusiast or a beginner looking to kick-start your health journey, we'll explore the must-have equipment that can transform your home into a hub of strength, flexibility, and wellness. Let's get started on building the ultimate at-home gym tailored to your needs and goals.
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Strength training
Whether you're looking into beefing up, toning up, or just plain getting stronger, strength training is an excellent form of exercise that both men and women can benefit from. It's an excellent confidence booster, seeing the amount of weight you can carry and move. I do strength training almost every day, and what I have listed below are the types of equipment I use all the time.
Dumbbells are incredibly versatile. You can do a full body workout with just a pair of dumbbells and are great for both isolation exercises and compound lifts. You can do arm curls, chest flys, shoulder flys, tricep extensions, lunges and plenty more.
Kettlebells are another great piece of equipment that can serve as an all-in-one conditioning tool. Not only can it help you develop a strong core, it can also improve strength and stability. Due to its ballistic nature, kettlebell swings serve as a great low impact cardiovascular tool and should be in everyone's workout repertoire.
This is where the gains begin. Barbell lifts are incredible for building overall strength. Used by most, if not all, professional athletes, barbell exercises help you get that strong, powerful physique. Essential barbell lifts include bench press, shoulder press, barbell curls, squats, deadlifts, power cleans, hang cleans, and bent over rows.
With your barbell and plates comes your need for a squat rack. Some people will get a standard squat rack that you'll see in most gyms, but others find it advantageous to use a smith machine. There's no shame in using a machine that's going to offer more safety and stability. Click the affiliate link to explore the options of squat racks and smith machines.
After heavy workouts with barbells, plates, dumbbells, and kettlebells, you'll need resistance bands as a way to improve your flexibility, stability, and control. But don't be mistaken, resistance bands are still a great way to improve your strength and tonicity of your muscles.
A weight bench can provide many uses other than just for bench press exercises. Step-ups, tricep dips, ab exercises, back pulls, and chest flys are common exercises with a weight bench. But not limited to seated arm curls, seated leg extensions for quads, decline pushups, reverse flys, and overhead tricep extensions are also some great exercises to utilize with a weight bench.
When you are designing your own home gym, floor protection is a necessity. Your floor mats don't have to cover your entire floor. My floor mats just cover the areas where I perform my lifts. Get yourself the overall Amazon rated some floor pads.
Cardiovascular
If your fitness goals have an emphasis on cardiovascular strength, there is a multitude of forms that you can do from home. Focusing on cardiovascular strength helps improve all aspects of heart health like lowering your risk of heart disease, lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, burning calories, and increasing your metabolism.
Whether you set your sights high to run a marathon or simply want to go for a brisk morning jog around the block, running shoes are always a necessity.
For those that live in colder states where winter can steal your chances of running outside or if you don't care for running in front of others, a treadmill is a classic piece of workout equipment. Treadmills aren't just for running, either. With so many people working from home, walking pads and under the desk treadmills are a great way to burn extra calories while being productive.
Running on an elliptical definitely has its advantages over running. It puts less stress on your joints while still improving your cardiovascular strength and burning a lot of calories. Ellipticals can also offer more resistance on upper and lower body to make more efficient workouts.
Another home gym staple that provides a wide range of health benefits. Hitting the exercise bike by going through ranges of intensity intervals can give you compounded results and will keep you interested in what you're doing. This is a big reason why those spinning classes have become so popular; those intervals of high intensity can give you one heck of a workout without being so hard on your joints.
Yoga
Yoga is becoming an increasingly popular form of exercise in the west, and it's no wonder. Yoga is an ancient practice, and we're now finding out that there are many scientific-based reasons for the benefits of yoga including improvement of strength, balance, flexibility, relaxation, stress management, energy levels and a reduction of arthritic symptoms.
It is definitely helpful to use a yoga mat if you want to introduce it into your exercise regimen. Not only is it helpful to protect your joints when doing poses on a hard floor, it also helps you hold a better pose due to its grippy texture than compared to a rug or towel and can slide and be uncomfortable.
Yoga blocks can be helpful in your yoga practice, even for beginners and experts. There are three primary purposed of using yoga blocks; to make yoga poses more accessible, to act as support, and to add height for more challenge during a pose.
For a Little Bit of Both
I think it's important for everyone to learn and improve combat training methods. Not only can doing boxing routine great for your heart and lungs, you'll be using muscles not normally used in conventional weightlifting workouts. This will include a lot of stabilizer muscles in the chest, shoulders, back, legs, and core. Also, boxing is a great way to work on your power and explosiveness. Even though strength and hypertrophy training are important in their own way, explosive movements are essential to introduce in your training routine.
This is an all-around, full-body blast that makes for a very efficient workout. Rowing is a great low impact workout that's easy on the joints, all while building good muscular endurance and cardiovascular strength. It's also great for anyone, wherever they are in their fitness journey.
