Outfit A Complete Home Gym For Less Than The Cost Of A Year At The Gym

As regular readers will know by now, I’m a huge fan of working out at home. Don’t get me wrong, gyms are great, but at $50 per month they aren’t exactly the best investment in town. Think about it: can you think of a particular exercise you can do in a commercial gym that you can’t find an equally-effective substitute for that can be done in a home gym? I can’t. Outfitting a high-quality home gym will probably cost you $500 or $600, which sounds like a lot. Remember, however, this equipment will easily last you well over a decade. Contrast that with a gym membership that will cost you anywhere from $400-600 per year and it’s easy to see how much money you’ll save over the long run by working out at home. And just imagine never having to wait in line to use a popular machine!

Who Needs A Gym, Anyway?

• Cardiovascular – You don’t need expensive treadmills or elliptical machines to get a good cardio workout. Jumping jacks, burpee intervals, skipping rope, playing sports such as basketball and soccer, or just going outside for a jog can all be done at home. And guess what? All these activities are actually more effective and a lot more fun than slaving away on a treadmill. They also have the side benefit of being very inexpensive.
• Strength Training – Most people are under the impression you need a plethora weight machines and barbells to get a good strength workout at home. Not so! There’s practically nothing you can do on a weight machine that you can’t do better with a set of dumbbells. That’s right, a single set of dumbbells is all you need. Why? As it turns out, most weight machines aren’t all that effective for two reasons: a.) they restrict your range of motion, so they only attack your muscles from a single angle and b.) they allow you to “cheat” by using your strong side to stabilize and compensate for your weak side. The result? You don’t get nearly the workout you should be getting. Dumbbells, on the other hand, force each side of your body to fend for itself. You may not be able to lift as much weight as you could on a machine, but you’ll be getting a far superior workout.

All The Equipment You’ll Ever Need For A Complete Home Gym

You could waste your money on a $600 elliptical machine if you want, but I wouldn’t bother. Elliptical machines are alright for beginners, I suppose, but they offer no real benefit over simply going for a long walk, in my opinion. In reality, you only need three core pieces of equipment for a complete home gym capable of giving you a workout every bit the equal of even the best commercial gym.

Dumbbells A good set of PowerBlock Adjustable Dumbbells will run you between $250 and $350 dollars and is by far the most costly piece of equipment you’ll need for your home gym. I highly recommend going for quality over price on your dumbbell set, however. You can of course find a much cheaper set than what you see here, but I prefer the PowerBlock for two reasons.

1. Changing the weight is as easy as snapping it into place, which really improves the quality of your workout. Nothing interrupts a good workout like having to stop and change your resistance after every exercise on a traditional dumbbell set. With PowerBlock, this literally takes 3 seconds to do.
2. It comes with a 10-year warranty, is sturdy, and is literally the last dumbbell set you’ll ever need. $350 doesn’t seem so expensive when you consider how much money it will save you over your lifetime.

Pull-up Bar Pull-ups are perhaps the single best measure of your overall upper-body strength. Similarly, they are also one of the best ways to build your upper body strength, especially the back and shoulders but also your chest, arms, and best of all, triceps (an all-too-often under-developed muscle). A good pull-up bar will only run you $30 or so and will be an indispensable part of your home fitness regimen. If you happen to live near a playground, you can probably get away with using the monkey bars or something similar for this purpose. Come to think of it, you can use practically anything as a pull-up bar. I used the gate to the fence of my complex’s tennis court as a pull-up bar for a while and it worked fine, although I sometimes got funny looks.

Medicine ball In my humble opinion, medicine balls are severely under-rated as fitness tools. You can do so many things with them, from Tabata intervals to explosive power training and everything in between. The thing I like most about medicine balls is that they allow a practically unlimited range of motion in a way that feels completely natural. This allows you to stimulate your muscles in ways you just can’t using traditional strength routines, which is the key to muscle growth. A 10-15 minute medicine ball circuit is an ideal compliment to tack onto the end of a weight workout since it will get your heart rate up and work your every major muscle group in your body at the same time. As a side note, I’ve had trouble finding a medicine ball heavier than 12 lbs at my local sporting goods store. I’m sure they can be found, but it’s probably easier to just order one from Amazon. Altogether, this simple but very effective home gym will cost you between $300-500 depending on the quality of components you choose to buy. I actually prefer working out at home for the simple fact that there’s no excuse. You can’t say “I don’t feel like driving to the gym today.” It’s right there! Home gyms also make it very easy to get in quick 10-minute workouts whenever you get a chance. Even if you’re in a hurry, it’s not difficult to fit in a 10-minute block here and there sometime during your day.