My Home Gym Equipment Recommendations 2021

richerhealthier

Apr 18

Takeaway Points:

Covid has changed the reality of the process of assembling a home gym.
I go over my recommendations for acquiring equipment, as well as the training solutions that have worked best for me and my clients over the year.

In my previous home gym guide, I analyzed the economic realities behind equipping your home with gym equipment, and why it’s often a lot better of a money-saving approach than many people think. Fitness equipment has a strong up front cost, but is potentially useful for years afterwards, saving you endless money in gym memberships, gas costs, travel time, and so on.

However, the realities of the pandemic have slightly changed the equation when it comes to buying home gym equipment, so this updated guide specifically analyzes home gym equipment with the current realities in mind.

Squat Rack

If you have the space for a squat rack, it’s still the king of equipment. However, as I explored in my previous home gym post, it’s also a decent upfront cash investment - a few hundred for a rack, a couple hundred for a bench, a couple hundred for a bar, and then enough plates for your purposes. You can sometimes find some of the pieces of this in local postings/Craigslist, but this is of course subject to availability in your area. All in all, a complete squat rack setup may run you $1000+.

Worse, a lot of the good manufacturers are currently sold out, or have spotty inventory. I typically recommend the rogue SML-2 squat stand as my favorite all-purpose squatting solution, and while it’s generally available in the US, it’s been completely sold out here in the EU for the entire duration of the pandemic. I find that Rogue equipment is just the right mixture of “sturdy and good quality” and “not too expensive” - and a lot of the other stuff left is either the super high quality, super expensive stuff, or equipment which isn’t particularly solid. Naturally, even some of the “not particularly solid” equipment is marked up or hard to find.

Squat racks are a great all purpose lifting solution for home if you have the space, but this year has made them a slightly less possible option.

Bands

I really like the Rogue brand monster bands style - they're strong, they last a long time if you take care of them, and they have a lot of versatility - you can loop them around door handles, table legs, etc. to get specific exercises in.

However, Rogue is often sold out of them these days, so hopefully you'll be able to catch them in stock.

Cheaper versions of those kinds of bands generally exist if you search amazon/etc., but they're generally inferior and start peeling/falling apart with enough use. All bands will start doing this at some point normally, but with a good band it will often last a lot longer.

A second awesome option, is if you can get the bands like this that have handles/anchors. This makes them a little easier to setup for some exercises, and they generally work really well.

I do NOT recommend the theraband style bands - they have more limited range of motion and are mostly useful for a few lower body glute exercises. I don't recommend them for general purpose stuff since the limited range of motion makes them very hard to use for anything else.

Dumbbells

I personally use the powerblock dumbbells that go up to 50 - they're sturdy, easily adjustable, don't take up a ton of space, last forever, and are smack in the middle of the cost spectrum. Fancier dumbbells generally are a bit easier/faster to change the weights on, or have a cooler design, but aren't worth the expense. Generally they're like $300 for the basic pair, but due to price gauging/scarcity, I've seen them posted for twice as much, or mostly out of stock, and clients have reported difficulty getting them.

There are also plenty of cheaper quick change dumbbell options, for example, this style, which features little handles with screw on collars to hold the weights in place. These kinds of weight cannot get very heavy because the screw on collars can slip loose and cause the weights to move around a bit during the movement, which gets dangerous at heavier weights but is generally ok if you're using lighter weights. Still, sets like this are more than enough for their most important use, which is to load up the weaker arm/upper body movements that are hard to train without weights anyway, so this is still a great option even if that's all you can get.

It may also help to check out whatever you have at your local sporting goods store, if possible - I've had some clients report difficulty finding stuff shipping online, but then they were able to find a bit of equipment at a local store that had a bit of stock. So, definitely worth it to check just in case.

Pullup Bars

Pullup bars come in a lot of different varieties. Many of them work by extending a bar between the sides of the doorframe, then using some kind of mechanism which pushes outwards in order to anchor itself to the sides of the doorframe - these may or may not work well, depending on how effective the mechanism is.

I greatly prefer the kind of pullup bar where it essentially wraps around from one side of the doorframe to the other, using some kind of hook mechanism. This is generally a lot more stable and less likely to fail, however, it also puts greater strain on the planks of the doorframe itself. You definitely want to be sure that you have a very sturdy door, or else it may cause the wood to crack or splinter from the strain. Luckily, our London home has very old, very sturdy doorframes, so I’ve not found it to be an issue.

I have a pullup bar like this, which I highly recommend. When not in use, the arms which hook around to the other side of the door can be folded flat, rendering it very easy to store away. When not using it, I store the pullup bar on a shelf above the doorframe, thanks to the low profile of the bar when folded. This makes it an ideal solution without taking up much of any storage space.

Gymnastics Rings/TRX

If you have somewhere you can anchor rings in your house, they’re an excellent training tool that enable you to do a lot of assisted bodyweight exercises (pushups at a variety of heights, flyes, reverse flyes, rows, pullups, plenty of core stuff, etc.), however, they typically require you to have some kind of parallel bar to hang them from, so they’re not quite ideal if you don’t have an easily accessible pullup bar or similar. Gymnastics rings are generally cheap and easy to find online, for example.

A TRX system is a similar approach which is a bit more home-friendly. TRX kits are a bit more expensive, but they typically come with a door mount which makes it easy to anchor it above any door. You’ll want to use as sturdy of a door as possible, but it’s unlikely to cause much of any damage, and effectively allows you to do most of the same exercises plus a few new ones.

Parallettes

Paralletes are typically free moving parallel bars which can be setup wherever you like, making them a good option for home workouts. They typically come in two kinds - high parallettes, and low parallettes. Low parallettes are similar to pushup handles, but are just a bit higher off the ground, enabling you to do a lot of core exercises on them in addition to deeper pushups. High parallettes are generally more useful because they enable you to do various rowing and core exercises, while you can generally still do elevated pushups on them by turning one of the parallettes on its side (as in this stock photo, hah). Low parallettes are also a lot cheaper so they can still be a worthwhile investment.

I have both high and low parallettes, and I use them both regularly - the high parallettes primarily for dips, inverted rows, and front levers, and the low parallettes for pushups, planche practice, and handstand practice.

Flywheel Box

A flywheel box is a step box which contains a flywheel built into it, with a cable extending from the box to attach to the flywheel. A flywheel is effectively the same technology used in a rowing machine, though in this case it’s dialed up even heavier - and it provides more resistance the faster you pull on it.

Flywheel boxes are generally expensive, and can run you $2000+. However, I managed to find a relatively discount version, which I reviewed in a separate blog post here. The main benefit of a flywheel box is that it allows you to really decently heavily load up exercises like deadlifts and belt squats, helping to resolve the main problem (lack of heavy enough exercises for the lower body) that happens when you don’t have a squat rack at home. Better, the flywheel box has a much smaller footprint, and is therefore fits a lot more easily into a home gym setup than a squat rack does.

All in all, the price point of the flywheel box is a bit high, but it’s an adequate all-in-one replacement for the hardest-to-replicate aspects of the squat rack. It doesn’t work as well for upper body exercises, but you can often make up the difference with a pullup bar, dips, pushups, pike pushups, and so on. Thus, I’ve found that it’s still a very powerful solution.

Cardio

Cardio is a lot more variable, depending on your goals and needs. If you’re generally looking to be fit without training for a specific cardio event, you have a lot more flexibility to do basically whatever general cardiovascular exercise you prefer the most.

I’ve recently come to prefer walking - it’s nice, relaxing, and enables me to get other stuff done while enjoying the fresh air in my neighborhood. It’s also widely available for folks who may have difficulties with running due to injury history. You could also go for a run if you prefer.

If walking and running aren’t your thing, there’s plenty of opportunity to pickup home cardio options. A stationary upright bike is the lowest footprint and generally easiest to use (as well as the cheapest), but you can also get ahold of home rowers or treadmills if you prefer. Each will have a different price point and footprint, so consider your enjoyment of the activity as well as these other factors.

If you have little to no space to dedicate to a cardio device at home, and aren’t able to go for walks/runs in the neighborhood, then it may help to focus on very minimalist cardio options. Things like high rep burpees, lunges, jumps, kettlebell swings, shuffling/marching in place, can all be effective ways to get your heart rate up. If you have stairs in your house and don’t get bored of it, you can put on music or some form of entertainment and do stair stepping. If you get ahold of a small plastic step, you can do stepaerobics in front of the tv or computer. With a bit of ingenuity, even a lack of space ceases to be a problem.

My setup

At home today, I have parallettes (low and high), Rogue bands, Powerblock dumbbells up to 50lbs, a pullup bar, gymnastics rings, a dip belt, a flywheel box (with assorted attachments), and a neck harness.

I’ve acquired most of this over the past year, during the pandemic and despite the issues with equipment availability. With the exception of the flywheel box, most of it has also been quite affordable - and I didn’t even discover the flywheel until recently, so I wasn’t even using it for most of the year. This equipment has been more than enough, with a bit of ingenuity, to ensure that I’m continually challenged without getting bored, and I’m used to some pretty tough workouts!

I additionally made the discovery that there’s an open air calisthenics setup in a nearby local park - meaning that when I need a bit more free space, I can simply toss my bands and gymnastics rings into my bag and get a solid fresh air workout.

With the setup of this home gym, I’m in no rush to go back to commercial gyms - even when gyms reopen, I intend to continue training at home for the near future, mastering the gymnastics exercises that I’ve newly fallen in love with.

Training

My training approach has grown and changed a lot over the year. Previously, I’ve written about plenty of related topics this year:

In general, I started off basing my exercise around squats, dumbbell romanian deadlifts, dumbbell overhead presses, pushups, and pullups. Over time, dumbbell loaded squats and deadlifts got too easy, so I replaced them with heavier versions when I got my flywheel box, in addition to pistol squats. Pushups have also been supplemented with weighted dips, overhead presses have been replaced with parallette pike pushups and handstand pushups, and pullups have been supplemented with inverted rows. All in all, there’s also been a greater emphasis on practice for variations on core exercises like the dragon flag, front lever, back lever, and planche.

Training for my clients has revolved around similar movements, with an emphasis on total volume of training and increasing sets and reps over time. Using creative ways of doing so, that don’t simply involve adding a ton of reps too quickly, is certainly the name of the game.

About Adam Fisher

Adam is an experienced fitness coach and blogger who's been blogging and coaching since 2012, and lifting since 2006. He's written for numerous major health publications, including Personal Trainer Development Center, T-Nation, Bodybuilding.com, Fitocracy, and Juggernaut Training Systems.

During that time he has coached hundreds of individuals of all levels of fitness, including competitive powerlifters and older exercisers regaining the strength to walk up a flight of stairs. His own training revolves around bodybuilding and powerlifting, in which he’s competed.

Adam writes about fitness, health, science, philosophy, personal finance, self-improvement, productivity, the good life, and everything else that interests him. When he's not writing or lifting, he's usually hanging out with his cats or feeding his video game addiction.

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