What To Buy For The Home Gym – Home Gym Equipment and Accessories

If you plan to get serious when it comes to working out from home, first, you will need to know what to buy for the home gym.

I’ll be reviewing the best home gym design ideas and products, whether it’s for an exercise room, basement, or garage gym. I’ve included the best home gym equipment based on budget and best use of space.

What To Buy For the Home Gym

In case you are in a hurry, here are some quick links to the best equipment for the home gym. I will go into more detail about why they are important later on in this article.

Image	Name	Price	Buy
	Bowflex Stowable Bench	$$	CURRENT PRICE
	Rogue Folding Squat Rack	$$	CURRENT PRICE
	Rogue Barbell and Plate Sets	$$	CURRENT PRICE
	Fitness Gear Iron Dumbbells	$	CURRENT PRICE
	Bowflex Adjustable Dumbbells	$$	CURRENT PRICE
	Rogue Tube Bands	$	CURRENT PRICE
	TRX Training Suspension System	$$	CURRENT PRICE
	BodyBoss 2.0 System	$$	CURRENT PRICE
	Harbinger Multi-Gym Pro	$	CURRENT PRICE
	Total Gym XLS	$$$	CURRENT PRICE
	Hyper Vest Pro	$	CURRENT PRICE
	Rogue Assault Airbike	$$$	CURRENT PRICE
	Tempo Studio	$$$$	CURRENT PRICE
	Nautilus U618 Upright Bike	$$	CURRENT PRICE
	Nautilus T616 Treadmill	$$$	CURRENT PRICE
	Sunny Health Fitness Rower	$	CURRENT PRICE
	Bowflex Xtreme 2 SE Home Gym	$$$	CURRENT PRICE
	Bowflex Revolution Home Gym	$$$$	CURRENT PRICE

How to Design a Home Gym

Since gym equipment for the home can be pricey and space is costly as well, it’s important to be smart about your gym setup. Here are some considerations to help prioritize your strategy when setting up a home gym.

• Look for cost effective and multiple use equipment for your home gym budget
• Don’t overcrowd exercise space to give you plenty of mobility
• Think about the best gym equipment based on current and future fitness goals
• Workout programs and goals with change, so leave room for future expansion
• Be sure your home gym setup is functional, versitile, and everything is accesable
• Allow room on walls for space saving equipment storage like racks and hooks
• Proper home gym flooring is practical, cuts down on sound, and protects floor

How To Buy Home Gym Equipment and What To Buy For A Home Gym

If you are a minimalist, it’s surprising how little equipment you can get by with and still enjoy a functional workout. On the other hand, the sky is the limit with all of the available workout accessories, fitness equipment, and other options.

One recommendation is to purchase your home exercise equipment a couple of pieces at a time so you can grow your gym as your fitness goals progress.

“Must Have” Home Gym Basics

Here are the basics as well as home gym design ideas that you can’t go wrong with. Especially if you aren’t starting out with a big investment or you’re not even sure how much use you will get out of your new home gym.

Pull Up Bar

Just simple pull up bars for the doorway can give you one of the best back workouts. In a home exercise room, these will hang over any standard door, but if you have a garage or basement home gym, they come as a more stable, permanent attachment.

Pull up bars for the home come with several grips on one bar to hit your back, shoulder, and bicep muscles in different ways. This includes wide grip pull-ups, narrow grip pull-ups, underhand pull-ups, and hammer pull-ups.

To step up your workouts to get a jacked back, I recommend using an adjustable weight vest for added resistance. There are also many other uses for weighted vests besides pull up exercises. Having additional weight attached to your body brings added resistance, balance, strength, and a more stable core.

Dumbbells

A dumbbell set can be the most versatile piece of exercise equipment for a home gym. These are used to build muscle and strength, balance, coordination, and endurance. If you add an adjustable weight bench to your dumbbell set, the combination gives you even more exercise options.

If you don’t have the room or the money for an entire dumbbell set, I recommend getting just a couple of pairs of the weight selections that will be most essential to your workout. Additional dumbbell pairs can be added at any time.

Another convenient option is an adjustable dumbbell set. Most of these start at 2.5lbs each and go up to 50lbs or more. This is a great time, space, and money saving option.

Fitness Accessories

Here are a few more ideas for small workout accessories that are space saving and inexpensive, but can be an integral part of your workout program if used correctly.

These include heavy balls, jump ropes, stability and exercise balls, kettlebells, Bosu balls, exercise mats, conditioning or battle ropes, ab rollers.

All-In-One Exercise Equipment

This is my favorite type of fitness equipment for the home gym. I love simple, inexpensive exercise equipment that can be used to perform full-body exercises. These can also be a starting point for your home gym to expand upon while you are deciding on what else is needed, depending on your workout style and goals.

Resistance Bands

Exercise resistance band sets are inexpensive and can be a part of many different exercise uses. Grab a book on resistance band exercises, and you can get an entire full-body workout with just one set of bands. These latex or rubber bands enable low impact strength training that can be used to focus on any muscle group.

TRX

TRX is an all-in-one, simple, and compact workout system. All that is required is a place in your exercise room to attach a hook. After that, there are multiple bodyweight exercises as well as full-body workouts that you can do. The TRX Suspension System even comes with a full book of all the possible TRX exercises.

Other All-In-One Workout Systems

A couple of other suggestions for all-in-one workout systems is the BodyBoss Home Gym System which offers over 250 exercises and works as a multi-use resistance band system. The Bodyboss 2.0 is light and portable and includes a stable workout base, workout bar, handles, hooks, and all of the accessories needed.

You may have seen this next all-in-one fitness machine advertised online or on social media. The Total Gym is made in four different models depending on your workout goals and budget. This full-body exercise gym offers over 300 different exercises only using a compact system of a bench and pulleys.

Muscle Building Fitness Equipment

If you’re ready to get serious about your home gym workouts, just a few items turn your exercise room into a full fledged gym. Three major components consisting of an adjustable weight bench, a weight rack, and free weights are all you need for a major muscle gain workout program.

Squat Rack

First, start out with a versatile squat or power rack. I recommend one that can accept rack attachments and accessories. This enables you to perform additional exercises and movements for your workouts. Squat racks have many other uses besides just squat exercises. To save space, invest in a foldable squat rack. These are heavy duty and fold in to be almost flush with the wall.

Weight Bench

Next, add an adjustable weight bench or folding workout bench to work in combination with your rack. Keep in mind that an adjustable bench is good for many more exercises than bench presses alone.

A good bench can be utilized to get tons of other weight training workouts and lots of dumbbell exercises. Besides the dumbbells, a home gym barbell set is an important option to get the full advantage out of both your weight rack and bench.

Cardio and Endurance Exercise Machines

Here are a few ideas when it comes to the best workout machines for the home. Take these home gym cardio and endurance workouts to a whole new level. These suggestions are a little bigger investment than some of our other home gym ideas, but they’re worth it.

Tempo Studio

Interactive home gyms are hot right now, and this one is my favorite. Tempo Studio provides interactive live classes and a studio that contains all the weights and equipment to go with it. There are daily live classes and thousands of on-demand classes all taught by certified fitness coaches.

What sets the Tempo Fit home studio apart, is that it gives you the best real-time, live feedback from the trainer by using thousands of internal sensors. There are neat things about this interactive gym unit, so if you would like to know more, check out my full Tempo Studio Review.

Exercise Bikes

Stationary bike exercises are excellent for body toning, getting lean and for the best cardio workouts. This is a low impact, type of workout that comes with many benefits. These bikes are available in many different choices and models, depending on your exercise goals.

Spinning bikes are used for spinning classes. Fan bikes (air bikes) are designed for HIIT training or CrossFit workouts. Interactive exercise bikes offer live classes.

When looking for the best stationary bikes, the design should include basic vitals and stats on a large screen along with several resistance levels, providing more well rounded and challenging workouts.

Treadmills

Like stationary bikes, treadmills come in all shapes, sizes, and designs. If you have the budget for a membership program, live running classes with an interactive treadmill is probably the most fun and motivating.

However, most of us just need a hassle-free way to run indoors as part of our cardio or weight loss program. Be sure to find a treadmill running machine that has a steep enough incline to be challenging and has several running programs to keep it interesting.

Other things to look at while buying a treadmill include, stability with a sturdy weight capacity and a large screen with workout stats and vitals. If you have a compact home gym, it’s nice to have one that folds to take up less space.

For some of my favorite picks, see the 6 best treadmills for a home in 2020.

Rowing Machines

This machine is one of my top recommendations for a fun, full-body workout. They can be used to get toned, lose weight, build strength and endurance, and increase cardio. There are many choices available when it comes to rowing machines for the home.

Look for a number of resistance levels, user weight capacity, and a quality, foldable one. Finally, there are also interactive rowing machines that are pretty reasonably priced. With these, expect to pay a monthly membership fee to use the service.

Home Gym Strength Machines

You can invest in a quality, all-in-one machine that covers everything that covers all the bases for your strength building program. They are easy to use and specially designed for home gym workouts.

Bowflex home gym machines specifically, are the best-known name for quality and ingenuity. And because of the Bowflex name, they even hold their value better.

Bowflex Xtreme 2 SE Home Gym

The Bowflex Xtreme Home Gym offers 210lbs of smooth Power Rod resistance and durability. This home gym machine is upgradable to 410lbs, more resistance than you will ever need.

Combined with the cable system, it provides over 70 exercises including many variations. Be sure to check out the other Bowflex Xtreme 2 SE accessories. The Bowflex power rods even come with a lifetime warranty.

Bowflex Revolution Home Gym

The Bowflex Revolution Home Gym is their upgraded packaging, made with a new style of movement mechanisms and design. Is the most state of the art, using an independent, high tech internal plate system which gives many variations and incredibly smooth movements.

This system offers 220lbs of SpiraFlex resistance which is upgradable to 300lbs and provides over 100 exercises with up to 400 variations.

What To Buy for a Home Gym Conclusion

As you can see, there are basic home gym accessories and equipment that are both inexpensive and spacing saving. There are options that offer full-body workouts and can be used as all-in-one exercise systems.

Ideas for increasing strength and muscle building, including investing in a home gym weight bench, squat rack, and free weights to make a full gym setup. This equipment can be used together for many weightlifting combinations and workouts.

Other home gym options include cardio, endurance, and strength machines. To learn more, I’ve included links on where to buy home gyms and information on my fitness equipment reviews.

If you have any questions or comments on what or how to buy for a home gym, please leave a message below and I will respond.