On A Budget #1, Home Gym

Are you looking to supplement your gym membership with some equipment at home but do not know where to start? I hope to help.

I’m here to let you know that you can build a great home gym even without spending $1000. You must be willing to shop on craigslist or similar websites or shop your local used sporting good store, such as Play It Again Sports.

You will find that people are just looking to part with their workout equipment and will often sell at a good price if you have the means to remove it from their house and transport it.

Useful items to have:

Squat Rack or Power Rack - to hold a barbell for squatting or bench pressing. Could range from two stand alone adjustable supports to a larger cage structure with pulley attachment. The pulleys will allow you to perform a variety of arm and back exercises.

Stand Alone Rack

If the Rack does have a pulley - it will likely have several attachments with it.

Full Power Rack

Bench - adjustable if possible, used for bench pressing or performing seated exercises. May have an area to attach a leg curl/leg extension machine.

Barbell - 7 foot Olympic Barbell, mostly likely will be part of a package deal with the above mentioned items. You can by a standard barbell as well (1 inch diameter bar) but you may have a more difficult time finding free weights. Useful for pressing, squatting, rowing, deadlifting, and curling. Basically, everything.

Free Weights - obviously, the rack and bench are not that useful without free weights. Will vary from 50 to 75 cents per pound. Beginners would likely need about 100 pounds to get started.

Several Dumbbells - sometimes the bar is just too heavy, for this reason and to perform certain isolation exercises, it is useful to have several light dumbbells ranging from 5 to 20 pounds. Useful for arms and shoulders.

Kettlebells - a nice option for swings, but definitely not mandatory. Having a few heavier bells in the 25 to 40 pound range is more than sufficient.

Floor Sliders - a great option for a variety of floor based abdominal exercises, but also can be used to train lower and upper body as well.

Mats - helpful to reduce wear and tear on your gym floor and to muffle noise. If you cannot find as part of a home gym sale on craigslist, then you can probably get a good deal at a tractor supply store.

Weight Tree - by no means mandatory, but useful for keeping your gym area neat.

Adjustable Dumbbells - also not mandatory, but useful.

Pulley Attachments - if your rack has a pulley, it is helpful to have a lat pulldown bar, a single handle and a V-handle at minimum.

This list is not meant to be exhaustive, nor is everything on the list mandatory. Truthfully, you can do very well with just a small rack, bench and barbell.

EXAMPLE PURCHASE:

As an example of the deals you can find, the equipment pictured below was from an actual craigslist post and selling for $145. As you can see, it has the rack, pulley system with several attachments, adjustable bench with leg curl/leg extension.

To complete this purchase, you’d need to find a barbell, free weights, and possibly some dumbbells. Free weights can often be the most expensive part as you will likely spend 50 to 75 cents per pound of weight. You can likely find barbells ranging from $60 to $100 on craigslist. Hypothetically, if you were to buy 100 pounds of free weights to get yourself started, plus a barbell, you’d likely spend $150 more.

Therefore, for about $300, you would have a very complete home gym with which to work your entire body. If you wanted to buy the rubber floor mats, you’d be looking at probably 3 to 4 mats, so $75 to $100 more dollars. The point is, for less than the cost of a year at a local gym, you can have a very fine home gym.

Why do this? Isn’t it a hassle shopping around online, picking up equipment then setting it up? Maybe. However, the dividends come after you’ve set up your gym. There in the space of your own home you have the means to get an effective workout without spending time commuting to the gym, without waiting in line for your favorite piece of equipment, listening to the music you want to and never having to clean off someone else’s sweat!

Contact me for help setting up your home gym!

• The first picture was also a real post on Craigs List; offering the equipment shown and 500 pounds of weights for $2000. To be honest, it was a pretty good deal considering everything included.