How to set up a compact home gym.

Regardless of your fitness regime, a home workout is an ideal way to retain your shape without paying hefty amounts for gym memberships and maintaining total workout privacy.

Setting Up A Compact Home Gym.

Comfortable place.

The initial step in establishing home gyms is allocating a proper training space at your house. Think through what sort of equipment is a must for your exercises. If you plan to place a yoga mat and few sets of dumbbells, doing it in a bedroom or living room is fine. However, for a proper home gym setup, a fraction of a room, garage or basement, or dedicated room is what you are looking for.

Proper flooring.

Rubber floors are an absolute necessity for home gyms. Whether you drop a pair of dumbbells, a barbell, or fix an incline bench press, all these are primary candidates to damage the floor.

Mirrors

Mirrors are highly essential in any commercial gym. Why not have one at your house gym? Placing one can prevent injuries by checking your moves in the mirror.

Proper equipment.

When you make plans for an all-in-one home gym, the other obvious step is stocking up on the equipment that fits your needs. We got this covered in the other post - how to save money on a home gym.

Must-Have equipment for Home Gym.

Pull up Bars ( usually included with power racks)

The highly effective upper-body workouts involve pull-ups. Beginners to novices may find it complex initially, but it is a great way to strengthen your back, arms, and shoulders while helping you build your core strength.

Kettlebells

Kettlebell is vital equipment in a home gym due to their effectiveness and versatility. A few simple kettlebell exercises like pushups and squats can help perform whole-body muscle workouts.

Cast Iron Kettlebell ( 5 - 60lbs )

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Dumbbells

Dumbbells are as old as the earth itself. But why are dumbbells so vital for any home gym? They are cost-effective and highly adjustable; therefore, it is easy to alter the entire weight to meet any requirements. Dumbbells with a black rubber covering, like hex-shaped dumbbells, last longer and offer greater comfort while working out.

Treadmills

Probably, along with the elliptical machines, treadmills are the most popular cardio equipment of all time. They are relatively easy to use, users can control speed, incline, warm-up period, cool-down period, or perform custom programs to fit individual goals. They can take up a bunch of space, so prepare for that before planning the initial setup of the gym itself. Quality treadmills can be expensive, with some new models reaching up to $4000. But for a home gym, a pre-owned piece of elliptical machine could be a solid choice.

Weightlifting Bench

Weightlifting benches are an essential piece of equipment for high-intensity bodyweight exercises. It's a safe way to lift weights with a free range of motion, build muscle, increase strength, burn fat, and tone. [ product link ]

Weightlifting Bench

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Power Rack

Power racks are absolute beasts for home gyms. Such a versatile and all-in-one piece of equipment, combined with a weightlifting bench, barbell, and few sets of plates, is most of the time enough for a solid home gym setup alone.

Power Racks

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Barbells and plates

Standalone barbells and plates do not contribute much to an overall home gym equipment, but combined with other pieces of equipment, do wonders.

Resistance machines

Commercial gyms are always full of all sorts of resistance machines. Why is that? It is a great way to learn the main movement patterns involved in weight lifting in a safe and controlled way. Machines allow movement only along a fixed path, which makes them an effective tool for advanced lifters to target specific muscles. Resistance machines are not usually super compact, and require more space around them, so even though it's not ideal for super compact home gym, but one or two could drastically up your gym game in the long term.