The purpose of this buying guide is to help you find the
best home gym you can buy
Here are links to the complete guide:
In the last article we introduced the concept of a "home gym" and how a home gym can benefit your life. We move on here in this buying guide to let you know the various types of home gyms on the market and the advantages and disadvantages of each to help you find the
best home gym to buy for you
TYPES OF HOME GYM EQUIPMENT
While theoretically any exercise equipment in your home exercise area could lead to that area in your home designated as the "home gym". In modern times, the "home gym" specifically designated the weight area or resistance area in your exercise area at home.
That being said, there are a wide range of home gym equipments available in the market. Each with advantages and disadvantages
Universal Home Gyms
Universal workout stations are one of the oldest types of home gyms available. These were the first type of "machine weights" available on the market (which incidentally for years spawned the entire "Free weights" vs "Machine weights" debate). Utilizes "machine weight" resistance.
At the gym, machine weights tend to be one type of exercise per machine: e.g. one machine for bench press, one machine for military press, etc.
The
Universal Home Gym acts as a well designed workout station that combines many different exercises into one large "machine". Generally, there is a bench which can incline as well as leg extension apparatus so you can work out multiple exercise for both upper body and lower body.
While machine weights have traditionally been made with weight plates and pins, one of the most popular
universal home gyms of the last few decades is the
Bowflex Home Gyms. Fun to use, sleek and attractive, quite compact. Very light, utilizing tension rods and resistance in bending those rods instead of heavy weight plates.
Below is one of the most popular Bowflex home gyms, the
Bowflex PR1000 Home Gym
Advantages
- Offers the largest variety of exercises for a home gym
- Feels the most like working out in a normal gym
- Looks very attractive
- If using Bowflex, then quite light when compared to most universal gyms utilizing weights and pins
- Able to do a real full workout with a universal home gym
Disadvantages
- Expensive
- Large, takes up a lot of room
- If using Bowflex, the motion still is not as natural as a traditional weights and pins universal gym or free weights.
Overall
Universal gyms are fantastic if you really want a variety of exercises available. Also if you want to mimic the "gym" experience, having something this significant in size helps a lot. It's a great idea to get a few free weights to augment your universal home gym to get a really good workout.
Make sure it has a nice cable system for your pulling exercises!
Portable Home Gyms
Portable home gyms describe the workout equipment which gives you a strength workout with apparatus that is small and easy to store. The apparatus is quite portable and can be moved around the home easily. Often utilizes body weight for resistance.
The most popular portable home gym equipment would be the pull up station and push up stations. Many pull up stations over the years did not feel very sturdy. Recently,
Iron Gym came out with a unique design that hooks onto a door and feels EXTREMELY sturdy. This is one of our favorite products in fact.
They have recently bundled their products together into a "complete" gym set which we really like which is the
Iron Gym Total Body Fitness Kit
Advantages
- Inexpensive
- Portable, able to move from location to location
- The Iron Gym equipment specifically is very sturdy. The pull up station feels very sturdy for pullups. One of our staff is 160lbs and hooked on an extra 15lbs and said he felt extremely safe and sturdy.
- Great to do a few pull ups throughout the day or to do a mini-workout like 3 sets of 10
- Exercises offered, while few, are many main core exercises
Disadvantages
- Limited in exercises
- Limited in resistance available
Overall
Perfect for little mini workouts throughout the day. You can get a really nice 10 to 15 minute resistance workout with the major muscle groups. Highly recommend extra weight apparatus (weight belt for pullups, weight vest for pushups) for thost that require more weight.
Suspension Home Gyms
While this falls under the category of
Portable Home Gyms, we feel that
Suspension home Gyms are in a category all their own. Utilizes body weight for resistance. Includes many different wraps, anchors, and hooks, to let you set up a workout station just about anywhere and offers a large variety of body weight exercises. You can really be creative here with your workouts, especially if you have an anchor point.
The most popular and most well known of the suspension gyms are the
TRX Home Gyms with their most popular product the
TRX Basic Suspension Trainer Kit with Door Anchor
Advantages
- Extremely portable, fits in a bag
- Affords you a workout anywhere
- Variety of body weight/gravity exercises available for full workout
- Inexpensive
- Fantastic core and stabilizer muscle workout
Disadvantages
- To fully take advantage, requires personal coaching to help you figure out how to use initially.
- We don't recommend for beginners. It can be awkward and even dangerous if not used properly
Overall
This is really just a fancy set of apparatus to help you maximize the various body weight type exercises available. If you like pull-ups and push-ups and want a lot more to do, then this is for you. Unique design by military to be able to have effective workouts anywhere, Suspension gyms really offer you a lot for just a small package and small price.
Whether beginning or advanced exercise nut, you will still want to get personal coaching from TRX certified trainers to help you figure out how to use this equipment properly so you don't get injured.
Power Tower Home Gyms
The
Power Towers are tall apparatus (with small footprint size) that gives you three to four main major muscle group exercises. Utilizes body weight exercises to give you a really heavy workout. Out of all the home gyms, this is one of the apparatus that you will likely also find in your commercial gym.
The
Weider name pops up its name again with their very popular
Weider Power Tower.
Very sturdy and allows you the two of the best major muscle group exercises: pull-ups and dips. Also with the elbow rests and pull up bars you have a few ways to do your leg raises for your abs.
Advantages
- Relatively inexpensive
- A sturdy pull-up and dip-station makes Power Towers extremely popular
- While tall, the footprint itself is fairly compact
- Two types of effective leg raises available: elbow rest and hanging
- Includes other handles and bars to offer other exercises (two push up stations are available)
- Somewhat light and can be moved around
Disadvantages
- Even the best designed power towers may get a bit wobbly as you do your exercises.
- Limited exercises available
- Even with the small footprint, this thing is pretty big
Overall
These are fantastic for quick 15 to 20 minute workouts. Similar to the the
Iron Gym Total Body Fitness Kit. While not as portable, the power tower offers you leg raises (very effective ab exercise) and dips (very effective chest, shoulder, and tricept workout). Easily add a weight belt for additional resistance and you have a very effective upperbody workout.
Power Towers are a big plus and should be a part of every home gym.
Gravity Based Home Gyms
These are similar to
Universal Home Gyms but utilize body weight resistance instead of machine resistance. Often there is a sliding bench for you to lie down on and then it utilizes various cables and pulleys for you to move your body around with both pushing and pulling exercises.
The most popular gravity based home gyms come from a name long trusted in the body building arena which is the
Weider Home Gyms. Their most highly rated and most popular gravity based gym is the
Weider Ultimate Body Works Gym
Advantages
- Inexpensive
- Light, no weights included as it utilizes body weight for resistance
- Somewhat portable because no weights included
- Fair amount of variety of exercises available with multiple pulleys
Disadvantages
- Somewhat limited in resistance
- For some exercises may require you to be upside down
Overall
This is great for beginning to intermediate workouts or for those who enjoy that quick 15 minute full body workout. The bench provides nice stabilization for those who are just getting into resistance workouts. For more advanced workouts, we would recommend a
Power Tower type apparatus or the
Suspension Home Gyms which gives you much more freedom on your body weight exercises.
Free Weights Home Gym Equipments
While this technically can be categorized as a
Portable Home Gym, free weights really deserve a place of their own.
Free weights, since pretty much the dawn of time, has been the most natural way to lift weights. With a few benches and free weights, you have pretty much an entire gym available to you and an entire list of exercises available.
Add in a bar and weights and you have an amazing number of exercises available.
Advantages
- Free weights are the best way your body likes to lift weights
- With a multitude of weights and bars and benches available, you can really do just about any exercise for any body part.
Disadvantages
- Can take up a lot of room depending on how extensive your collection of weights are
- For heavy weight workouts, requires (you guessed it) heavy weights
- No flexibility in changing resistance. Heavy workout requires heavy weights, light workout requires light weights
- Possibly dangerous - heavy weights can be dropped
Overall
While free weights are the best way to workout, we HIGHLY recommend that heavy free weight workouts take place at a public gym. It is hard to mimic the equipment available at a public gym in your own home unless you have a very large room and a lot of money.l
Free weights as part of a home gym are best for smaller workouts that only require 5lb, 10lb, or up to 25lb dumbbels. Our best recommendation is to have these smaller free weights as an addition to other home gyms. As an example, a Power Tower for your major muscle workouts that require heavy lifting (pull ups, dips, with added weight belt) combined with a 10lb to 25lb dumbbell set for smaller isolations (biceps, triceps, and wrists) is a perfect home gym workout to give you complete full upper body workout
That Concludes This Portion Of Our Buying Guide
Now that you know a brief overview of the different types of home gym equipment available. You will likely want to combine one or two of the above to create the
best home gym for you. Next up, we will discuss various features of the different home gyms in more detail. So don't miss
How To Buy The Best Home Gym Part 3: Home Gym Features
Here are links to the complete guide:
Cheers!
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