Equipment For Your Home Gym
In this article I am going to walk you through the equipment to buy for a home gym set up.
I’ve trained at home for the past several years and gotten the best results I have ever had from doing so, but home gyms aren’t for everyone.
The first thing is to establish a training habit in a gym, and know that you are locked in and totally set on this type of training before committing the money to the home gym and moving to home based training.
With many gym memberships coming in around £45–£65/month these days, you’ll see that it’s fairly soon that the home gym has paid for itself. I calculated that my home gym would take 18 months to pay for itself, and since then I have gone past this by years.
home gym practical issues
flooring
You’re going to need a ground floor space for sound reasons (heavy deadlifts) and load bearing reasons.
I recommend setting up in the garage, or a ground floor room of your house is space permits. Alternatively some houses have out buildings such as annexes and cabins that may be suitable. Ensure that the floor is absolutely solid before planning the gym there. At home I currently lift in a downstairs room with a good hardwood floor, and simply place mats over it when deadlifting. I have never left a mark doing this and have deadlifted up to 180kg so far on the mats (pictured below).
ceiling height
Stand upright in the room, and reach your hands up. Now imagine a barbell with plates loaded onto it. Is the ceiling high enough? Some outdoor cabins may have low ceilings so do check for this.
The equipment
squat rack
BodyMax Squat rack
Approx £225 +
The same one I have used for more than 5 years.
This rack can be closed in the centre (red beam) making it ideal to pack away if space is tight.
The hooks are adjustable as are the safeties.
The handles behind the hooks are also useful for doing dips.
When purchasing any squat racks check reviews, build quality (max load it can take) and make sure it has long safety arms. Some racks have no safeties, short, or unadjustable safeties that I don’t recommend.
* I am 5’11 tall - taller lifters may need a larger rack to bench press in.
power racks
These are permanent racks that once fitted you won’t pack away after each session (unlike the one above). Ideally I will switch to a power rack in the future if I begin to build a permanent gym space at home. If this is your current situation, contact me and I will advise on power racks suitable for home.
Folding Rack Wall Mounted. https://www.rogueeurope.eu/rogue-rml-3w-fold-back-wall-mount-rack-1-eu
Safety arms need to be added in the order.
Mirafit M3 https://mirafit.co.uk/mirafit-m3-power-rack.html
Rogue Power Rack. https://www.rogueeurope.eu/rml-390f-flat-foot-monster-lite-rack-eu
Also in this situation, you may be better to build a platform for the rack to be bolted to and to deadlift on. Here is an article that details a home gym platform build. These can also be purchased pre made but at a greater price.
olympic barbell
20kg 7ft Barbell
Approx £70.00 - £200
If you are in the USA I recommend the Rogue B & R bar 2.0
Or The Starting Strength Bar by Texas Power Bars.
This bar is hard to get in Europe because of import costs.
For UK you can start with a basic Fitness Superstore 7ft 20kg olympic barbell in black (slightly cheaper) or the silver colour. Honestly, you may well end up upgrading it after a year or so! So I have linked sever bars below. My personal favourite is the Rogue B & R bar. Which I had shipped over from USA and have loved that bar ever since.
When buying a bar make sure it has knurling in the centre to lock onto your shirt during squats.
Each end of the bar should spin relatively well.
There are barbells on the market that are not olympic spec (meaning width of bar) and are thinner, be careful here as these bars will not fit the plates we will be using. Also I prefer a bar with double ring markings for your reference when lifting.
If buying second hand place the bar in the rack and turn it, if the ends waggle up and down the bar is bent, do not buy it.
Current availability - Covid - saw the market sell a lot of equipment, periodically bars and plates come back into stock, it’s one to keep check on.
Some locations to view online for barbells.
Strength Shop UK.
Mirafit.
Rogue EU (shipping from EU).
Fitness Superstore.
Benches
Approx £50.00 +
In most cases we use a flat bench like the one pictured.
When selecting a bench make sure the max load again is very high. It needs to able to take your body weight + the weight of the loaded bar, ideally a standard of 250kg.
The one I have is made by Strength Shop and has a capacity of 500kg, much more than I’ll ever need, but also at a higher price (£120.00) The width of the padding is 12”/30cm. Avoid benches with a pad width that is very narrow.
In some instances it is useful to have a bench that has a seat and separate back support both of which are adjustable.
weight plates/second hand home gym equipment
If you are on a budget I recommend buying your weight plates from second hand websites such as Gumtree.
It’s very common for people to have home gym set ups (like the one pictured) and they sell their plates and other equipment when they realise it is not for them.
Whereas some kit like barbells and such can be bashed around and not work properly if not cared for, there is not much that can go wrong with iron plates.
It is therefore safe to acquire these second hand.
In some cases you could also get the bar and rack as well this way, but take care to inspect everything first to ensure it is in working order.
** Always make sure you buy Olympic spec plates as they will have the hole wide enough to take the Olympic barbell we use (there are smaller width plates on the market, watch out for this).
If you are buying brand new, take a look for the best prices available on Fitness Superstore, Amazon and Strength Shop UK.
I personally use the bumper plates (10kg) and add silver coloured tri grip plates thereafter, like the ones pictured above on the floor.
plates you will need
Here are some standard plates you will need - ensure they are 2” diameter for the hole / width of olympic bar, there are some 1” spaced plates out there that would not fit.
1.25kg x 2
2.5kg x 2
5kg x 2
10kg x 2
15kg x 2
20kg x 2 or more.
As you get stronger you’ll be adding more 20kg plates. The smaller plates simply enable you to make jumps in strength up until you can add another set of 20s to the bar.
smaller items
bumper plates
Approx £45-50 Pair.
When we deadlift we have to get the bar to the correct height. 20cm/8.5 inches off the ground. An ideal scenario to do this is to use 2 x sturdy 10kg bumper plates loaded onto the bar first.
Thereafter it will not be a problem if the diameter of any plates added on later are smaller than we’d like.
Many plates sold on the commercial market are smaller diameter ones, and using these bumper plates removes the incorrect height issue. Note that they need to be 10kgs. There are 5kg bumper plates but they are so thin they begin to deform as you add weight to the bar.
I did some quick maths, and added up a basic list from all this, allowing up to £250 for plates. The total still came to around £600.
This seems like a big upfront cost, but that set up will pay for itself in about the first 12-18 months of most gym memberships.
If you are not sure or stuck on any equipment decisions message me at anytime.