You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to build your home gym. If you want to, and if you can, that’s fine. For most regular people looking to lose weight and tone up, a gym membership and the open road is pretty much all we have. But there are a few inexpensive pieces of exercise equipment out there that should be a staple of any home gym. They’re simple and relatively cheap, but they get the job done. For the most part, if all you had was the following 5 pieces of exercise equipment, you could build yourself into quite a hardcore animal.
The Ab Wheel – $7.75
Providing the most bang for the buck out of all these items, the ab wheel will build core strength unlike anything you will every come across. Surprisingly, every gym I have ever been to does not have an ab wheel lying around. The principle is simple: a handle bar attached to a wheel. For beginners, you get on your knees and roll out slowly. If you collapse on the floor, well you got some work to do. If you can make it back to your starting position, repeat until you can repeat no more.
People with greater core strength will be able to do it from their feet. Bend over like you’re touching your toes and extend all the way out. If you can recover from the repletion back to your starting position, then you’ve got more core strength that 95% of Americans. That isn’t a true statistic, but I’ve only seen two people in my life pull off an ab wheel repetition from their feet.
Ab Ball – $21.49
The ab ball looks like a piece of exercise equipment geared towards women and yoga instructors, but don’t be fooled. When it comes to ab exercises such as crunches and weighted crunches, you’re going to get a far better range of motion than lying on the floor. You’ll stretch your abdominal to the extreme and keep your bones intact without the pain and discomfort that you’ll experience on the floor.
And it’s not just for crunches. You can use the ab ball to build core stability by sitting on it to do dumbbell shoulder presses, regular dumbbell presses, chest-flies, and so on. You can even try using the ab ball as a place to put your feet for push-ups. Or you can be a complete asshole in the office.
Pull-Up / Chin-Up Bar – $20.98
We all know that the pull-up is essential to your weight training foundation. Unfortunately I can’t do one unless it’s a reverse grip chin up. But my goal is to do a few by the time summer rolls around. I used to be able to do them, and that came after many months of trying everyday.
So rather than doing pull-ups every once in a while when you’re in the gym, you can do that at home every morning. You don’t have to exert yourself to failure every time, but you can get away with doing a few during the day. You’ll be doing pull-ups before you know it.
Push-Up bars – $29.99
I know it seems ridiculous to get a bar for push-ups. You just put your hands on the ground and go right? Or change up where you place your hands to target different muscle groups, such as the diamond push-up for a strictly triceps exercise.
But the Push-Up bars do have their advantages. Sometimes it’s very uncomfortable to place your hands in awkward positions for the more advanced push-ups. Having a grip on those bars feels a whole lot better than pressing your palms against the pavement. And they offer you a chance to do exercises that you can’t do without them. How about using just one and crossing over while you’re at the top of your push up?
Ankle Weights 10lbs – $16.79 
The things you can do with ankle weights are pretty much limitless. Once you have them on, you can go about your daily business while putting resistance on the muscles in your legs that you’re not used to. They add another challenging level to running and jogging if you’re the kind of person that thinks 5 miles isn’t that far.
A gym doesn’t have to cost thousands of dollars
State of the art fitness equipment doesn’t mean you’re going to get stronger or leaner any faster than the next guy, or girl. A person who has never seen a gym can get a better body than someone who spends every day in one. When it comes to fitness, the best piece of exercise equipment you have is your heart. And everyone gets one of those for free.
Trusted “Where to Buy” Links
- Ab Wheel from BodyBuilding.com
- Ab Ball from BodyBuilding.com
- Pull-up Bar from BodyBuilding.com
- Push-up Bars from BigFitness.com
- Ankle Weights from BodyBuilding.com
July 26th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Another piece of relatively cheap, but nice equipment is dumbells. For the best deals, consider garage sales or even Craigslist. My neighbor found a very nice set at Play It Again Sports. Usually they’re in good shape, it’s pretty easy to tell if they’re dented or dinged up.
There’s tons of great workouts that you can complete with dumbells. Just be creative and don’t use too much weight.
December 8th, 2007 at 1:39 am
I usually order from bodybuilding.com and also some of my equipments are from ebay.
December 11th, 2007 at 12:09 am
My home gym is very simple. Besides the Ab wheel i have two kettlebells.
In my opinion, kettlebells are the single most effective tools for full body workout.
Using them you can combine cardio and strength training anywhere, indoor or outdoor.
And the best part is the fun, you can have with them
December 15th, 2007 at 11:03 am
“The ab ball looks like a piece of exercise equipment geared towards women and yoga instructors, but don’t be fooled. ”
This is good advice most people dismiss the ab ball as a great bit of exercise equipment.
@Doug: Dumbbells are a amazing way of training. Good tip!
December 16th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
The exercise balls are fabulous. Even just sitting on one to watch tv will constantly work out your abs. Every little wobble of the ball causes your abs, obliques and lower back muscles to work in turn to keep you in an upright position! Used for exercises the effects are even more extreme.
February 24th, 2008 at 3:55 am
I use the ball and the chin up bar and they are great!! Excellent for toning…definetely worth the buy…
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:35 pm
I prefer the Perfect Pushup to those pushup bars.
March 19th, 2008 at 7:35 am
Hi – just wanted to say good design and blog -
April 24th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I love reading opinions about exercise. I coached athletics for my career and appreciate different thoughts and types of exercises to use. Keep it up. Dave
May 17th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Ay, informercial products! I’d say keep the exercise ball and the pull-up bar, and invest in some dumbbells. Otherwise, a cheap gym membership would suffice!
May 19th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I absolutely love my exercise ball! It took some getting used *not falling off it* but once I got it I noticed amazing improvements in my core strength and my overall balance! I have a Gazelle Trainer which I do love too but I tend to get bored doing the same cardio over and over. The ab wheel is great but U really do need to have strong ab and back muscles before using or you could injure yourself *both my brother and I now have slipped disc’s and I honestly believe that caused it* I Love the Power 90 program too, I did that this year for the first time and dropped 20lb in 2 months, Im not pregnant so cannot do the cardio from it but really did get amazing results!
Patricia
http://www.UsFitnessClubs.com
May 26th, 2008 at 9:32 am
I think more and more people will prefer to allocate room in their own houses and set up their own home gym rather than trek to a leisure centre and have to work out with other people. The range and type of home gym equipment is improving all the time and coming down in price
June 4th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
I have found the best type of exercise is 2 things… 1. light weights (just 3 times a week for 15 – 20 minutes at a time) and 2. Tae Bo. Doing Tae bo 3 to 5 times a week… just 25 minutes at a time has always given me dramatic results.
June 16th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
From my point of view, I feel it’s really better purchasing a home gym
that can contribute total body work out in an inexpensive way. I love all this
stuff, but if we check them one by one, each equipment only gives 1 or 2 benefits, and if we purchase them all, sum it up, we still have to spend a lot of money. There are many inexpensive home gyms available in the market, that are really worth having for. You can visit this link for guidelines on how to find cheap home gyms —
http://e-library.net/articles/Fitness/Finding-a-Cheap-Home-Gym-.htm
As for my recommendation. I would suggest you would try Vigorfit. Compare to other machines, you can avail this Home Gym for as much as $1000 less than similar home gyms and it can give you great full body work out.
Hope this would help! =)
June 20th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
you could add vice grips too, i have been using them for the last 2 months, they cost me $5 and my bench press and military press has improved alot since i have a lot more grip strength makes everything more stable.
That and my forearms look a lot better
June 24th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Here’s some cheap food for thought. Scout out the different pieces of furniture and other natural features in your house that can look like they could double as a piece of workout equipment. These things being dining-room chairs, stairs, stools, or even just a nice open space to perform exercises comfortably. Next, find all of the things that can be used for weighted hand-held pieces of equipment like water bottles, candles, etc. I know this might sound weird, but hear me out. Now, you just need to use your imagination and put those features that you wrote down together. For example, you can do a lunge with an overhead press (with the bottles in your hands), squats/arm curl combos, shadow boxing with the bottles in hand, dips on a chair, and the list goes on. Just be flexible, do whatever comes to mind, and move from one exercise to the next with minimal amount of rest. You will get your heart rate up in no time and won’t be given a chance to get bored. If you can’t think of another exercise right away do something like run in place or jumping jacks while you think of another one. Quick workouts like this still release those feel-good hormones like serotonin, making it a great way to relieve stress, keep you level, and burn some extra calories all for a half-hour or so of your time.
Patrick McCandless, CFT, EMT-P http://www.MACFitnessOnline.com
June 26th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Another great idea is to not waste time… especially women! We don’t have much to ourselves if we have kids, right? Think about it… When do we have time to ourselves? When we are in the shower… in the bathroom… and when we are blowdrying our hair… to think of just a few times. As women, we can do more than 1 thing at a time (no offense men!) so just do some squats or sit down as if you are sitting on a chair (but make sure you can see your knees) when u have a few minutes to yourself. You’d be surprised at how much of a difference this can make!
September 24th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
I use the ab wheel often. Simple device, but it’s a killer ab workout.
October 26th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
I have to agree with Amizan. We bought our home gym at http://www.fitnessscape.com and felt we did the right thing for us. It took a minute to put everything together but it was worth it all. Our home gym fits in a corner so anyone lacking space can still workout at home.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
This is a terrific buying list! One tip with chin/pull-ups. If you are having trouble doing one you can do two exercises that will build your strength. 1) Inverted body weight rows. Works the same muscles, but reduces the weight of the lift. You can start with your feet flat on the ground on hanging below a bar about 4 ft off the ground. Then progress to plank when your strength improves. 2) Do negative pull-ups. Pull yourself up to the bar and lower your body as slowly as possible. Look to work up to a half minute, 45 sec, etc. By the time you get to 30 sec, you’ll be able to do 3-5 pullups.
December 11th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I like the river boat gym idea. A more basic idea that might work though would be hooking dynamo’s up to all the eliptical, treadmill, and byclces at the gym and harnessing that electrical power for use by the gym. I would totally get a membership if the River boat gym every opens a location on Ladybird lake and would definitely try to run over the crew teams. haha no hard feelings crew members
February 6th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
You can even shave more money off of your prospective gym costs by just doing push ups and crunches. Exercise balls are cool looking and we have been playing with balls since we were in grade school but the fact is the best core exercises you can do are pushups (with correct form) do them every day and your core will be cast iron. Crunches and sit ups replace everything on the list up there except the chin up bar which works lats and biceps (mainly). Maybe spend a few extra bucks and buy a set of dumbbells?
February 15th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Great pieces of cheap kit that can really help but I’d drop the push up bars and buy a chin up bar which is like the Powerbar which allows you to use it for incline push ups so it reduces the number of pieces of equipment you need!