Attached Pull-Up Bar to Squat Rack
The main attraction in almost every home gym is the squat rack. You can perform pull-ups, presses, squats, and a variety of other workouts there. A decent squat rack should make you feel safe while using it, last a very long time, and offer a variety of accessories to expand its adaptability as your bank account grows. Fortunately, the majority of squat racks available today can accommodate both your current lifting capacity and your future weight requirements. As a result, we don’t feel the need to make the same high quality recommendations as we would for a barbell.
For most people on a budget, we suggest the Rep Fitness PR-1100 Home Gym Power Rack as a squat rack. The PR-1100 has an 84″ height and a 48″ x 47.5″ footprint. It comes with a multi-grip pull-up bar, a maximum weight capacity of 1,000 LB (which is probably more than any reader would ever want to lift), and optional accessories like dip handles and a lat pulldown. Apart from its practical components, the rack is also available in a powder-coated red or blue variant that would complement any home gym. Even though squat racks can cost considerably more, this is a fantastic option for those on a budget because it is reasonably priced at about $250, lasts for many years, and has strong resale value.
For those seeking a more robust squat rack with thicker steel and several attachment options, we recommend the Rogue R-3 Power Rack or Rep PR-3000 Power Rack.
Plates of Weight
It makes sense that you would purchase items to hang from the barbell now that you had one and a place to put it. Although weight plates are available in a variety of shapes, hues, and materials, your greatest chance of finding some iron Olympic plates used is usually to search through Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, yard sales, etc.
You can get new weight plates at a reasonable price online if you can’t find any that are worth the asking price. The Olympic 2-Inch Weight Plates by CAP Barbell are our budget-friendly choice for fresh iron plates. They are inexpensive, readily available, precisely sized, and weigh about what they say. The majority of iron weight plates are made of cast iron and are produced in similar factories abroad, so the typical home gym owner doesn’t really need to spend much more than the CAP Barbell Plates’ asking price.
We advise obtaining bumper plates if you intend to perform any Olympic lifts, such as the clean and jerk or snatch. We advise purchasing only as many bumper plates as necessary for the Olympic lifts and using iron plates for the remaining portions because bumper plates can get pricey quickly. The FringeSport Black Bumper Plates are the greatest bumper plates that we would suggest for people on a tight budget. They cost roughly the same as bumper plates, are composed of virgin rubber, have exact weight accuracy, and won’t damage your barbell or base.
Level Bench
Despite the fact that most people only think of flat benches in relation to the bench press, they can be really useful pieces of equipment with a little bit of ingenuity. My flat bench has been utilized for a variety of exercises, including split squats, rows, box jumps, and box squats. A good flat bench should have a firm foam surface, a sturdy platform, and a height of approximately 17″.
The AmazonBasics Flat Weight Bench is the flat bench that we would suggest for people on a tight budget. Despite its modest price (less than $50 as of this writing), we tested its durability, and it held up to almost everything we threw at it. The AmazonBasics Bench is reasonably priced, sturdy, and features a good vinyl covering.
Leap Rope
A jump rope is the final piece of equipment we suggest starting a low-cost at-home gym. This may sound a little absurd, but jump ropes are fantastic tools for coordination and conditioning that can be used for both short and long intervals. The basic jump rope will provide you a method to warm up and improve your endurance and stamina in addition to running, sprinting, and jumping.
Although you can get a jump rope almost anywhere, most people think that the Garage Fit PVC Jump Rope is a wonderful option if they want to get a cheap jump rope online. Instead of using a speed rope, we advise keeping with the thicker PVC ropes because they are more user-friendly and easier to handle.
After you’ve set up your essentials according to our recommendations, you may start adding equipment to your collection by adding kettlebells, plyo boxes, adjustable dumbbells, and other items that catch your eye. To further safeguard your foundation, you might want to pick up a few horse stall rugs from your neighborhood farm supply store.
When it comes to expanding your gym, our most common advice is to start with the necessities and then establish a goal, like exercising four days a week for three months; when you reach this goal, treat yourself to a new piece of equipment. This makes it more likely that you will reach your objective and provides you with a reward that will encourage you to continue your workout routine!
The Astonishingly Low Cost of a Personal Trainer
The following represents the estimated cost of implementing our above recommendations (prices are rounded up) utilizing all the least expensive solutions and an average number of weight plates needed to get started:
Wonder Bar V2 from FringeSport: $200
Rep Fitness PR-1100 Home Gym Power Rack: $240
$50 for the AmazonBasics Flat Weight Bench
Olympic 2-Inch Barbell Weight Plates from CAP: $350
PVC Jump Rope Fitted for a Garage: $8
All in all: around $850
As you can see, less than $1,000 may be used to construct a high-quality, very successful home gym. And if you get the aforementioned used equipment, you can accomplish it for even less.
Even while $1,000 can still seem like a lot when you consider the whole amount, contrast that expense with what it would cost to join a commercial gym.
A gym membership typically costs $58 per month. (Yeah, there are $10/month gyms, but they are far from suitable for productive exercises because they just have Smith machines and no power racks.)
In other words, if you cancel your gym membership at $58 a month to open a home gym, the money you would have paid for monthly dues will cover the cost of the gym membership in just over a year. You’ll then begin to save money each month after that.
And that’s only the money you can save on the membership fee alone if you use a home gym. There are other reasons that using a home gym instead of a monthly membership will save you money.
Americans within the ages of 18 and 65 spend on average $155 a month on fitness and wellness, according to a MyProtein poll. In addition to gym membership costs, this amount also covers food plans, personal trainers, supplements, and gym-specific apparel and accessories.
When exercising at home, all of these things can be prevented. Beyond not having to pay a membership fee, you can wear whatever you want because it’s just you and your friends working out; you can eat real food because you’re near enough to your refrigerator to not need as many supplements; and the nutrition and training advice you would receive from a trainer can be completely replaced by the abundance of free content available online, or it can be replaced for a lot less money by an online programming/coaching company. Not to mention, you’ll use less petrol than you did the last time you drove to the gym!
Reinvest the money you save in your own gym or hold onto it. If you choose the latter option, you won’t have to pay more than you would have if you had joined a commercial gym.
Building a home gym can be more affordable and accessible than you may have imagined. You can have a home gym that will provide you better workouts and more satisfaction for a fraction of the cost of what you currently spend on a gym membership in just a few years (or months, for some). Not only will working out at home provide you more time to do things you enjoy, but it will also set a positive example for your family and allow you to invite friends to work out with you whenever you’d like without worrying about running out of guest passes.