Bodybuilding Equipment You Need If You’re Working Out At Home And Trying To Build Muscle!
I want to talk a little about building and equipping a nice home gym for yourself. If you train at a good commercial gym you don’t need to worry about it. But if you train at home, then you might as well have enough of the right equipment and do the whole thing properly.
There’s a lot of advantages to training at home. The saving time alone makes it worthwhile. But let’s establish one indisputable fact right now. You must have enough weight and certain basic pieces of equipment. Otherwise you just won’t make progress towards your final goal.
I get a lot of emails from trainees who wonder why they aren’t making rapid progress. Eventually I find out they don’t have anywhere near enough weight, and, in some cases, no equipment at all.
A friend of mine asked me to go over and check out his workout one time. I went over and he showed me his weights. He had about 120 pounds on a bar. It was sitting in his back yard. There was no squat rack, no bench, no nothing.
I asked him what he did about squats. “I don’t do em,” he said. “What about presses?” “Don’t do em either,” he replied. I glanced around at the yard and then up to the sky. “Well,” I said. “You’re getting lotsa fresh air, anyway. What do you do when it rains?”
“No problem,” he said. “I just don’t work out those days.” He put his foot up on the barbell and yawned. “Any suggestions?” “Sure,” I said. “Get yourself a little piece of plywood about a foot square.”
“A piece of plywood,” he said. “Then what?” “Then,” I said, “bolt it to the bar and you can use the whole thing for a skateboard. You’ll have a heck of a lot more fun with it, and develop just about as much muscle.”
Now, there are two aspects of the problem to consider – the gym itself and the equipment in it. Let’s start with the gym.
Unless you live in an area where it never rains, snows, hails, or gets dark, your gym should be indoors. A garage with a good roof, or a section of your basement is ideal. Let’s assume it’s going to be in your basement.
Most basements have cement floors. Cement is hard to keep clean, and if you drop a weight, you’ll generally crack either the floor or the weight. So strap the floor and lay plywood sheathing over it. Use plenty of nails and build it husky. This gives you a nice solid floor that won’t be effected by dropping the odd weight.
If you really want to set the place off in professional style, put pictures of lifters and bodybuilders up on the wall. Don’t just rip them out of a magazine and pin them up on the wall with the edges curling in. Do it properly.
Stick them on heavy cardboard and put a little frame around them before you put them on the wall. Better yet, buy proper frames with glass fronts for them. Don’t just slap the photos up any old place. Line them up neatly in some sort of decorative order.
Your gym should be well lighted, well aired, and very, very CLEAN. Don’t let junk accumulate. If you want to keep magazines in it, get a little table to keep them on. Sweep, dust, and wash out your gym as religiously as you would your kitchen. It should be a place you enjoy working out in.
Now we come to the equipment:
The best way to get good equipment – the best way, the most practical way, and in the long run the cheapest way – is simply to buy it. I know the cost is something you all have to consider, and we’ll discuss that factor in a moment.
The first and most important item you need is the weights themselves. You can squeak by without a lot of other things, but the whole project’s a waste of time without the proper weights. Don’t try to skimp on them.
The next item you must have is a set of adjustable squat stands. This is an absolute necessity. Don’t try to get by without them. You’ve got to do heavy squats if you want a herculean build, and later on you’ll be doing very heavy supporting work.
The big advantage to adjustable stands is that you can set them back against the wall when you’re not using them, and make more space available in the center of the gym. You’d be absolutely amazed at the number of trainees who try to develop without squat stands. It’s like trying to see a photograph in the dark. You just can’t do it.
The next item is the flat bench with uprights for bench pressing. You’ll be using the bench for other things besides bench pressing. One of the main reasons for the current crop of top bodybuilders is the greatly increased amount of bench work that’s being done. Don’t try to skip it.
Now you’re in business. Contrary to what you may of heard, that’s all the equipment you need to build a physique as strong and as muscular as anyone else in the world. In any event, there’s a lot of stories about different guys who built up a nice body with not much more than a set of weights and a lot of ambition.
I mentioned the cost factor earlier. The initial outlay looks perhaps a little high at first glance. You should remember a couple of things, though. First of all, you’ll probably be using this equipment for the rest of your life. Secondly, it doesn’t wear out. There’s no expensive parts to replace, and except for dusting it, no upkeep at all.
I know guys who are still training with barbell equipment their fathers bought them twenty years ago. If you stack the initial cost of the equipment over the many years you’ll be using it, you’ll see that it’s an annual expense of next to nothing.
It’s safe to say that nothing you’ll ever buy will give you anything at all like the returns for your money that good training equipment will. Take the time and trouble to build yourself a home gym you can be proud of – one that’s stocked with plenty of weight and all the modern equipment. You’ll build your body a lot bigger and better a lot faster.
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Posted by: Mike Buckinson
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The only rule: RESPECT THIS HOUSE! Postings that contain abusive language and/or personal attacks will be cheerfully VAPORIZED. One cross word and “POOF!” your well-thought-out post will be gone in a puff of smoke. - Mike Buckinson
Good day,
I want to start working out and just wanted to have a complete starter program. Please share some if possible. thanks
Best regards,
joseph
Hi Joseph,
My “mini-course” should do the trick.
Mike.
Hi Mike
Your article just came through after the Mrs and I had not long finished some calculations on our finances, among them was our home gym that we both use 5-6 days per week (including cardio), we used to train at a local gym that charged 4 pound per session, this was over 15 years a go, they now charge over 7 pounds per session.
We were amazed to discover that we have saved over 45,000 uk pounds since putting our own gym together and that excludes transport each way! the total cost of all our eqipment including treadmill, bikes, power rack, all weights and dumbells was only around 2500 pounds over a few years. also we can fit workouts in at a moments notice without having to make plans, its always here and easy.
We have an excellent set up that has evolved for us over the years and now consistes of mostly the essentials for big lifts for both of us, now even the Mrs has more muscle than most guys at the office where she works! a few of them frequntly ask her how she got so muscley! I just advised her to mention your site to them, trouble is most of them are scared of really hard work.
I have been useing your programme for a year or so now and no longer struggle to add muscle it is automatic as long as I can bring myself to train as I know I should.
Anyone serious about the muscle and fitness life style should not wast any time , just get some gym equipment you can always add to it and change it over time to suit your evolving needs then get Mikes programme and prepare to grow!
Mark
[...] some though to building up a nice home gym. It’s not really that expensive when you spread the cost over the number of years you’ll be [...]