Starting Your Own Home Gym

adultingwithlattes
Oct 15, 2019
2 min read

Updated: Oct 18, 2019

Cody and I LOVE the CrossFit Games. I love watching the athletes, they always make me pumped to workout.

Cody used to do CrossFit and bought some equipment to do it at home. Dreaming about our house and what to do with the space led me to dream about my ideal home gym. I'm going to break down some must haves and some dream equipment.

It'll be minimalist to help you start your own home gym. I'm very concerned about cost and effectiveness. I'm not including cardio equipment.

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Barbell:

A barbell is useful for so many exercises: Squats, lunges, dead lifts, hip thrusts, standing calf raises, chest press, shoulder press, skull crushers, bicep curls, bent over rows, snatches, cleans, jerks...every muscle group!!

Dumbbell:

Dumbbells help isolate one arm at a time, and you can do less weight if the barbell itself is too heavy.

Great workouts with dumbbells: Bicep curls (alternate), chest press, shoulder press, lateral & frontal raise (shoulders), lunges, dead lifts, squats, standing calf raises, rows, butterfly, tricep overhead press, abs (russian twists, toe touches, etc).

Be careful with the types of plates and bars you buy. I read many reviews that the plates and bars break easily. So be careful with the plastic kind.

You can buy dumbbells where you can add weight:

Or buy multiple single weights. These can get expensive the stronger you get.

Barbell & Dumbbell combo:

Extras:

A bench to help with multiple exercises.

Mats if you need these for your floors.

I absolutely love foam rolling. If you haven't tried it, it is an excellent tool to workout the knots in your muscles, pop your back, and stretch out everything. It's great as an addition to traditional stretching.

I have this kettlebell. You can mix up workout routines with kettlebell swings, goblet squats, windmills, half get up (abs), single leg deadlift...