Equipment
Looking to upgrade your home gym?
Here are our recommended home gym setups for our Online training. Skip ahead to the section in which you’re most interested.
All suggestions are space saving, low cost and most versatile pieces of equipment you can buy i.e. you use them for more than 1 exercise.
These options will cost you anywhere from $100-$2000 and the high end is well under most home gym fitness budgets. Condos to garage gyms are suitable for all and most importantly, the workouts you can do with all of these suggestions will give you the most fitness bang for your buck.
Kettlebell Club
Versatile Strength
This is probably the most common question we get. So it's a long answer, if you don't care for kettlebells, skip to the next section. Choosing kettlebells will come down to how much you want to spend. Based on our programming here's what we recommend.
Type:
Regular powder coat will be the least expensive but competition bells will provide a consistent size and grip throughout all weights (useful for those with small hands increasing weight)
Cast Iron are most versatile as the outward grip (horns) allow for easier holding in goblet movements.
Simply put, the regular powder coats are probably most people's best option. Inventory, however, may direct you to the available ones.
Weight Selection:
Pressing will always be the weakest link. We use the press as a proxy to recommend bell weights.
1 Kettlebell option:
A bell you can strict press overhead 3-5 times. This will be your most versatile weight. You will want to upgrade once you can press that bell 10+ times but it's a start.
1 Bell weight suggestions:
Men 1 x 26-44lb
Women 1 x 18-26lb
2 Kettlebell option:
Double same weight. Use the guide for 1 kettlebell to determine. This will give you flexibility to use both bells as a heavy swing and squat while still being "light" enough to press
3 Kettlebell option *recommended:
Take the 2 kettlebells suggested in the 2 Kettlebell option and add 2 steps 8KG or roughly 20lbs. This will give you a TGU weight and heavier single bell option that you'll grow into for pressing anyway.
4+ Kettlebells:
For 4 bells, take the 3 kettlebell option and then add a single bell between your double bell weight and single bell weight. This will give you a middle step between the other bells. For 5+ 1 step down from your lightest bell for more versatile pressing such as bottoms up pressing, complicated kettlebell flow movements and as a warm up bell.
4 Bell weight suggestions:
Men 1 x 26lbs, 2 x 35lbs + 1 x 53lb
Women 1 x 12lbs, 2 x 18lbs + 1 x 35lbs
5 Bell weight suggestions:
Men 1 x 26lbs, 2 x 35lbs + 1 x 44lbs + 1 x 53lb
Women 1 x 12lbs, 2 x 18lbs + 1 x 35lbs
Note: At this weight, we're looking at % decrease. A full step here is a 50% decrease in weight and will be too light.
3 Bell weight suggestions:
Men 2 x 35 + 53lb
Women 2 x 18lbs + 35lbs
Wild Card:
Double kettlebells can provide a good heavy single kettlebell swing alternative, however, they’re more awkward to swing. Because our program has a large variety of movements, and this is not typical for a kettlebell program which usually focuses on about 6 movements (borrringggg) I'd say a single big kettlebell will be fun and challenging to swing.
This is a wild card because it will be your most expensive bell and you'll likely use it for 1 exercise only: the swing. I'd say it's your best exercise but we don't do 2 handed swings everyday. This bell is in the 97lb range for men and 71lb range for women. In fact, kettlebells I've seen manufactured up to 250lbs
I'd recommend getting this bell only after you've honed in your skills enough to snatch and TGU + you already have at least the 3 kettlebell option.
Interval Club
Space saving and low cost conditioning
Picking the most versatile piece of equipment that takes up the least amount of space is the goal here. Treadmills are excluded primarily because of cost and space. Plus, for our programming, it makes more sense to run outside unless you have a curved treadmill.
Ski Erg:
Why? You sit all day for work looking at a screen, you're probably doing it right now as you read this too. The ski erg has you standing and aside from running, which you may not like and can do outside, it's a great "anti sitting" device. Plus, this is a full body workout, you're using your lower and upper body including your core.
Biggest question here is "where do I put this". The most space saving option is mounted to a wall. Although mounting anything can be annoying, this surprisingly small footprint (7 feet high 1.5 feet wide and 1.25 ft deep) can be concealed in an Ikea wardrobe. Alternatively, if you have space, the floor mount version will do. This is the best year round, space saving option for overall full body conditioning fitness.
Row Erg:
A close 2nd, this is also a great full body space saving machine. However, there's 1 big drawback for our lifestyle fitness goals. You're sitting. The whole idea about exercising for life is to oppose the unhealthy things that you do. Sitting might be one of the worst things you do. That being said, it's a "pull" full body movement so from an upper body standpoint, it's strengthening the postural muscles in addition to the lower body.
Don't get us wrong, we love it. You're going to get fitter using it, it's great. It's a foot taller when stored vertically but can be separated in to 2 parts (essentially cuts in half and can be put back together easily) The slide can act as a step up and core exercise equipment and you'll get fitter using it.
You can always buy direct from Concept 2, however, you then need to deal directly with customs and a variable US dollar.
Erg Bike/Air Bike:
For some of you with bikes, getting a trainer is the least expensive option however they're a big "jerky" doing sprints, they're meant more for longer consistent paces.
The Concept 2 erg bike is a great alternative to a stationary bike that has the same screen as a rower and skier.
The Airbike, the Buckley's of fitness equipment. It feels awful and works. For those of you who know it, it's one of the hardest things to do. This could be a good "2nd" piece of equipment but is on this list because it suits our interval programming well.
Mobility Club
Band, rollers, and lacrosse balls
With our mobility program, we'll start to increase the number of options we can offer with the purchase of one of the following packages.
Rollers, bands and balls offer a complete set of tools to provide daily self maintenance to help keep you healthy and performing optimally.
Future Programs
Pull Ups & Dips
Pull up and dip variations will be added this winter and are a critical component of any fitness program.
Rings provide the most versatility and can be removed when you don't want your living room to look like a gym. They allow you to move them up and down to acoomodate your level. I.e. want assited pullups with your feet on the ground, lower the rings. Same with dips. As you progress, you get them higher.
Alternatively, the Rogue Jammer pull up bar can have rings hang from them if you can't mount into a celing.
Fear not, there will be kettlebell alternatives for those who don't want to completely convert your place into a gym.
Recommended Equipment:
Ring Mount + Ring Options (wood is best), Jammer Pull Up Bar Mount + Rings
Get a professional to install these
The Fuel Mat
For everything
We introduced this mat because kettlebells, jumping and burpees are unforgiving as it already stands. Save your floor, your knees and your back with this 3 x 6 foot mat.
It's firm enough to squat on yet soft enough to stretch on. It's big enough to burpee on, skater jump and turkish get up.
It rolls up and can be tucked away in a closet and light enough to cary to a park.
This is the best home workout mat you can buy. Stop using your unfulfilling yoga mat for HIIT workouts and upgrade your space with a Fuel Mat.
Heart Rate Monitor
Quantity effort
If you want to get more engaged with your workouts, a heart rate monitor can show you how hard you're actually working vs. how hard you think you're working 😅
Most smart watches have HR monitors but they're not great for resistance based exercise and become inacurrate such as apple watches.
Sleep trackers such as a Whoop Strap or Oura Ring can also provide this data and the whoop is better here for realtime data, but both plug in to your "daily energy expenditure" which can be a helpful tool to monitor overtraining.
Furthermore, sleep, in my opinion is the most important aspect of health that you can control and those two are the best in the business at measuring sleep by a long shot.
If you already have a smart watch and/or are already tracking your sleep, the Polar H10 is the gold standard in heart rate monitoring. It can connect via ANT+ a proprietary heart rate signal used on exercise equipment plus bluetooth which means it can connect directly to your Erg screen and show you your realtime heart rate. If you're using it in a resistance workout, you can connect it to your phone or smart watch to read accurate real time data. Bonus, if you're running without a watch or phone, the workout is stored on the strap for future uploads