Starting a home gym on a budget
Ready to dive into starting a home gym and you aren’t sure where to start or how to spend you money? Have you seen very fancy, well coordinated home gyms online? Don’t worry, almost none of those gyms started that way and our’s didn’t either. Almost every single home gym is built with a few pieces of equipment here and there over many years.
This was our home gym set up in 2016, just a couple of mats, some barbells and plates.
However, if I was starting over again, a barbell and plates would not be my first purchases. While it is nice to have options, not all of this is necessary, and there are a few things that get far more use than others. After multiple decades in fitness, and 9 years building our home gym, here are the things we would buy first, all within a budget of $300.
Dumbbells - Less than $200
You will make it a long way with a set of dumbbells, even only a few pairs (light, medium, heavy) when you are getting started. We started with a set of 5-25’s and bought pairs incrementally after that based on what was on sale or available on Facebook Marketplace.
You can do strength training, bodybuilding, HIIT and CrossFit types of workouts all from your living room with a good set of dumbbells.
This was our initial set of dumbbells and I also have a set in my office for indoor sessions. Cost is $189.00, but I have seen it as low as $160. If you ever find dumbbells for $1 to $1.25 a pound, that is a good deal (anything under $1/pound is a STEAL!). Now there are certainly high end brands that will cost more, but as much as I love my Rogue fitness equipment, I don’t find it required for home use. We have mostly CAP dumbbells and have had no issues over the years.
Resistance Bands - Less than $30
Next up, resistance bands and a door anchor. Resistance bands are a great replacement for a number of cable machine exercises, such as chest flys, tricep push downs, banded good mornings, etc. You can also use these for mobility work.
Adjustable Bench - Less than $100
An adjustable bench will allow you to tackle many strength movements with full range of motion such as the bench press, chest flys, or incline press and can also be used for things like step-ups or Bulgarian split squats.
There’s a wide variety of quality out on the market and they can range from $60 to close to $1000. Today, we have a higher quality bench, but again we started with a $40 bench at the time and used it for almost 8 years.
Other Items to Get Started
If you find you have a bit more to spend, here are a few other ideas that we suggest prioritizing:
Sandbag - This is a great swap for a barbell in many movements and is versatile. You can pick one up for $40-$80. We love our Rep Fitness bags, but there are plenty of options out there.
Box for step ups / jumping - These come in multiple heights and price can vary by size. We have a few various brands in our personal gym and many of our in person clients start on this box and almost all are ok to use this size.
Pull-Up Bar- You can find many different styles and versions of pull-up bars. Depending on where you are going to hang the bar will depend on where you will want to order one from. When it comes to equipment that we hang from, we prefer Rogue or Rep. Both options are great, but we had this bar in our gym for the longest time and loved it.
Where to Buy Equipment
Again, there are a variety of brands from entry level (ex. CAP, Amazon brands, Yes4All) to mid range (Titan, Vulcan) to high end (ex. Rep Fitness or Rogue). We have a wide variety of many of these brands in our home gym today. When working out at home, your equipment will not get the same wear and tear as a public gym. It is important to remember only you and your family are using the equipment and you will likely take far better care of it than strangers would.
Another great place to shop for equipment is Facebook Marketplace and online bid sites. There will be occasions where gyms are going out of business,or someone is selling their home equipment.
Final Thoughts
Dumbbell Set - $190
Resistance Bands - $30
Adjustable Bench - $60
Total - $280
You don’t need to start fancy and you can get a long way on just dumbbells. You can keep building with time. If we could pick only one piece of equipment to have, dumbbells would be it.
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