Our Top Recs for Home Gym Equipment & More
Through trial and error, we’ve tested and found the best fitness gear for your home workouts. From working out in a small Brooklyn apartment, Runstreet founder and trainer Marnie tried many different fitness products in the years since covid hit, and these are the highest quality and most flexible ones for small spaces and for lasting fitness results. You do not need a lot of home gym equipment to get started — we recommend some fitness mats, dumbbells and resistance bands for a budget-friendly setup. If you can invest a little more, the most important piece of larger home fitness equipment is a weight bench. You can get an adjustable bench that folds for easy storage and freeing up space if you need to use the area for other things as well.
ProSourceFit Home Fitness Equipment
ProSourceFit is the best fitness equipment manufacturer we’ve found for home gym equipment. Whether you need a pair or dumbbells, an adjustable weight bench or puzzle mats that you can take apart and store easily, ProSourceFit has got you covered. In addition to offering high-quality fitness equipment, ProSourceFit has excellent customer service and detailed shipping updates and information. You can check out their site here.
Some top ProSourceFit equipment for getting started in your home gym include:
Puzzle Mats. These come in different color options and thicknesses. I recommend the thicker mats and use the 1”-thick puzzle mats the most for maximum cushioning.
Adjustable weight bench is a key piece of home fitness equipment that will allow you to do the best upper body weight workout exercise — the bench press — as well as can be used for dips, one-legged squat and lunge variations, and hip thrusts (the best glute building exercise).
Dumbbells are handheld weights that are adaptable to all fitness levels. Doing exercises with dumbbells provides reisistance and improves your lean muscle mass, muscle tone and stability and gives you the best workout in a small space. Dumbells can range in size from 2 lbs. to 25 lbs. or more. There are also adjustable dumbbells that allow you to change the weight amount.
Resistance Bands
Fit Simplify Resistance Loop Exercise Bands and Carry Bag, Set of 5 are very afforable, convenient and come in five strengths to adjust your resistance for any fitness level. Resistance bands are a key stability and strength building tool and they are great for all fitness levels to improve stability and compliment weight training with lower body exercises. We’ve used this brand for years and always recommend them to runners and anyone doing a home strength training program. These resistance bands are currently only $12.95 on Amazon, which is a great deal.
You can also get budget-friendly home gym equipment on Amazon or Wal-Mart. Since these sites have third party sellers, it’s important to research the specific brand and check out reviews so you know they provide durable, quality equipment. Not all sellers on Amazon offer high-quality equipment or good service, so check their return policy and reviews.
Advanced Home Fitness Equipment
If you have a larger budget or are an advanced weightlifter, check out ProSourceFit’s Olympic barbell, which is a sturdy and durable barbell that we use. The women’s barbell is 33 lbs. and 79 inches long, and the men’s barbell is 44 lbs. and 86.6 inches long. Be sure to measure your space before getting this barbell as it will take up more space than your dumbbells and weight bench. The barbell is a great investment for those who want to build lean muscle and improve strength more quickly than dumbbells. The great thing about a barbell is you have almost unlimited weight amounts you can add so you have lots of room to grow in your fitness program.
If you get a barbell, you will also need clamps and weight plates. Unless you want to weightlift your exact bar amount (which is a great way to start), you will need weight plates to add more weight to the bar. We recommend starting with 10-lb. bumper plates and as you advance in your training, you can always order heavier bumper plates. You’ll need some sort of clamp to hold your weights in place on the barbell and ProSourceFit’s Olympic barbell clamp collars are very easy to use. Some barbell clamps or collars are pretty rough on the hands or require a strong grip strength to use and the clamp collars do not have these problems — they’re easy to use for all fitness levels.
Protein Supplements
In general, I do not recommend sports or diet supplements as the industry is not regulated to the degree that foods are regulated, and some substances have dangerous and illegal ingredients added. However, sometimes for intense training, it is hard to eat enough protein in daily life, and in those cases, s protein supllement can help compliment a healthy eating program and provide a boost of protein between meals. If you are going to take a protein supplement, carefully read the label, looking at inactive ingreidents as well as active ingredients. Some protein powders have a lot of added sugar and calories, and others have banned substances in them. There are third party entities that check for dangeours substances in protein powders.
Here are some certifications you can look for on a protein powder: the NSF Certified for Sport certification, which means the product has been tested for more than 270 banned substances, and has passed manufacturing facility auditing, and ongoing product monitoring. For standard NSF certification, a dietary supplement is tested by NSF to verify it contains exactly what is listed on the label, does not pose a health or environmental risk, and does not contain common contaminants (such as bacteria or undeclared ingredients). Informed Choice and BSCG also test for banned substances in their certification process.
For whey protein, I use ON Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey powder. This whey powder is certified by Informed Choice, which means it has been tested for banned substances. It also has only 2 grams of added sugar. Whey powder contains dairy so this product is not vegan.
For a vegan protein powder, I use Orgain Organic Plant-Based Protein Powder, which is a USDA-certified organic vegan protein powder with 0 grams of added sugar.
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