The best place to do your strength and hypertrophy training is always the gym. If your gym is well set up, you’re likely to always have the biggest variety of training options, weights, bars, space etc there.
The thing is though, sometimes life gets in the way. Whilst we’d prefer to get in the gym, on occasion time or location might be against us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t train, we might just have to box clever. It’s a case of use what you can, when you can, as well as you can!
In this article I’m going to share with you a few relatively inexpensive home exercise equipment options. They won’t be expensive, they’re lightweight and easy to store.
This means if you’re stuck for time, or you’re going on a trip (business or pleasure), you can have access to a few different workout options. These items aren’t going to be big and cumbersome - they’re the kind of things you can easily store at home, or chuck in the boot of the car if you’re heading somewhere and will want to train.
What kind of equipment would I need?
Let’s make a few basic assumptions…
Let’s assume you don’t have the space or the budget for a complete home gym set up. Let’s assume you live in a normal sized house or apartment, and the equipment you buy has to be easy to hide when not in use. Let’s assume you can’t put heavy barbells on the floor, or that you don’t have 10 feet of overhead space for training.
Let’s assume the budget is reasonable - less than £200 for everything.
Using those parameters, here’s what I’d be buying for my home training options. The equipment here will allow you to transport your ‘gym’ in the car, hide it in a spare room (or cupboard) and still provide you with a good few training options…
Push Up Parallettes
These are fantastic because they’re well made, they’re versatile and allow for lots of progression. You can use them as a pair of push up handles, you can progress them to levers and even use them as mini hurdles for plyometric exercises. These are the reasons I’d select them over standard push up handles.
Suspension Trainer
When it comes to outright home gym versatility, the suspension trainer is the king of the hill. As long as you buy one with a door anchor, there’s almost no movement or body part that you can’t perform with one of these. They’re excellent and really worth the investment.
Pull Up Bar
One of the more difficult movements to perform at home is a vertical pull, so one of these pull up bars is an excellent addition to a home exercise set up. The pull up bar here is able to protract the door frame, it supports a lot of weight, is easy to put up and take down. Finally, it’s also nice and cheap!
Kettlebell
A kettlebell is a great addition to any exercise set up. You could argue a kettlebell is a whole gym in of itself as well. You can swing it, pull it, squat it, press it, clean it, lunge it etc. There’s not a great deal of movement that you can’t perform with a kettlebell. It has edged out a barbell in this list because of storage, and dumbbells because you can get away with a single one, plus you can do everything with a kettlebell that you could do with a dumbbell, plus more.
Ab Roller
One of the best abdominal exercises is an anti-extension roll out. Not only does this force the abdominals to work hard to prevent the body from collapsing, but it also trains the abdominal muscles eccentrically, which is different from most ab exercises.
Mobile home gym options - why those items made the list
If you can’t make the gym, then don’t try to replicate it at home - you won’t be able to. Instead, try to do things differently. You can max out bodyweight work with these items - the suspension trainer is a whole body workout in one.
The kettlebell adds an element of resistance, plus it gives a huge amount of workout versatility. When you’re done, just hide it in a cupboard or behind a stair! It’s easy enough to do.
The pull up bar and parallettes can be combined for an excellent all body workout. One of my go-to lockdown workouts was this…
3 air squats
2 pull ups
1 push up
I repeated this 100 times, meaning I did a 600 rep workout and covered my whole body. It was super tough, super effective and didn’t take up any room at all.
Don’t over-complicate your home exercise options. You’re not going to improve on the gym, so don’t try to. Instead, do things a little differently. Use the instability of the suspension trainer to challenge your abs. Go high rep with your exercises. Mix things into interesting circuits.
It’s a stop gap. Don’t spend crazy money, just get the basics and when you can, get into the gym to get your higher weight workout done!
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