Build Your Complete Home Gym for Under $1,000 | Bonus

Get my free Ultimate Home Gym Guide with exact equipment recommendations, budget breakdowns, and sample layouts: https://www.witsandweights.com/free/ultimate-home-gym-guide

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Imagine waking up, throwing on your favorite workout clothes, and walking just a few steps to your fully-equipped personal training space. 

No commute, no waiting for equipment, no membership fees—just you and the weights, ready when you are. 

This is the reality of owning a home gym, and it might be more accessible than you think.

In this special bonus episode, I'm sharing my complete guide to building a home gym that saves you time, eliminates excuses, and gives you total control over your training environment.

We cover everything from the pros and cons of having a home gym to space requirements, flooring options, and equipment recommendations that work for any budget. 

I'll walk you through exactly what you need to start with (for under $1,000), what to add as you progress, and how to eventually build a complete setup that rivals commercial gyms.

Whether you're dealing with limited space, tight budget, or just wanting to eliminate the hassle of commercial gyms, this episode gives you a blueprint to creating your perfect lifting environment at home.

Episode Resources:

• Free Ultimate Home Gym Guide: https://www.witsandweights.com/free/ultimate-home-gym-guide

Timestamps:

2:40 - Pros and cons of a home gym
10:10 - Space requirements and location
16:15 - Flooring options (including a very inexpensive, quick hack)
18:50 - The "core 4" basic equipment to get started
32:52 - Additional equipment as you become more advanced
41:29 - Premium equipment for the ultimate setup

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing the Home Gym Guide
• 1:39 Pros and Cons of Home Gyms
• 8:58 Space Requirements and Flooring Options
• 17:30 Essential Equipment Basics
• 32:50 Expanding Your Gym Setup
• 39:09 Ultimate Home Gym Add-Ons
• 46:39 Closing Thoughts and Guide Offer

Transcript

Philip Pape: 0:00

Hey there, wits and Weights listeners, philip Pape here with a special bonus episode from the archives. I'm dropping episode eight from the early days. That covers everything you need to know about building your ultimate home gym, and a lot of this still holds up, even though I cringe a little bit at hearing myself back in the early days. It's fascinating for two reasons. One, you get to hear what one of the early episodes sounded like. But number two, and most importantly, it really goes step by step through the principles and recommendations for building a home gym, which is one of the best investments you can make for your fitness journey. It saves you a ton of time, it eliminates excuses, it gives you total control over your training environment and, of course, you can do it totally safely. Now, to complement this episode, I created a brand new Ultimate Home Gym Guide that distills all of this information into a TLDR. It's an easy-to-follow, just a few pages long format with my equipment recommendations and pricing, and it's structured to get you from a very basic, minimalist home gym for less than a thousand dollars up to the add-ons and toys and things you're going to want as you you may want as you build your gym. You can download this free using the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash free, where you'll find lots and lots of other free guides. But again, for this one, just click the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash free. Now let's get into the original episode, where we cover the pros and cons of home gyms the space requirements, the flooring options, the essential equipment to start with, and how to gradually build your setup over time without breaking the bank. Enjoy.

Philip Pape: 1:40

One of our big goals on this podcast is sustainability and consistency, and the whole process of going to the gym is sometimes a huge barrier for many of us to just that weather. Convenience within our schedules, compounded by access to random equipment at the gym, sharing a rack or barbell with other members waiting your turn, sometimes dealing with policies like no deadlifting these are just some of the many reasons we find to just hit the snooze button and avoid our workouts altogether. That's why building your own home gym can be a huge factor in developing good habits and consistency with your workout routine. It saves a ton of time, you can choose exactly the equipment you need, you can control the entire experience and environment, and you could be more flexible with your training schedule. It's a simple but highly effective step you can take to eliminate excuses and keep making progress. In today's episode we cover the pros and cons of a home gym where in your home and how much space you need for your home gym, what type of flooring to use the basic equipment to get you started and make tons of gains on the main lifts, then some extra equipment you might need for accessory or bodybuilding movements and finally, nice to have equipment to cover almost everything else and build the ultimate home gym.

Philip Pape: 3:19

First, let's start by talking about the pros and cons of a home gym. The biggest pro, the biggest benefit of a home gym is just that you don't have to drive anywhere. It saves you a ton of time. It could be anywhere from 30 minutes, but more likely to one or two hours because of the entire process of getting ready and traveling and getting your session going at the gym and doing that times two because of the round trip and because you don't have that extra fixed time of traveling to the gym. You could split up your sessions, for example, or you can have smaller or larger sessions much more flexibly. So there's flexibility with your time. You can squeeze in an hour at lunch, if you're working from home, for example, or you can sleep in an extra 30 minutes and just get a little bit more recovery before you work out. Of course, you don't need to pack a big gym bag or a change of clothes and you might forget something. You have it all right there, convenient to you. All of your equipment is there. Everything's waiting for you, ready to go, with the settings you'd like, with consistently marked barbells, consistent weights between plates and dumbbells and so on. And if you are taking care of your family, if you have children to care for or you need to be there for them or you're a single parent, it's just that much more convenient because you're in the same space. You're only a few steps away. So that's the big one related to time and convenience.

Philip Pape: 4:52

The second thing is you could research and buy the exact equipment you need over time for your specific goals. The equipment will be consistent from one workout to the next. You know I mentioned the plates and I mentioned the dumbbells, but you might also consider the barbell, the knurling on the barbell, the height of your rack, the height of the hooks on the rack, the height of your bench, the angle of your bench and so on. You could also make sure that it's safe. You know you have the right pins in the rack, the spotter arms. You know how things are balanced, how things are level. You have complete control over the equipment to become familiar with it and make sure that it's safe, which is a huge component of lifting over the long term and lifting sustainably. And, of course, you can keep expanding your gym over time and add equipment as you need it when you need it for your particular goals.

Philip Pape: 5:47

This is your environment. Now that is a huge one for some people. You can wear whatever you want. You can throw on whatever clothes you want. Don't have to worry about the judgment of others or how you look. You can listen to your music as loud as you want, whatever type of music you want. You could change the temperature. You could change the temperature. You could change the lighting. For example, I actually have a smart bulb right over my rack so that when I do bench presses, I could dim or turn off the light so it's not shining in my face. You have privacy to practice your form without others commenting or trying to give you advice or bothering you, and for some people, this is much more of a problem than others in some of these big box gyms. Having a home gym helps you establish consistency and accountability, because it's always visible, it's easy to access, it helps you stick to your routine, totally eliminating that excuse of going to the gym and, of course, you won't get the flu or COVID from those other disgusting gym patrons. I'm kidding, or am I All right?

Philip Pape: 6:52

Now let's talk about some of the disadvantages that might come up that we have to consider. The first one is it takes space. You have to have enough space for all your equipment, but it's not as much space as you think, and we can get creative with this. If you're able to find space for some of equipment, but it's not as much space as you think, and we can get creative with this. If you're able to find space for some of the other things in your house you should probably be able to find space for if this is something serious for your lifestyle. In addition to two-dimensional space, there's the three-dimensional space, the height that is required for not only pull and chin-ups but pressing, and we'll talk about the height requirements in a bit.

Philip Pape: 7:30

Cost, okay, some people think this is a disadvantage because now you have to buy all of this expensive equipment, or seemingly expensive, and there are strategies where you can shop used. You could simply acquire what you need over time, so it's manageable within your budget. But I would actually say that the cost could also be an advantage, because the equipment you invest in can easily last decades, if not your entire life if well maintained. And comparing that to a monthly membership at a gym, over time there is a payback of probably five to ten years and once you get over that initial hump of equipment, after that it's really more of an elective process of if you need this or that over time and small investments here or there. Now the next advantage is really a more practical one, and that is that you're going to have limited equipment, at least initially. You're not going to have the 50 machines that a big box gym might have, so what you might do is keep paying your gym membership, which are usually pretty inexpensive $20, $30 a month. It's really not that much for a typical gym membership. Really not that much for a typical gym membership, just so that you can go in maybe once or twice a week or every now and then for special equipment like a calf raise machine or cable crossover or some other specialized device that you don't have space or budget for in your home gym, or it just wouldn't be worth investing in, given the cost versus how often you're going to use it. And I guess the last disadvantage is that for some people a home gym is maybe too flexible, it's not structured enough and you may want the accountability of having to go to another place to work out. But even in that case, consider a hybrid option where you have a very basic gym at home for the big compound lifts you know, the rack, the barbell, et cetera. We'll talk about and continue to use the membership which gives you the option to go either direction on any given day for your workout. Those are what I would say are the big pros and cons of a home gym, and maybe I'm biased, but I think there's a heavy lean toward the advantages of a home gym and some of the disadvantages can be mitigated in most cases. All right, now let's talk about the location in your home and the space requirements for a home gym, just so you can think ahead about this and really plan it out, so you don't just start throwing equipment in some random spot in your house and then regret it a few months later, especially how heavy some of this equipment is.

Philip Pape: 10:10

The first consideration is a solid floor that can support enough weight. This may seem obvious, but some of you might live in an apartment, a condominium, or be considering the second or third floor of your house, and you just have to make sure that the load that it can support is sufficient. This usually then leads to using a garage or basement, which tend to have concrete floors, or some sort of extra room on the first floor or corner of a big room. Now I actually have my gym in what's called a bonus room. It's a room over the garage, but it's climate controlled and I'm fortunate enough to have the space there. I also know how the house was built because I built it myself and per today's code, you have to have these massive laminated beams. It supports thousands of pounds of weight. I did the calculations. There's no way I'm going to exceed that. In whatever configuration I use up there A garage, in most places you're going to have to deal with the climate, meaning cold space in the winter, a hot, humid space in the summer.

Philip Pape: 11:20

The humidity could be a challenge for your barbell and your plates, but plenty of people have garage gyms. It works and if that's the best space for your gym, go for it. Basements tend to be a little more temperature controlled, a little more stable throughout the year, a little bit on the cool end, but stable, so those will work. The problem with the basement tends to be height. Most older houses, or even modern houses, sometimes have a low ceiling, as low as, say, seven feet, and we're going to talk soon about the need for eight feet to do everything you need to do. If you can't, then you'll be limited in what you can do, or you can split up in your house where you perform certain movements like pull-ups and presses might have to be performed in a different spot than everything else.

Philip Pape: 12:06

I would say maybe the best option is if you have an extra room on the first floor climate controlled supports the weight that's a great option, something like a spare bedroom or office, or if there's a corner or section of a larger room. Most people don't want a bunch of gym equipment staring at them in their living room when they're hanging out, you know, at the kitchen or watching TV. So again, you have to consider all these lifestyle and comfort factors. Now, what about the space needed? All right, I was remeasuring my gym, I was looking at it again, I was checking out some equipment online and I think that a reasonable space to cover most of your needs for the vast majority of your early lifting career is 12 feet by 12 feet, and this will allow you to lay down some solid flooring, have a power rack clearance for your barbell.

Philip Pape: 13:03

Consider that a barbell is a little over seven feet long, so when it's sitting in the rack you need at least the seven feet. But you also need room to maneuver to the sides of the bar to load plates and you don't want to be crammed up against the wall either and you don't want to be slamming your bar into the drywall. So you want that extra space. So 12 feet gives you the room, and then 12 feet the other direction. The depth gives you room for your bench or incline bench to stick out, as well as room in front of the rack for pressing, for deadlifting and for other movements. You're going to want to do dumbbell movements, say, with an incline bench, and you don't necessarily want that crammed inside your power rack movements. You're going to want to do dumbbell movements, say, with an incline bench, and you don't necessarily want that crammed inside your power rack. So the space of 12 feet by 12 feet should be fine. My own gym it's about 13 feet wide, which is plenty of space. I actually have extra equipment on either side and then it's 12 feet deep and I actually even have a vertical leg press machine in the corner of that, 12 feet in front of the rack, and it still gives me enough room to work.

Philip Pape: 14:10

And then, as far as height, you need 8 feet and that's because typically a pull-up bar, you'll want it to be about 7 feet high. If you buy a economy I'll call it or a value power rack, the pull-up bar tends to be raised a bit and it's at about seven feet, which is tall enough to hang from it and do your pulls. But then you also need a one foot clearance above that for your head and your shoulders when you do those pulls, but also for overhead presses or shoulder presses. Consider that a six foot tall male would push the bar up to about seven feet. But then the plates the radius of a plate is eight inches. So you definitely want that extra foot above the seven feet. And of course if you're extra tall you may need slightly more than that. So that then tends to limit you to a garage, or a typical house has eight foot tall ceilings or in many cases, first floors today have nine feet tall ceilings, and this goes back to my comment about basements being a little bit low. If it's not eight feet, you're going to have to consider what to do in that situation.

Philip Pape: 15:17

For pull-ups and chin-ups. You could always put a rig anywhere, basically a pull-up rig or a doorframe bar one that sticks out enough so you're not hitting yourself on the door frame. But you still need that extra height for the overhead presses. Otherwise you'll be limiting to doing Z presses and seated presses, things like that, but we really want to do the full standing overhead press. The only other space that you'll want to consider is for the extra equipment you might have, like a dumbbell rack or extra benches or a stand, a freestanding plant stand for your plates, and this is where, again, like let's talk about the plates for a second I have plate holders that attach into the holes on my power rack that save space, or there are wall mounted racks and shelves for different things, so you can get creative. Of course, you can have other gear. You can have your dip belt and your shoes and collars and all these things, and for that you can go with a storage bin or shelving or something like that.

Philip Pape: 16:17

Now let's talk about flooring. Right, we're working our way up from the floor on up. We've got our space and now we have to have flooring. Well, if you're in a garage or a basement, you've got concrete flooring. I don't think you want to be doing certain movements and dropping your bar and dropping your dumbbells on right onto the concrete, and similarly, if you're in a carpeted area or hardwood flooring, you don't want to damage the flooring. So we want something that's hard but somewhat shock absorbing and a very common solution, and one that I use myself and I'm sure there are superior solutions depending on time, money, resources, creativity.

Philip Pape: 16:55

What I use is plywood covered by horse stall mats, and you see this as a very common solution. Google it online, you'll see, see floor plans, you'll see how to do this. But you can easily take, say, half inch or three quarter inch plywood, go ahead and get the the finished grade plywood that's really smooth, that you can just lay right on your carpet or right on the concrete, and then horse stall mats. You can go anywhere from specialized gym rubber flooring, which tends to be a bit pricey, all the way down to the horse stall mats, a tractor supply, which is what I got, and they do give off a little bit of a smell. Initially they go through what's called off gassing, but if you let them sit in your garage for, say, a week, bring them in, they're fine and they're great. They're thick, they're great, they're thick, they're shock absorbing and they make a perfect cover on top of the plywood to give you gym flooring.

Philip Pape: 17:51

Now some people like to have a deadlift platform in addition to that. You can make your own or you can purchase one. They tend to be a little more expensive and I'm not really including this in the initial equipment because you don't have to have it. When I do deadlifts, I don't throw the bar on the ground like I learned to do in CrossFit with bumper plates. I use iron plates, so I'm lowering the bar to the ground. If the flooring supports the weight and you've got some shock absorption, you should be fine. But if you're worried about it, there's something called a deadlift platform, meant to absorb the shock from deadlifts and protect your floor further. You can also get drop pads drop pads that go on either side of you so you could drop the bar onto the pads and they absorb the shock. The problem there is you need to then be on a platform yourself so that the bar isn't elevated. Anyway, that's flooring. And again, I would just start with the basic plywood and rubber mats, and that should be fine for quite a long time.

Philip Pape: 18:50

Now let's talk about the basic equipment. If you can acquire the things we'll talk about in this section of the episode, then that will be enough to get you going pretty far before you become intermediate or advanced. And if it works for you, you'll quickly decide that you want to start gathering some of the other equipment because you'll see how convenient, how much fun it is. But I'll let you get there on your own. Let's just talk about the equipment itself.

Philip Pape: 19:17

The first thing, the most important piece of equipment and one of the best investments you can make, is, of course, the barbell. And we are looking for a barbell that will last you a lifetime, that will support all the weight you could ever lift, that is of high quality, that has the right markings, the right knurling, that can be maintained, that has the proper coating. There's all these things. So we're looking for the standard Olympic or seven-foot power bar or similar that has the proper coating, there's all these things. So we're looking for the standard Olympic or seven foot power bar or similar that has several features and I'm going to tell you what I like in a bar and it's not what I had in my first bar.

Philip Pape: 19:54

So when I bought my first bar, it was from a guy off of, I think, facebook market and I met him in a parking lot but he was a college student who could deadlift 600 pounds. That's what he'd use the bar for was all of his training. I think he was a football or hockey player and he was going to be an engineer. He was upgrading his gym and he didn't need the bar anymore and I think I paid something like 75 bucks for it. But that bar lasted me a long time and I did tons of work with it, but it lacked some of the features that I got with my current bar.

Philip Pape: 20:27

My current bar is a Rogue Ohio power bar and you'll probably hear that all over the place the more you get into this, because it's one of the most popular, effective bars out there. It's a high quality piece of equipment. Now I bought it as part of their Boneyard sale, so this is one of my pieces of advice is just look for sales, buy used when you can, as you build your gym, save some money, get the same quality. The Boneyard bars from Rogue are just bars that have some sort of imperfection. That is non-functional, and I don't even know what the problem is with my bar. To be honest, it's a beautiful bar.

Philip Pape: 21:04

Now here are some of the features that it has that I would look for in any bar that will last you a lifetime. First of all is the knurling. Does it have fairly aggressive knurling? Knurling is the cross hatching that's etched into the bar, and I would look for center knurling. Okay, so right in the middle there's knurling, which is great for squats because the bar will stick to your back, and then I would look for a smooth section on either side of that and that's where your shins will be when you deadlift. And then more knurling beyond that, up to the sleeves. On that outer knurling, there should be at least one ring grooved into either side at 32 inches apart, and this is the standard width for power lifting, for the bench, and it serves as a reference point for bench pressing, pressing, squatting, so that you can standardize your lifts. This is one of the benefits of being at home and using the same bar over and over. You know where your grip's going to be and you know how the bar is going to feel.

Philip Pape: 22:10

The next thing is look on the end of the bar and you should see no hex nut in the center of the end. You should just see it. It should look flat or slightly recessed, but no nut at the end of the bar. That indicates that it's a good quality bar, that it's nut at the end of the bar. That indicates that it's a good quality bar, that it's smooth at the end. The sleeves themselves should spin very easily.

Philip Pape: 22:31

And then the material. I have a raw steel bar Now, a raw steel bar. It's going to last me forever. It's strong, it looks great, it's just metal and all I have to do is wipe it and oil it with three-in-one oil and a bristle brush occasionally. Now I don't have a humid environment. It's climate controlled, so I have a lot of leeway in how often I do that. If you are in a humid environment and you go with raw steel, you just have to keep it maintained to avoid rust and oxidation. But there are many other coatings and a lot of it's based on preference and feel you know there's zinc coatings, there's black coatings, different colors, different materials. So just do the research and pick something that you think will work for you.

Philip Pape: 23:15

Now, cost-wise, a barbell a good barbell should run you anywhere from, I mean, on the low, low, low end, maybe $200, and then up to mid $400, $500. So the Rogue Ohio Power Bar last I checked was in the low $400s and the version I got on sale I think it was like $250 or $275. So it was a great deal. But budget about $300 or $400 for your barbell, unless you get it used, and then you might get a great deal. And then to go with the barbell, we need a power rack, also called a power cage. In some cases some folks go ahead and get a squat stand, for example, which doesn't have the full four or six uprights. It's not a box, it just a stand. I would recommend going straight for the power rack because it's very versatile. It's going to provide you a lot more capabilities for accessories, for expandability in the future. It's strong, it's safe. It's just the way to go, especially given the price difference today. It's not very much. I would go straight for a power rack.

Philip Pape: 24:23

A power rack is simply a box of steel angle iron posts. It's typically a budget or value power rack like the one I have. It's four upright posts with a base connected at the top with a couple pull-up bars, with neutral handle bars connecting the two pull-up bars. Mine has 2x2, but you can find 3x2 or 3x3 steel with holes at different distances and the holes are where you will fasten the hooks to put your barbell in. You can put in your pins, your safety pins, your spotter arms and then all sorts of other attachments like plate holders.

Philip Pape: 25:10

A power rack is typically about four feet by four feet in terms of footprint, unless you go with bigger, more expensive, maybe one that has six uprights, something like the Sorenax or you know, in the really pricey range. Then you start to take up more and more space. But consider about 4x4, and this is where you've got your power rack. You've got your bar. The 12 feet total width makes a lot of sense, and the 12 feet depth because it gives you all that extra space around it to get all your work done. I would say today you could get a decent power rack for anywhere on the low end, as low as potentially $300. If you go to Amazon or something like that. You can find decent power racks. You look at the reviews, you look at how it's tested. They hold up really well. But then the price of a power rack can go up to $400, $500, $600 for a pretty good one, up to $1,000 and up. I mean, you know, sky's the limit, depending on what your budget is and what you're looking for With the power rack.

Philip Pape: 26:08

It should at a minimum have safety pins or spotter arms. You have to have that for safety during bench, press and squats. So when you bench you're going to set the pins between your chest and neck height so that if you fail a bench, you're just going to gently lay it onto the pins. It's not going to crush you. That is the least safe movement when it comes to working by yourself. So you have to have those pins. Squats similarly. You would set the squats low enough so that if you failed it, you could just drop the bar onto the pins gently. I would also recommend, if the power rack doesn't come with J-hooks, if it comes with these small hooks that don't have much of a vertical back to them that goes up maybe 6, 8, 10 inches along the upright, to get a separate set of J-hooks, and J-hooks are nice because then when you slam the bar back onto the uprights, when you push it into the rack, when you're racking it, they hit the back of the J-hook and not the upright itself, so you're not going to wear or damage the uprights. You're going to push it on the hooks. So we've got our barbell and we've got our rack.

Philip Pape: 27:25

The other things we need are bench and plates. So let's talk about the bench. At a minimum, you want a flat bench and there are many options there as well, but make sure the bench can support plenty of weight. And then look at the base of the bench, look at the feet, make sure they're high quality. There are some benches that are more like powerlifting style, like a tripod. They might have a single leg in front to give you plenty of clearance for your feet, but almost any bench will work. Plenty of clearance for your feet, but almost any bench will work. And if you want to invest now in something that will give you more flexibility down the road, get an adjustable bench that can go into an incline, also called an FID, which is flat incline decline bench, so that it allows you to incline presses and other movements like decline sit-ups. And then, on top of that, if you can find an FID bench that allows for attachments, like the one I have now. I actually just acquired an FID bench that has a leg developer attachment for curls and extensions. It also has a preacher curl attachment.

Philip Pape: 28:35

The more you want in something like this, the more it's going to cost. So, from a starter perspective, a flat bench that's $100, $150 should be fine, but you can go all the way up to $400, $500, $600 for these more advanced benches. And finally, you need plates, of course, to go with your barbell, and at a minimum I would say you need at least three or four pairs of 45s, depending on how strong you are. If you're pretty weak, if you're just getting started, then three pairs should be enough, because three pairs will get you to 315 pounds on the bar and you can always go a little bit higher than that with the smaller weights added to it. But get four pairs if you're a little bit stronger than that to it, but get four pairs if you're a little bit stronger than that. So, three or four pairs of 45s, at least one pair of 25s, at least two pairs of 10s, a pair of fives and a pair of two and a halves. Also, I would suggest microplates Microplates you could usually buy a package of microplates that give you a quarter, a half, three quarter and one pound plates.

Philip Pape: 29:39

This is for more incremental loading on something like the overhead press. And then when you buy your plates, make sure to weigh them, take out your scale right when the plates come in or right when you buy them. Weigh the plates and make sure they're very close to what's marked. You don't want a 45 pound plate. That's 41 pounds. This has happened to me a couple times and I had to reach out to manufacturing, say hey guys, what are you giving me here? I need to send these back. Send me something that's close to what it's rated now.

Philip Pape: 30:08

Iron plates cast iron plates are the cheapest. They'll last you forever. That's what I use. That's what most serious lifters use who don't want to then invest in olympic or bumper plates, which tend to be more expensive. But they're nice because they save your floor. They're great to put onto the bar with deadlifts. You could do a hybrid approach. You can get a pair, one pair of bumper plate 45, throw those on the bar and then use iron plates for the rest of the weight when you do a deadlift, and that'll soften the landing when the bar is lowered. When it's lowered, not dropped. When it's lowered, because we're not going to be dropping our bars in our house, we're going to be lowering them. The price of plates can vary widely, especially in today's supply chain and crazy market. There's places like Rogue and Titan Fitness and even Amazon that sells, I think, the Cap brand, and as long as it's a piece of iron with a two-inch hole that weighs what you need to, it's probably going to work.

Philip Pape: 31:12

Now, the only other consideration with plates are where you're going to store them. So if you have a power rack, then you might be able to put on plate holder attachments. They look like the two inch rods that stick out onto a base that attaches to a hole on the rack, or six of those to hold all your weights. That's how I do it. Or you can get a freestanding plate holder that goes on the ground. And then don't forget to get bar collars. They might get thrown in with the rack or some of the other equipment, the spring-loaded collars, and there's different variations of collars. Basically, these go on to the end of the bar to hold the plates on.

Philip Pape: 31:51

For certain movements. I wouldn't use bar collars for bench presses, for example, because you might want to shift the plates off from a safety perspective, but any movement where the plates can slide off, you would use the collars. And that's it for basic equipment that will let you perform the deadlift, the squat, the bench press, the overhead press, pull-ups and chin-ups. That'll take you very far and if you have just that, you can do a lot of your programming, even as you get into intermediate and advanced stages, and you can combine that with a commercial gym for some of the other work and that's a pretty good, a reasonable approach. But if you want, like me, to continue to build your home gym and do more and more from home to the point where you probably don't even need to go to the gym, let's talk about some of the extra equipment that will cover, I'll say, 10 to 15% of the remaining 20%, and the first is going to be dumbbells.

Philip Pape: 32:52

You could either acquire individual pairs they're not too expensive. They've definitely gone up in price over the last couple years this is 2022, and we saw them go up during the pandemic and some of them are still fairly expensive or go ahead and invest in a pair of adjustable dumbbells. I have a pair that's similar to the Bowflex, I think Selectex. They're similar to that, but it's an off-brand. There's also the Powerblocks. There's other brands coming out all the time.

Philip Pape: 33:21

I would look for dumbbells that can go up to at least 90 pounds. Don't get the ones that are limited to 52 and a half, because those will just. You'll hit a wall pretty quickly when you get to things like pressing or shrugs or something like that. So get as heavy as you can that you can afford, and these tend to be fairly expensive. Let's say anywhere from $400 to $800 for the pair, or even more. But comparing that to a bunch of different pairs of iron dumbbells, it may be the better investment. And then you of course need a stand or a rack to hold the dumbbells or even the adjustable dumbbells. But dumbbells open up a ton of movements where your arms can move independently, whether it's bench presses, overhead presses, rows, shrugs, all sorts of bodybuilding movements like side laterals, front raises and so on. And these are the kinds of things you will start to incorporate as you become more advanced as variations of the main lifts or accessories for weak spots and for bodybuilding.

Philip Pape: 34:25

If you're really on a budget, you could just get dumbbell handles that you can load plates onto either the one-inch plates, but then you would need to buy the special one-inch plates. Plates onto either the one-inch plates, but then you would need to buy the special one-inch plates or the Olympic size where you can throw your two-inch plates right onto the handles. The downside of that is the inconvenience and the hassle of constantly taking off and loading the weight, especially if you want to do something like drop sets or you want to change the load or go from one movement to the next. It is kind of a hassle. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that. If you can go ahead right for full dumbbells or the adjustable dumbbells that have the dial on it. While you're getting acquiring dumbbells, you might want to buy one or two medium or heavy kettlebells, if that's part of your programming or what I have is actually a kettlebell handle. It's a plastic handle with a rubber insert where it wraps around the dumbbell handle and turns the dumbbell into a kettlebell.

Philip Pape: 35:25

The second piece of equipment would be a dip attachment for your power rack. You can obviously buy a separate dip machine, but you don't really need that if you could just get either the matador attachment or, like what I have are two separate handles that go into the holes on the power rack and now you can do dips, and if you have a dip belt, you can also do weighted dips, and dips are a fantastic movement as an accessory to your pressing into your triceps All right. As an accessory to your pressing and to your triceps All right. Then the next big piece of equipment would be a lat pull-down cable attachment. Now you could buy a freestanding, all-in-one functional fitness machine is what I think they call them which tend to be quite expensive. We're looking at maybe at least $1,000 just for that.

Philip Pape: 36:14

But if you planned ahead and you purchased a power rack that can support a lat pull down, that lat pull down itself may only be a couple hundred dollars as an attachment to the power rack. And that's what I have and what's great about it. It is plate loaded, so it's not a stack. If you'd rather have a stack, you're probably going to pay a little more for that. It's plate loaded, but it has a cable at the top and it has a cable at the bottom and it attaches to the power rack, so the rack itself provides stability. Now this is where, if you have extra space and extra money.

Philip Pape: 36:44

If I went back to square one and budget was no limit, I might actually consider a functional fitness machine or a crossover a cable crossover machine where you have two separate cables, which really opens up a ton of more movements, things like flies and lots of other things. But you don't need that. A straight pull-down cable attachment will still let you do lat pull-downs with wide or narrow grips, seated rows, tricep press-downs, rope curls, one-arm cable variations like flies, lateral raises a ton of versatility. A lot of these are, as you can tell, bodybuilding movements, but still we're talking about the next level of your home gym. All right, let's go through some more equipment, and this isn't an exhaustive list or a list where you have to get everything. This is to give you ideas of how you can add versatility, to give you ideas of how you can add versatility and movements to your home gym and start to whittle away the reasons that you need to go to another gym outside your house.

Philip Pape: 37:44

So the next thing is a landmine attachment, and these actually are fairly inexpensive. They would attach to the base of your rack and it looks like a cylinder on a pivot, and the cylinder, which tends to be about maybe six or eight inches long is where the end of the barbell is inserted, and then there tends to be a tightening screw and now you have a free floating barbell attached on the floor that can pivot and it opens up movements like T-bar rows and landmine presses, and you can get attachments that go in the end for those types of movements. So, for example, I like to do t-bar rows occasionally, really hit the lats the upper back and load a lot of weight for not much extra investment. All right, to enhance all of this are some smaller items that I would consider. One of those is an easy curl bar. An easy curl bar is pretty inexpensive. You can get one on Amazon for probably as little as $100 or less and they're great for curl variations, line tricep extensions, french overhead presses, and it's just one of those extra types of bars that you can get for very little additional investment.

Philip Pape: 38:59

Okay, the next item is a box, a strong box, probably 12 inches high. Sometimes it's called a plyo box, or maybe one of those wood boxes that you see for box jumps and crossfit, or a steel box, or you can make your own, and these would be for box squats. So it has to be low enough that you get to below parallel or right around or below parallel, but they could also be used as a platform. You know you can stand on them before you do your dips or you could put your feet on them for deficit push-ups very versatile. The next item is a bar holder. Now that you have an easy bar and a barbell and when we get to the next section, we talk about other types of bars you may need a place to hold all these. Or, if you have dumbbell handles that are the two inch dumbbell handles, you might need a bar holder that can hold something like five barbells.

Philip Pape: 39:53

The next item is a deadlift jack. Now, I only got one of these. Recently I saw Jujimufu talk about how this is the first piece of equipment you should get, which I thought was a little bit of hyperbole, and I realized how useful it can be. It's basically what it sounds like it's a small jack and they come in different styles, different designs that you can insert under a bar, prop the bar up and then load your plates. It holds the bar up just high enough so you can load your plates and avoid the awkwardness of trying to jimmy on all of your 45s before you do your deadlifts.

Philip Pape: 40:30

The next item is an ab wheel. Yeah, as seen on TV from the 1990s infomercials. Yeah, as seen on TV from the 1990s infomercials. But the ab wheel is still around because ab wheel rollouts are a fantastic ab exercise, also called a roller ab roller. There's the traditional wheel with the two handles and there's something like the Sorenex roller, which looks more like a rectangular frame that's flat on the ground with four wheels, great for ab workouts.

Philip Pape: 40:59

And then the last piece of equipment might be a calf block. You could make your own. Just look it up how to make a calf block. Make it out of wood, or you can buy one made out of metal. It's a simple horizontal bar, or some of them are triangular to put your feet, you know, on a wedge at an angle. And these are for you guessed it calf raises, seated, seated or standing calf raises. It just gives you a nice stable platform so you can get the full stretch and the full range of motion with your calves.

Philip Pape: 41:29

And finally we get to the ultimate gym equipment. You've covered all the other bases. Here are a few other things you might want to add to your gym and again, this is like kind of like a menu. These last two sections here, the one I just covered in this one, in that you can pick the pieces from each that makes sense for your programming and your goals. I have some pieces from all of these lists, but I don't necessarily have them all.

Philip Pape: 41:56

So for ultimate equipment, the first one is cardio machines. Now I talk a lot about how cardio isn't all that important when it comes to lifting for strength, but it's still important. And cardio machines can come in handy for warmups. You know, if it's a cold day and you want to just jump on your assault bike, your fan bike, they're good for a quick hit session, high intensity interval training, or if you're just trying to get in extra steps, or low intensity cardio on the bike, on a rower, on a treadmill whatever works for you. They tend to be a little more expensive. Treadmill whatever works for you, they tend to be a little more expensive. I personally have a fan bike. I think I got it from Titan Fitness. I'd love to have the Rogue Echo bike. It's super smooth but it's very expensive. So, again, you have to balance budget with quality, with your needs. So cardio machines are going to take up space, but they could be a great addition to your gym.

Philip Pape: 42:57

The next item would be something like a glute ham developer, a GHD machine where you could do back extensions and glute ham raises. Now I have a very simple version of that where I could do back extensions but I can't do GHDs, so I tend to do those at a commercial gym. But if you can get the all-in-one, which tends to be more expensive and it takes up more space, then go for it. Great hamstring workout, great lower back, great posterior chain light work. So related to this would be a reverse hyper. Reverse hyper extension machine. We're getting into very specialized equipment here, but the footprint isn't very big. They're plate loaded and if you've got back issues or this is a important part of your workouts if you follow the west side or conjugate programming, you do a lot of posterior chain work the reverse hyper could be useful.

Philip Pape: 43:52

The next item would be one or more pieces of equipment for leg work, and I'm thinking the leg press, the hack squat. I have a vertical leg press. It really doesn't take up much space, it's maybe two by two and it's plate loaded. But there are more expensive machines and some of them are multifunctional with the track you know, for the hack squat or the leg press, the track and the plate loading. They take up more space. They cost more. If you have the room and that's part of your programming, again, it's something to consider.

Philip Pape: 44:25

An even more specialized piece of equipment would be a calf raise, machine standing or seated calf raises. That's basically all they're good for. I don't have one of those. I like to hack up my calf movements. I'll either do a calf raise on my leg press or I'll rig up some sort of donkey raise with a barbell, or I will do seated calf raises with a barbell.

Philip Pape: 44:51

And then, finally, there are lots of different specialty bars. There's a specialty bar which is the kind that has multiple hand positions and angles. There are safety squat bars. There's the transformer bar by Kabuki Strength, I think, which can go into multiple positions for things like front squats. There's cambered bars, for example. If you want to get really deep into a bench press, a cambered bar can be a great tool, and there are lots of other variations of bars out there if you want to look for them.

Philip Pape: 45:28

As you can see, although you can eventually build your ultimate dream home gym with time and money, all you need to start are a rack, bar, bench and plates. At the very least, you should be able to do one or two full workouts from home each week as you design and build your home gym over time. I personally find that the option to roll out of bed, throw on my gym clothes, get in a good session from the comfort of my home is a big motivator when compared to the hassle of going to a gym. But I still have a membership so that I can work on specific movements like reverse hypers, since I don't have that at home, look for deals, buy used if needed. Check out Craigslist or Facebook. Get started on creating that fun space for you to make gains at home. All right, that wraps up our bonus episode on building your ultimate home gym.

Philip Pape: 46:20

I hope you found this dive into the archives helpful to plan or upgrade your own lifting space and remember.

Philip Pape: 46:27

If you just want a simple, digestible guide that spells all this out, gives you some links, recommendations, go download my ultimate home gym guide at witsandweightscom slash free or just tap the link in the show notes. It includes a three-step framework to build your gym in an escalating way, updated equipment recommendations, budget breakdowns, some layouts to help you create the perfect training environment so you don't waste your money and you get right to it, as always. If you're enjoying this podcast, please hit follow and leave me a rating or review. We haven't gotten a lot of those lately. I haven't really been asking for them, but it really helps people find the show and understand if it's right for them. Please go to Apple or Spotify and give us a five-star rating and, if you have an extra two minutes a review, I would be very, very grateful. If you love the show, that's the best way, one of the best ways you can support me. But until next time, keep using those wits, lifting those weights, and I'll talk to you Monday on the Wits and Weights podcast.