What home gym equipment do you need?
Righty ho tribe this blog is all about what kit you do or do not need in your home in order to keep or get yourself fit. There is endless amounts of stuff you can buy online some of which is great and some is absolutely pish (pardon the expression).
Firstly i am going to explain what you really do not need: Going to save you a fortune here,,,,,,,
Any electronic cardio machines including treadmills, steppers or bikes(the hamster wheels). I run a gym and see people all day plodding away on these beasts and generally there is little to no physical change. Only if these machines are used infrequently and as part of a structured mixed training plan they will have any benefit. The first few weeks you may possibly lose weight and once your body has adapted to the load and learned the exercise LESS and LESS results.
Abdominal rollers, machines or anything with abdominal or core in the title. I have covered this before but we do not get a six pack from any of these items or even by doing endless sit ups and crunches. Now saying that, once your body fat is low enough to start seeing your core muscles then by all means smash them but you don't need an ab roller to smash the core.
Vibro plates or vibrating beds. They may or may not work even when you are exercising on them, however just standing on a vibro plate waiting for the weight to come off is not the right course of action. You only have a finite amount of years and it will take longer than that to have any real effect.
Multi Gym or Smith Machine. They are great or can be great when they are used properly by someone who knows what they are doing. Just having the equipment and going on it every day does not guarantee results, you need to lifting the right amount of weight safely with the right amount of sets etc. If you have learned the basics about resistence training and hypertrophy then you should be fine, but not for novice trying to lose weight.
Weights Benches and Free weights.For the same reasons as before this is best left for the budding weight lifter and expert, because the weights are free (your whole body weight and structure needs to support them) they are inherently more dangerous. If you are unfit, not firm with poor posture the chances are you could do some real damage to your back and end up putting some more weight on.
Not an exaustive list but will do for now.
What does that leave, what would i recommend ?
A suspension trainer,a heavy medicine ball and resistence band
Suspension trainers (Body Intensive Trainer)
These things are marvellous, they are an adjustable fabric strap that you can hang most places and do lots quality exercises with working the big and small stabilising muscles. They are a gym in a bag and are even small enough to take on your holidays. When you buy these, they come with desrciptions and demonstrations of exercises, they are brilliant and my fittest PT clients have these for use at home and on holidays. £138 for the one i use ( BIT trainer)
Cheap and cheerful but magnificent in its range of exercises, from explosive power of throwing it at a wall to full muscular strength of doing a med ball clean. Roughly £15 for a cheap one.
Resistance band
just a rubber band with handles either end, again very cheap and brilliantly versatile from use in rehab of injuries, to muscular activation of certain muscle groups to making certain core exercises much harder. Well worth the few quid even if you just use it as a method of warming up the joints and muscles. Roughly £10.
So that is not a lot of kit and with that equipment with a bit of help you could get yourself in fabulous shape at home... right who wants a BIT Trainer i can get you one
If you cannot afford any kit then make sure you get yourself to the Gym and the staff will help you get fit.
If you would like a bit for £138 either order on my site or drop me a line on Facebook or email i.trainhard@yahoo.co.uk. I will train you on the BIT and provide you with a home training plan.
Glenn (body weight functional training) Hill