Kit List Post
How to know what equipment do you need to workout at home? Most people think that you need to spend a lot of money to get equipment to workout. They see at a typical corporate gym that hey have all these selectorized machines, cable machines, squat racks, benches, barbells, and cardio equipment. But the truth be told, you can have a complete gym with 3 pieces of equipment.
Stability Ball
Anything you can do on a bench you can do on a stability ball. Not only does the stability ball benefit you more by strengthening your core and hips as you workout, but it can mimic 3 different types of benches. These are incline benches, decline benches, and flat benches. With the angle of your hips you can copy the positioning of all 3 of these with just your $20 stability ball. Plus the stability ball gives better back support as you perform core exercises. It allows you to to utilize the ball for hamstring curls, as well as abdominal knee tucks.
The only thing you can do on a bench that you cannot do on a stability ball [or that I wouldn’t recommend you do on a stability ball] is to do step ups. Other than that though it pretty much gets the job done!
When picking out a stability ball it is important to know what size to buy. If you are above 6 feet tall I would recommend you buy a 75cm ball. If you are 5’8”-5’11” I would recommend ad 65cm ball. And if you are shorter than 5’7” I would recommend you buy a 55cm ball. If a ball is too tall for you then it will through off the angle for your hips, as well as not be able to use for some squat exercises.
Some great brands of balls to choose from are:
GoFit – https://www.amazon.com/GoFit-Professional-Grade-Core-Stability
SPRI – https://www.amazon.com/SPRI-Elite-Xercise-Balance-Ball
Power Systems – https://www.amazon.com/Power-Systems-VersaBall-Stability-80018
Gaiam – https://www.amazon.com/Gaiam-Total-Body-Balance-Ball
You can even by balls that have sand in them – BOSU & IGNITE are brands that have this. Sand is helpful because it keeps the ball from rolling away on you. You can use it also as a weighted ball for shoulder and core exercises, which adds an extra bonus for you!
Dumbbells
Everyone associates strength and power with barbells. And yes you can sure stack on a lot of weight with those tools, but dumbbells hold their own in the strength category as well. You see dumbbells not only force you to isolate each arm as you perform an exercise, but they force you to utilize more of your core while performing the exercise. This is crucial when you are looking to tone up your core, slim down, and start to see your body going in the right direction when standing in front of a mirror.
Another great thing with dumbbells is they don’t take up a lot of space and you can perform hundreds of exercises with them. You can start out with 1 set of dumbbells, and as you progress with strength and abilities, you can buy more down the road. This allows proper progression as well as a timeframe of how far you have come with your strength and capabilities with your body!
There are rubber coated dumbbells, round dumbbells, hexagon dumbbells, and selectorized dumbbells. Weight is weight, so whichever version of a set of dumbbells you can find will work just fine. A little side note about the selectorized dumbbells [weights you can change the weight on it], they don’t let you perform exercises on the floor very easily and you can’t change weights quickly which can be troublesome when doing circuit training exercises. Plus the size of selectorized dumbbells are quite cumbersome.
Here is the dumbbell that I use. Or you can get the selectorized ones.
All in all dumbbells are amazing versatile tools that allow you to burn fat, build muscle, and give you enormous amount of variety. You can’t go wrong with a set of dumbbells to get your heartrate going and transform your body.
Resistance band
The last piece of equipment we can mimic in a gym are the cable equipment. Anything you can do with cable equipment you can do with a resistance band. From back rows, to lat pulldowns, chest flys, bicep curls, tricep extensions, you get the drift. Bands come in all different difficulties, so the thicker the band the more difficult it is to use. The good thing is these bands are extremely easy to store places, and fit into a suitcase very nicely for when you travel. You can have a gym anywhere you go!
Here are the bands we recommend to get.
So as you can see, with 3 pieces of equipment you have the basics of an entire gym right there in your own home. Granted you don’t have all the fancy equipment that is at a gym, but how many of those pieces of equipment do you really use? With the right instructor, you can have all the help you need to craft amazing workouts right there in your house!
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