At home gyms

Let's see some of your setups. What do some of you recommend as a must have for the at home gym? Not being near one of my free gyms anymore I need to beef up the home gym a bit. I hate going to public gyms and dealing with dickheads, contracts, people who don't move off equipment while doing nothing, etc.

Right now I have one of those crappy door frame pull-up bars, perfect push-ups, resistance bands, one of those 65cm big blue balls, ankle weights (for flutter kicks), a bicycle, and a ruck sack for well....rucking. There are a ton of different things to do with body weight and just a few other things, just looking to see if any of you have any grassroots ideas for my home gym.

DirtyBird222 wrote: 65cm big blue balls

LOL (yes I'm a child)

That's all I got.

My setup currently consists of:

running shoes

Lebert bars: http://www.lebertfitness.com/Products/LebertEqualizer/Home.aspx

3 kettle bells

"ultimate sandbag" filled to 20lbs

pair of traditional 30lb dumbbells

jump rope

a rock climbing fingerboard

"the grid" foam roller for recovery: http://www.amazon.com/Trigger-Point-Performance-Revolutionary-Roller/dp/B0040EGNIU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411698982&sr=8-1&keywords=the+grid+foam+roller

all in all a pretty compact and relatively cheap setup

I'd say a good set of dumbells ranging in weight. And a bench that can be set at an incline or decline. There are probably 1000 different exercises you could do with that alone

What are you looking to accomplish? That will determine what your gym should consist of. As you said, there are tons of body weight exercises you can do that will hit a ton of muscle groups. You can also use objects in your home, such as a chair. But if you're talking about purpose built exercise equipment, it's dependent on your goals. My wife has a home gym. She's a weightlifter/bodybuilder, so her equipment is focused mostly on lifting. She has:

Power cage with high and low cables
Smith machine
Multi function bench
Leg sled
Dip/chin up station
Huge assortment of Olympic weight plates and several Olympic bars
Small assorment of dumbbells
Spin bike (which replaced a treadmill, which we're about to get another one)

I go to a gym. If you don't like the stereotype gym rats, then try a place like Planet Fitness. That's where I go. There are some well built guys there (I like to think I'm one), but none of the musclebound jackasses. Actually, a lot of people there are overweight and trying to make changes.

Mine is:
- running shoes
- Bowflex SelectTech dumbells
- A beam in the basement, 2 pipe clamps and some DOM tubing for pull ups
- A 5x10 1" thick rubber mat
- cheap push up handles
- A bluetooth speaker

So, aside from the running shoes being a perpetual $400/yr bill the rest is found on CL for pennies on the $.

I have the boxing station multi exercise unit (heavy bag, speed bag, headache bag, pull up bars, ab dohicky, etc.) I recently moved it into a one car garage as a dedicated space for exercise and......don't use it at all. It's sucking up space and getting very close to going on CL for someone else to set up and ignore for a few years.

Exercise used to be a big part of my life but not anymore. Good luck to you though.

indoor trainer stand for my road bike
cast iron dumb bells 10-30 lbs

I'm a bicycle racer and excessive muscle bulk is not desired, so my exercises are usually body-weight routines.

Right now I have one of those crappy door frame pull-up bars,

These are one of the best pieces of equipment you can have. If you do them right, pull ups are working your lats, shoulders, biceps, pecs, and (to a lesser extent) your abs. This, IMO, is one of the most important exercises you can do. Get some weights and a bench.

I bought one of these for Mrs Woof for $100 on Kijiji. She loves it.

My minimalist setup: A bar with 2 plates A pullup bar

It works, but my pullup bar is too close to the ceiling to do muscle-ups. I do run and do a ~15-20 minute cross training workout during lunch at work (fitness course nearby), so I get a chance to do them there.

I'd like to move back to a more lifting oriented setup, but damn the cost of weights adds up, and they take up a ton of space

At home I have an Olympic 7' bar and weights, Bowflex SelectTech Dumbbells, and Bowflex Adjustable incline bench, Bowflex Xtreme SE, and a Vision Fitness Elliptical. All of the Bowflex equipment was at a significant discount over regular prices through sales on their website (dumbbells were $399 with the bench and the dumbbell stand, and the Xtreme SE was $399).

If you're starting from scratch, I'd get a solid power rack, Olympic weight set, and a bench that's adjustable for incline. You can do a ton with that setup for relatively little money.

Most people call their bathroom the "John". I named mine "Jim".

Now I go to the Jim every morning.

An Olympic bar with some plates, dumbbells, multi position bench, plyo boxes and some type of pull up apparatus gets you most of the way there, kettle bells would be sweet too. If you have a park nearby with parallel bars or monkey bars, that'd be a free set up in itself.

You could DIY the plyo boxes and weld up a bar to lift your car for deadlifts or push a car as a sled, old tractor tires to flip, you know, cus carguys.

I got a pull up/dip station off craigs for $20, and a multistation gym from a coworker that had a leg press, pull down, press, row, etc, but I never could get the cables routed correctly for it to work. Plus I'm the type that needs to be at the gym to work out, the home stuff just sat. I did buy an inversion table for my lower back issues, did some sit up/crunches on that last night, holy berk.

No pictures, but I have dumb bells from 10lbs up to 60lbs, bench with free weights, elliptical (a little mo cardio), tower for pull ups/dips/push ups/etc, 100lb heavy bag, 50lb bag, speed bag, and Century Bob mma dummy. I use the pull up tower, dumb bells, and the punching bags/century bob the most. I have a section of my shop setup as a gym, so when I get frustrated on an automotive project I go do a set or go crazy on century bob.

I started with a few dumb bells, a 50lb bag, and a starter bench about 17 years ago and just exchanged/added from there. I really like the setup I have now.

Thanks for all the input. The goal is to keep myself in shape. I don't need to lose weight or anything. I'm in great shape I just don't want to lose my edge and I want to be able to do it on the cheap while also getting to spend time with my daughter (she loves it when I work out at home and often mimics some of the motions). I was notified that the local university gym which has a huge pool, indoor track, rock climbing wall, etc. is available to me for like $5 a month which I can live with especially for my lunch time workouts. I still want a badass home setup bc I could sense not liking to lift next to 100 frat bros.

The frat bros might be balanced out by the yoga pants on the stair climber.

In reply to Trans_Maro: Amen to that. That's the second reason I have a gym membership; the first reason is that some of the equipment that gives you a variety of workouts require significant space(money if you go new). My third reason is that if I foolishly can't finish a rep on freeweights, I can yell for a guy to lift the weight off of me.

I should market this as the latest fitness craze - a heavy rock, a rope and a stick. All the exercise equipment you need.