Your Guide To Home Gyms

Strong As An Ox Issue: 010 The Perfect Home Gym Based on Space and Budget

Welcome to the tenth issue of Strong as an Ox, my weekly newsletter on fitness, health, and mindset. Last we talked about the gains killer, plateaus, and stalling in your fitness progress. This week I will be walking you through your home gym set up.

As an avid Gym Bro, my ultimate life dream is to have the perfect home gym, so I never have to leave the house. No more commuting and waiting on people to use the machines, getting their nastiness all over it. I couldn’t put a price on what that would be worth to me.

I’m probably a year late on this post, as this would have been extremely useful before the lockdowns. Nonetheless, most of us learned the importance of having our own access to the gym without relying on the local one.

Below I will breakdown where to start based on your budget and amount of space. I am going to assume if your budget is larger, you have larger space for the gym. If not, use this as a guide to more or less see what equipment would best suite your needs.

$1000-5000 Small Room/1 Car Garage

At this range you’re going to want the necessities, although for me, a treadmill has the highest ROI as I go to an extremely stocked gym. I will write this for those that are looking to get an actual workout in.

Power Rack - $1500

45lbs Barbell - $300

230lbs of Plates - $500

Powerblocks (70lbs) - $400

Adjustable Bench - $500

Deadlift Platform - $300

Total - $3500

This is absolutely more than enough to get huge—absolutely huge. If you’re towards the lesser end of the budget: powerblocks, and bend bench will be your best bet. If you’re closer to the upper end: buy the damn treadmill ($1000-$2000 for a good NordicTrack—I suggest the Commercial 1750).

I suggest Rouge Fitness for all equipment, that is where all of the pricing came from—if you’re on a budget you can buy used or shop around. I take the gym dead serious, so I buy the best quality I can.

$5000-$10,000 2 Car Garage/Medium Size Room

You can really start to have some fun here. You will more than likely be able to build a gym comparable to a less stocked, commercial gym. At this range you can start incorporating equipment like individual machines, though you may be constrained by space.

The Monster Cave - $5000-$7000

This quite literally could be the only thing you need. Starts around $5000, but you can make it almost a complete system (with lat pulldown) for $7000. You can see it here.

You could apply what we have in the $1000-$5000 Section, and add the following:

Dumbbell Set (5-100lbs) - $5000

Dumbbell Storage Rack - $500

Leg Curl/Extension Combo Machine - $2500

Total When Added From Level 1 - Around $10,500-$11,500 based on the packages and accessories included in the power rack (just over budget, but shopping around will lower price, substantially in some cases as I’m just using Rogue as my standard.).

The Monster Cave + Leg Curl/Extension would put you at around $7500-$9500 depending on accessories. (Excluding Level 1).

Any combination of this equipment would be enough for you to workout from home with very, very limiting factors. You might have to add more barbell plates, but this should only be an extra $300-$500 dollars.

$10,000+ Pole Barn or Large Basement Style Gym

At this point your only limiting factor will be space, and how extreme you’re willing to go. I will give you my (reasonable) home gym set up if I were to set up my home gym without a budget.

I would have everything from Levels 1 & 2 with the addition of:

Leg Press Machine - $2000

Plate Loaded Chest Press - $1500

Plate Loaded Shoulder Press Machine - $1000

Plate Loaded Seated Row - $1500

Smith Machine - $2000

Adductor Machine - $2000

Total + Equipment from Level 1+2 - $20,000+ (give or take a few thousand)

If you had this set up, you would be better off than 99% of commercial gyms. I would personally never go to another gym if I didn’t have to. Your limit here is simply space.

If you’re interested in something to this depth, you definitely want to shop around and do your research on quality. I am a huge fan of Hammer Strength, Prime Fitness, Arsenal Strength, and Nautilus. These brands are high quality and trusted by fitness experts everywhere.

Additional Considerations

If you have 80% of the above, your needs would pretty much be covered for life. Over the span of 10 years—with good care of your equipment and warranties—you will have saved on average $5000 on gym memberships, gas to get there and back, and all the time spent commuting and waiting on gym equipment.

There are 100’s of other pieces of equipment and accessories you could use, but these are the bulk you would need to have a nice home gym—depending on your situation. Level 1 and some of Level 2 would be more than enough for the average gym goer.

Some pieces of equipment I would recommend acquiring overtime are:

Seated Stainonary Bench - $150-300

Barbell Jack - $200

Mirrors - Varies (Depending how vain you are—LOL)

Assault Bike - $700

Plenty of others, but these are the glaring things that stick out to me. Comment below with your suggestions as I will update this overtime!

Looking Forward

As you can see, for anywhere from $3000-$5000 you can have a great starter gym. $10,000 is the budget if you want something you can cancel your gym membership over. Around $20,000 you can have a state of the art home gym that would completely replace the need to attend a public gym.

Please feel free to hit me up if you are considering a home gym build. I can point you in the right direction and help you get what you need!

For the 90 Day Challenge, we will be having another competition—this will be more objective based: a strength competition. Details will be coming out within the next week or so.

We had the first winner of our 14 day challenge @_BowTiedOceleot, who has lost an incredible amount of weight and is looking better and better.

BowTiedOcelot @_BowTiedOcelot

2 weeks correcting my diet and lifting heavy ass weights again via @BowTiedOx 6’4, 10 lbs down. Maybe I’ll feel good enough to get rid of those tan lines soon #WAGMI

I hope you all are crushing it and sticking to your goals—I’m rooting for you all!

#WAGMI

Your friend,

- BowTiedOx

DICLAIMER

This is not Legal, Medical, or Financial advice. Please consult a medical professional before starting any workout program, diet plan, or supplement protocol. These are opinions from a Cartoon Ox.