The Best Guide to Building a Home Gym

Essentials, Accessories, and everything in between

Lets talk Home Gyms!

For most of my life, Ive always had multiple gym memberships. At any given time, I typically have at least 3, sometimes 4.

While this might sound ridiculous to people, my background in personal training and my being a BRO, I am extremely particular about the equipment I use. Rarely does one gym have the ideal equipment setup for everything.

Serious Bros will know exactly what Im talking about

Gym A will have awesome lower body equipment, like the perfect hack squat, great racks, barbells, bumper plates and the seated leg curl you like…

but Gym B will have that PERFECT chest press that works just for you, dumbbells with better grips, the seated lateral raise machine you like, and more stable adjustable benches…

while Gym C will have the ergonomic pullup bars plus that Tbar row with the best pronated grips, and the nautilus pulldown, and the cable rows with extended seats…

You might read this and think WTF man, people actually care about this? This makes a difference?

And my answer is YES IT DOES

Again, serious Bros will know exactly what Im talking about

What does have all these gym memberships have to do with home gyms though?

I share this to make a simple point and predication

-ANY equipment you purchase, you should know how to use it.

I get asked about home gym often, and Im always a bit perplexed when people who dont workout regularly ask what equipment they should get.

If you cannot make time to go the gym, you are not going to make time to train at home

And if you don’t know HOW to train effectively at the globo gym, its even less likely that you’ll teach yourself this in a home gym, with limited tools and no instruction.

The best investment you can make as a training novice is hiring a qualified coach for the first year of training, and doing everything they say

This education is invaluable. You will get better results, youll learn more about yourself and physiology than you ever imagined, and you’ll have the encouragement, accountability, and wisdom of a teacher on your health restoration journey

Work with one of the elite coaches on my team if this interest you

Why Build a Home gym?

IT SAVES YOU TIME.

Theres no denying that when we say “train 3-4 times a week”…its not 3-4 hours. In reality its probably double that. Between getting ready, getting in the car, driving to the gym, walking in, using the bathroom, waiting for equipment, your time investment is stretched out.

If you can train at home, you get that time back. If you’re someone like myself that is an entrepreneur and every hour of the day counts, those extra hours are invaluable.

The X FACTOR To Home Gym Success

The biggest reinforcement factor for a great gym is social atmosphere. Humans are social creatures. We see other people, maybe the gym has some monster guys, or hot girls, or its got a crew of regulars…you wont have any of this training at home.

What you need to do is fully customize the space and make it a physical manifestation of your Inner Universe

Let your super ego, your heroes, your soul, your deepest darkest depths of your psyche run WILD in customizing the space.

Paint the walls black

Adds posters

Add music

Add murals or flags

Get red lights

Use chalk

Make an altar to God and adorn it with Icons

Do whatever it takes to make it the most unique space on the planet that is a sanctuary from the outer world and imbues it with energy that you WANT To train in it.

Dont just stick a rack and weights in your spare 1 car section and call it a day.

Lets get to Actual Equipment and how to think through this process

I promise I am going to give an equipment list. Before I do that though, I want to create context. A home gym can get expensive fast, and it drives me crazy when people spend thousands of dollars, only to not use their kit.

These are my working assumptions for everyone reading

The first is that your home gym is for general STRENGTH and HYPERTROPHY training. You want to build muscle and get stronger. Thats why you are here.

The second is that you train in a balanced style, with equal comfort using free weights, machines, cables, and bodyweight. You can use the barbell, you can use dumbbells, you can do calisthenics, so on and so forth.

(If you have a laundry list of injuries and need help with figuring out exercises, I will refer back to my suggestion of working with a coach)

The third is that you are working with limited space. This is a home gym, not a commercial gym. Unless you are RICH and built a warehouse all to yourself, your space is probably 500 square feet at max (about a 2 car garage), and likely smaller. Home gyms are usually built in garages, basements, and spare rooms

The fourth is that you are starting out budget conscious. You want the most bang for your buck, both from a utility perspective and price perspective.

From that, we can organize equipment into 3 Categories

Essentials (Primary equipment)-Primary equipment that we MUST have in order to have a productive training session and do our exercises. We can do pushups anywhere. But for pull-ups and chin-ups, we need to have a pull-up bar. For squats, we need a barbell, and plates, and some kind of rack. For chest press, we need a bench. Barbell curls require…a barbell. So on and so forth.

Supplemental-This is secondary equipment that enables us to do more exercises and training modalities, and enhances the utility of the primary equipment. Some of it might be considered essential, depending on how you train

Accessory-This is tertiary equipment that falls into the realm of COOL stuff to own. Say a Glute ham raise, or a leg extension and leg curl machine, or a hack squat, a hammer strength chest press…this is where you have money, space, and are customizing to make ultimate N is for 1 home gym.

We have 3 Levels of Equipment

Level 1-Essentials ($1500-$5000 total spend) for 1 car sized space

Level 1 is all about direct utility. With a barbell, plates, a bench, a rack, and a pair of rings, you can do a wide range of exercises plus accessory movements like bodyweight rows, facepulls, curls, tricep extensions, and ring pushups. Barbells plus bodyweight is a powerful training combo.

If you add in adjustable dumbbells on top of this, you have a complete home gym that enables you to do every kind of workout.

Power racks and barbells and dumbbells can often be found on facebook marketplace and craigslist for extremely discounted prices. If you are budget conscious, I’d suggest looking there first. You’d be surprised what you can find.

If you want to buy NEW, you have top of the line companies like Rogue. You also have smaller but still premiere quality like Strength Company. Or affordable but very good like REP fitness, or Titan Fitness. None of these companies are paying me, and I dont have a favorite. Id encourage you to TRY out any equipment from a company before you buy it brand new. Make sure you like it.

1) Power Rack-A cornerstone of training. You can use it for all manner of barbell exercises, squats, deadlifts, presses. You can use the pullup bar for pullups. You can attach rings or a TRX to it for bodyweight rows and facepulls. Depending on the model, you can add dip bars, a landmine, use band pegs, do rack pulls…the only limitation is your imagination and whether your rack is heavy duty enough. If you want a rack you can accessorize, get a 3x3 rack. Otherwise a 2x2 rack works fine for practically anyone (unless you are monster strong and plan on dropping weights inside the rack).

Cost-$500-1000

2) Barbells–I am partial to powerlifting barbells (stiffer, with less spin) over olympic barbells (lots of spin, and more bendy). There are tons of great companies now for barbells. I’d recommend a Texas Power Bar personally

$250-300

3) Plates–Its personal preference what kind of plates you prefer. Iron plates are indestructible and last forever. Bumper plates are more ergonomic (my wife prefers bumper plates) and are designed to be dropped, but may break eventually if you abuse them. Hex plates have handles and are easy to slide on and off.

I find bumpers to be more useful as you can stack them or stand on them and with their greater width can use them for things like split squats, reverse squats, step-ups, and deficit deadlifts.

If you get the plates used, you might be able to get them for as little 50 cents a pound, although $1 per lb is typical.

If you get them NEW, plan on spending $2 a pound or more.

The Strength Company has great deals on their metal and bumper plates right now (at the time of writing this in November 2025)

Cost anywhere $200-1000+ depending on how much poundage you get.

4) 0-90 Adjustable Bench-This is one thing to not go cheap on. You want a rock solid bench that you can use for flat, low incline, regular incline, high incline, and fully upright exercises. You want thick padding, a wide surface, and heavy construction that won’t shake or shift, and grips the floor. If you can find a used bench, awesome. Or shop around the various equipment companies for a lower cost option.

Titan makes a quality bench thats only $300

Cost $300-600

5) Rings–why rings? Because with a pair of rings, you can do a wide range of exercises bodyweight and accessory movements like bodyweight rows, facepulls, curls, tricep extensions, and ring pushups and dips. You can potentially even use them for pullups if you have enough overhead space. You can use them for “TRX” like leg curls and ab pikes by getting a cheap pair of foot cradles and attaching them to the ring straps. Versatility is endless.

Cost $50-60 off amazon

6) Adjustable Dumbbells (Optional)-Some people HATE these and refuse to use them. But if you are adaptable and dont mind slightly awkward dumbbells that never quite feel the same as regular ones, then adjustable DBs are an insanely good value.

Ive tried them ALL, and by far the best adjustable dumbbells are from Iron Master. They have the closest feel to normal dumbbells.

I do NOT like powerblocks (theres your answer if you wanted my opinion on powerblocks).

I have tried various brands of “fast adjustment” dumbbells. They are all more fragile, you cant drop them, and they’re not sturdy or well balanced.

Go with Iron Masters.

The one downside is they are not fast to adjust, but hey, its adjustable. Take advantage of the rest period.

Or save up and get a set of 10-50lb DBs (this doesnt take up much space), which you can often find for cheap on marketplace and craiglists.

Cost-$750 brand new for Iron masters that go from 10-75lbs

7) Flooring (Optional)-The absolute best flooring is stall mats. These are thick, indestructible, you can drop anything on them, and they last for years. Go to your local Tractor Supply (or online) and get however many you need. Or you could do NO flooring, and train on concrete. Or maybe your garage is epoxy. Or maybe you just get a few mats for the rack and thats it. This is a wildcard and up to you what you want your training surface to be.

Cost $0-1000+

Total Cost of Level 1:

$1550 on the low end, that gets you a used rack, used barbell, used plates, a used bench, a new pair of rings.

$2000 can get you a mix of new equipment

$3750+ if you are getting everything new, and not counting flooring

At max, you might spend $5000 if you wanted top quality everything new and 300 square feet of flooring, but theres lots of opportunities to save in there as well

All the above can fit in a spare room or even a 1 car space in a garage

Level 2-Supplementals ($5000-10,000)

The next level while still being budget and space conscious is getting equipment that diversifies training options and strategies while keeping costs down. This is stuff that is easy to store and versatile. You might get multiple barbells at this stage as well. Maybe a power bar for the big 3, and olympic bar for olympic lifts. But not going crazy either with 8 different bars. Just two.

I would put cardio equipment in this category as well, although that might be essential for you if you live in a place that you cannot readily walk and run outside.

8) Jump Rope–Ive expounded on the benefits of jump roping for years. Fantastic conditioning that builds the feet ankles and elastic rebound strength, makes you more explosive and athletically coordinated.

Cost $10-50 depending on the rope you get

8) Bands–You can do Curls, pushdowns, lateral raises. You can do facepulls, and some ab exercises. If you train conjugate, you can add bands to bench press, squats, and deadlifts. Bands have a hard ceiling of resistance and you cannot apply much progressive overload, but they certainly work for quite a few exercises.

Cost $10-100 depending on how many bands you get

9) Pushup Handles–Personally I love the Bear Blocks. They are light, look cool, and they are excellent for all manner of pushups. Great device for older and beat up lifters who need to manage wrist and elbow stress

$60

10) Fat Gripz–These are fun for getting a pump on arm day, and a thicker grip is excellent on pressing exercises for distributing the weight more evenly and reducing hand and elbow and shoulder stress
Cost $30

11) Landmine Unit–Excellent for Tbar rows, meadows rows, and neutral grip shoulder, RDLs, sumo squats as well as some novel explosive movements, like land mine clean and press.

Cost $100-150

12) Bulgarian Split Squat Stand–these are LIFE CHANGING. Once you get one of these, you will NEVER go back to doing bulgarians on a bench ever again

Cost $135

13) Medicine Balls–These vary considerably in quality and design. You can get them for slams, throws, ab work, and rotational work. The more expensive ones can be $100 individually, while cheaper ones are half that. Buying used saves you a lot.

Cost $100-$500

14) Stability Balls-These are not as popular as they once were, but they have some excellent use cases. You can do leg curls, which builds the lower hamstring and saves you from getting a leg curl machine. They also are excellent for crunches and situps and pikes. You can also use them to elevate the feet for pushups. Make sure to get a name brand and not a knock-off

15) Dip Bars-These can attach to your power rack, or you can get entirely separate stand alone dips bars.

$100-200

16) 45 Degree Back Raise-Ive been recommending these for years. Best exercise that builds the entire posterior chain with no compressive stress on the spine.

Cost-less than $500 to $2000 if you get a brand new top of the line piece

17) Treadmill (optional)-Maybe you want this, maybe you dont. I suggest getting a USED commercial treadmill. You can spend say $2000 but it will last forever and if it breaks it can be repaired. Or you can get a cheaper one for less than $1000 and its for home gyms and maybe that works fine and youre not a heavy runner or putting lots of miles on it. Up to you

Cost $500 to $2000

18) Airbike (optional)-This could be an assault bike, an airdyne bike, an echo bike. These all cost around $700-1000 new, and around $400-600 used. I strongly suggest used, because many people buy them, never used them, then sell them for 30-50% less than they bought them.

If you were to get EVERYTHING in level 1 and 2 brand new and top quality, you’d be hitting $10,000 readily. Much less if you go used though

At this level, you can probably cancel your gym membership. At that point you are only going to a gym because they have machines that you simply don’t have the space for. Which takes us to level 3

Level 3-Accessories, Upgrades, Big Spending, Customization, and More Space (2-3 car garage and $10-20K+ budget)

If you got 500+ square feet of space and have no issues spending upwards ten thousand or more on equipment, this is for you

—>The two BIG purchases at this stage are going to be fixed weight dumbbells, and/or some kind of cable functional trainer.

If you are barbell fanatic, youll probably get a variety of bars as well.

You also will have space for MACHINES. Again, what you want to buy is all customization. Maybe you dream about a pendulum squat. Or a Smith machine. Or you want a big commercial dual cable tower with seated rows and want to crossovers. Only your imagination is the limit here.

If you got space for the exact machines you want, your home is going to beat any commercial gym at that point, and probably be worthy of a visit from Cooper of Garage Gym reviews.

19) Full range of Dumbbells from 10-100lbs–you are going to need SPACE for these. There are tons of brands, and at this point I assume you have an idea of what you like.

Cost: Brand new dumbbells you are easily going to spend $5000-$10,000

Used market, about half that.

20) A Multi Rig Squat Rack-Maybe you like these, or maybe you dont. You can get squat racks that combine cable stacks, pullup handles, and belt squats all at once. This is OPTIONAL obviously. I always suggest trying these out before purchasing

Cost $5000-8000, depending on all the accessories

This is Rogue Functional Rack thats starts at $5800

21) Functional Trainer–Personally this is what I invested in.

A Functional trainer with dual Cable tower with pull-up handles creates a massive variety of exercises you can.

The one key feature is HEIGHT.

If you are over 6feet tall, getting a Dual Cable Pulley that has low pullup handles wont be very pleasant to use. Get one over 90 inches tall.

On the other hand, getting a taller piece of equipment will run you $6000-9000 brand new.

Because I have long arms and Im a bit over 6ft in height, I have a Life Fitness Dual Cable Tower, but I got it used for 1/3 the price of a new one. Its 94 inches in height, which allows me to do pullups and chinups and not need to pull my knees up much at all.

If you are average height though, you have awesome options like the Rep Fitness Arcadia. Its 87 inches tall, and runs around $3000

Cost-$2600-9000 depending on model

This is a Titan Fitness Functional trainer

Your Favorite Machines

At this level you should have clear favorites for machines and specialty equipment. Such as:

-Smith Machine

-Plate Loaded or Selectorized Chest Press

-Leg Extension

-Leg Curl

-Leg Press

-Seated Row

-Preacher Curl Stand

-Belt Squat Machine

-Kettlebells (if you are a Kettlebell fanatic this might be ALL you own, but then you wouldnt be reading this list if you were)

My Ultimate Gym Setup

In my Ultimate home gym kit, I would have

-All the equipment in levels 1 and 2 plus

-Functional Trainer from Life Fitness (which i got for $3600, about a 60% discount compared to a new one)

-Plate Loaded Hack Squat-$3000

-Selectorized Chest Press-$4000

-Incline Bench press with Foot Support-$2000

-T-Bar Row-$1500

-Plate Loaded Hip Thrust-$4000

This adds up to around $18,000 approximately, with some bargaining and getting the lowest possible price.

Add in the other equipment, and my home gym will be comfortably in the $25k range.

Brands and Secondary Markets

In my humble opinion, unless you want a truly unique piece of equipment, such as a Prime USA functional trainer, you’d otherwise be better off buying used and refurbished equipment. Even if money is not obstacle, there are many companies that resell commercial equipment and you can get multiple pieces at once in the same order from different manufacturers, versus trying to source them all brand new.

Fitness Empire has great deals on refurbished equipment

My favorite manufactures are Prime Fitness USA, Life Fitness and Hammer Strength, Cybex, Paramount, and older Nautilus Equipment and Precor equipment. Pannatta has some cool pieces as well. So does TechnoGym. There are few Hoist pieces I really like. Assault I find to be poorly designed and the most overrated in the industry.

Do NOT ever buy machines or equipment that you’ve not used and demoed first.

Summary

With $2000-5000 you can build an efficient home gym space, and for $10,000-20000 or more you can build something that rivals any globo gym and is the ultimate expression of your body and will to power.

If you have home gym questions, please ask in the comments!!

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