Having a home gym is pretty cool, earlier this year I got my own gym built and it’s been the best decision i’ve ever made…

Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t cheap, but for me it’s totally worth it because not only do I use it 5x per week to train myself, but I also use it for my Sheffield personal training business ‘LEP Fitness’ – where I complete 30 x 1-1 personal training sessions each week. 

Having a gym at home is a luxury, it saves time travelling to the gym, you can train whenever you like, and blast out your favourite music without anybody telling you off! lol. 

In this post i’m going to help you create your own home gym. I’m not talking about building a studio from scratch (lol!) I mean using a room in your house or garage and converting it into a place to workout.

Basically, I’m going to share the best equipment for you to buy depending on your budget, I have therefore created 3 sections…

• #1 Building a home gym for £500 or less
• #2 Home Gym – 1-3k 
• #3 Home Gym – 3-5k

#1 Building a home gym for £500 or less

£500 wont go very far but it will be enough to get you up and running. If £500 is your budget then i’d recommend buying some adjustable dumbbells (weights which go between 5-25kg). For a pair of these you’d be looking at spending around £200-£250. 

I would also recommend picking up a weights bench (around £80) – with these 2 pieces of equipment alone you can train the entire body. For example…

• Chest – dumbbell press (flat and incline) – dumbbell fly’s 
• Back – one arm DB row, incline DB row, DB pull over
• Shoulders – DB shoulder press, side raises, rear raises, upright rows, shrugs
• Bicep – DB curls, hammer curls, concentration curls 
• Tricep – dips, skull crushers, overhead extensions
• Abs – reverse crunches, sit ups
• Quads – DB squats, DB lunges 
• Hamstrings – Lying DB curl, Romanian deadlift 
• Calfs – calf raise (single leg and double leg) 

Let’s say you spend £350 for a bench and dumbbells, you therefore have £150 left over, in which case i’d recommend picking up some extra’s like a jump rope (great for cardio), medicine ball (for core), foam roller (for loosing off tight muscles), ab roller, and a sandbag (for functional training) – you can get all of the items i’ve just mentioned above for around £150. 

For example  I recently bought some items from Mirafit, a 5kg medicine ball, a foam roller and an ab roller– which have made a great addition to my gym without costing me a fortune…

#2 Home Gym – 1-3k

If you have more money to spend you can obviously get more equipment and better quality gear. If you have a budget of 1-3k then i’d recommend adding in a squat rack and olympic barbell set.

With the squat rack and olympic barbell set you’ll be able to do exercises like squats, bench press, deadlifts, military press, to name but a few exercises. For a decent squat rack you’re looking at paying £250-£600 and for an Olympic barbell set with  weights included (140kg) it will cost you around £200. 

If you wanted, and have the space, then you could also invest in a piece of cardio equipment, especially if your budget is closer to 3k. Cardio machines are often expensive, especially treadmills (for a decent treadmill you are looking at paying at least 1.5k), however equipment like a rowing machine, or ski machine are very reasonable (around £850 for a Concept 2 rower and a similar price for the Concept Ski Machine). 

With a budget of 3k you could get the following:

• Adjustable dumbbells (5-25kg) 
• Weights bench 
• Squat rack 
• Olympic barbell set (140kg) 
• Rowing machine 
• Ski machine 
• Bunch of gym accessories (jump rope, foam roller, battle ropes, boxing pads, ab roller, etc) 

#3 Home Gym – 3-5k

With a higher budget you can afford to buy even more equipment. You may also want to spend money on improving the actual look/style of your home gym e.g. buy some gym mirrors and properly kit out your studio so that it looks the real deal, You could also invest in proper gym flooring. 

With a higher budget you can buy more expensive equipment like a treadmill and cross trainer. If you have the funds then i’d also recommend investing in a proper squat cage, I use the one made by Rogue (which cost me £1,500 – but worth every penny!). The squat cage allows you to do all of the olympic lifts, deadlift, squat, bench press, snatch, etc – but also has a pull  up bar – which is great for training the arms (close grip pull ups) and back (wide grip pull ups) – I also use it to train abs (hanging leg raises and gravity boot sit ups).

If you’re budget is 5k you have enough to have an awesome home gym studio, and you will be able to get…

• Adjustable dumbbells (5-40kg) – or individual dumbbells and a dumbbell rack  
• Weights bench 
• Squat rack 
• Olympic barbell set (140kg) 
• Rowing machine 
• Ski machine 
• Treadmill 
• Cross trainer 
• Bunch of gym accessories (jump rope, foam roller, battle ropes, boxing pads, ab roller, etc) 

Thanks for reading, if you found this post helpful please comment below, and send me a pic of your home gym at nick@lepfitness.co.uk – i’d love to see it. 

Nick 🙂 

About Nick

Nick Screeton owns LEP Fitness, a personal training company based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. Nick has over 10,000 hours worth of experience in the fitness industry and helps people both mentally and physically. Alongside his personal training business Nick is also a fitness writer, writing for online health and fitness blogs and for lifestyle magazines. If you’d like to get in touch with Nick then please e-mail him at nick@lepfitness.co.uk or click here