Advice for a home gym

just looking for advice on a little home gym i'm trying to put together with limited space.( 19feet by 12 feet ). started grappling just a little less than a year ago. hoping people can put their 2 cents in on equipment musts. I weigh 300 lbs(around 225 would be a proper fit weight).i got a wife and 2 kids so i have a little bit of a budget to watch. i have ordered the hatmaker floor bag work out DVD. wanna get strong and and good cardio. also have to do alot of training alone, are the combat sport dummies useful for that. i've been checking out the sandbags from sandbag training website.....dumbells,barbells,medicineballs????

thanks in advance!!:icon_chee

 

Welcome dead. (great name)
IMHO, get a barbell, couple dumbbells, and some plates, and you're set. Rack if you've got the room, place to bench.

 

Perfect. Get yourself the barbell and plates. If you can't afford the rack, get squat stands (saw horses if you are really broke). If you can afford the power rack and have some extra cash, get some dumbbells.

I've been lifting for 6 months with just a barbell, plates, squat stands and a bench. The bench is probably the least necessary item, as you can do overhead presses which are better than bench anyway (IMO).

 

You should line out your goals and your budget. Be specific. Do you care about having big Squat numbers? If not you can do alot with dumbells and sandbags. Look up Ross Enamait he has alot of information on budget home training.

 

Hatmaker got some interesting ideas in his products, but as already mentioned, either infinite intensity or Never gymless will be -much- better purchases for you, lower price, much higher value. So either of those books I would rank as number 1 thing to buy.

Then after that it honestly depends on your goals and your budget.

-If- you got the budget for it and the space for it a barbell and some weights is the best purchase you can do. You dont need anything more than that to have a good routine, also it will force you to learn to powerclean so you can do frontsquats which will be good for you. Powerclean, militarypress/pushpres, bent barbell rows, fronstsquats, those kind of things. Then you can add in a power rack and bench for benchpressing later when you get the money.

An cheap ab-wheel (either buy one for 10 bucks or learn to make a better one for free on Ross Emanits site), a doorway chining bar (or if you got the possibility a better chin bar) are cheap and very effective tools and if you can find some kind of "powertower" or the like with a combined dipingstation and chinupstation it can definitively be worth the space.

To have a medium weight kettlebell (16-24 or 32kg) or an adjustable olympic dumbell is great for much conditioning work.

Also since heavy bodyweight training variations can be great on a small space a weighted west and some flexbands to load these variations might be just what you need, or just go the weighted backpack route...

If you dont afford the barbell or want to suplement it with an effective tool a medium to heavy sandbag is a great alternative, not a punching bag but a bag filled with sand. Cheap and effective ways of making it is on Ross site to. The options for what to do with a sandbag is basicly endless, make a few, perhaps a 30kg, 50kg a 70kg and a 90kg (or just make one in the middle) and the options are basiscly endless, clean, shoulder, throw, walk with it bearhuged or over head or throwned over a shoulder for distance, load it up a platform and back down, press it over head, row it. Great grip developer to since you grip the bag in the cloth.
You can also fill a keg partly with water and you will have a similiar cheap heavy thing that is awkward and effective to lift.
Basicly both these things will be slightly more effective than the things in hatmakers bagworkout tape altough he got some interesting things to add in to.

A medball is great and there are tons of sites on the internet that describes how to make one for free, not a priority, focus on making a sandbag first.

Be sure to get a few worn out tires and fairly heavy sledgehammer for doing sledgehammer swings, great for explosive power, grip endurance, strength and conditioning! You dont need a tractor tire either altough the bigger the better, car tires -do work-, I live in a cramped apartment myself without a garage but keep my 16 pound sledge and a car tire in the attic, getting it 3 floors up and caring it out in the forrest to slam the tire is a part of the workout...

A decent jumprope and a quality pair of running shoes should round out your purchases...

So basicly if you are tight on budget be sure to get/buy/make 1. Never gymless by Ross Emanit (www.rosstraining.com) 2. A medium sandbag 3. A chin bar 4. An abwheel
(If you go this route a kettlebell surely can be good to throw into the mix down the way...)
And be sure to be on the lookout for a cheap durable barbell set (preferably based on a descent olympic bar)

Check out www.rosstraining, www.dragondoor.com, the archives at www.crossfit.com all the archives at www.testosterone.net and www.elitefts.com for all the ideas you need.
If you go the barbell route be sure to pick up the second edition of Starting Strength by Mark Ripetoe to learn the lifts corectly.

 

http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/budget.html

http://youtube.com/watch?v=J6JvhCTjicY

 

Thanks for all the advice. I'm doing this right now too and this thread is perfect timing.

 

http://www.sherdog.net/forums/showpost.php?p=18204455&postcount=14

 

Cheap, homemade squat stands. All you need is 2 x 4's, cement and buckets.


If you've got some money to spend, these are good to go for about $150 (http://www.pacillo.com/detail.asp?product=638):

 

Very nice squat rack. I will probably be making something very similar to that soon. You wouldn't think finding some damn saw horses would be so damn hard!! Anyone know where to find cheap ones?

As others have said, get a barbell and some plates. I got this from Sears. http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_...Strength+Training&sName=Weight+Benches+&+Sets
It was just under $200 a few weeks ago. That sucks. But for the price the quality is pretty good. The plates have handles on them so you can use them as dumbells if you like. To get strong that is really all you need. You can do floor presses if you feel the need to do bench. Learn to squat(and all the variations), deadlift, floor press and you are on your way to getting very strong.

 

http://www.ivanko.com/products/prd_text/SOCB.html

http://www.ivanko.com/products/prd_text/OCB5KG.html

http://www.eleikosport.se/eng/Product.asp?PageNumber=64&Product_Id=76

http://www.forzastrength.com/index.php?cat=3&sub=13&pro=5

http://www.forzastrength.com/index.php?cat=3&sub=12&pro=11

Good place to start

 

that is some super quality shit but jesus the guy said he was on a budget. Unless his budget includes the money for $900 dollar bench and $1800 oly bars I don't think that stuff will help. And spending thousands of dollars usually isn't a good place for anyone to start.

Beautiful equipment though. If only.....sigh.

 

I'll tell you a little contraption I put together for my home gym that I get a lot of mileage out of.

Basically, I anchored two heavyweight chains into the ceiling about 3 feet or so apart so that they hang down to about waist level. Then I made a couple detachable O handles for them (or you could buy them anywhere you might find playground supplies--just make sure they're durable) and threaded an old standard bar (also in a detachable manner) through them fairly close to the ceiling. Both the handles and the bar can be attached at any point up the chain.

So that little setup takes care of just about any type of chin-up/pull-up you could hope for. You can do them the standard vertical route, go horizontal, or employ any angle in between. You can use the bar or you can use the handles for neutral grip chins. You can also do dips with the handles at about hip level, hanging from the chains. You could even do muscle ups if you had enough vertical space. Recently, I got a pad for mine so I can hang upside down from it with the bar in place for hanging sit-ups and whatnot.

It also makes a great swing between worksets if you set the bar low enough--really takes me back to the carefree playground days of my childhood.

Anyway, just a thought. It's cheap as hell and you can get a lot of use out of it.

 

very nice. dips on o rings are intense.

 

Yeah, they hurt so good.