The First 6 Things You Should Buy For Your Home Gym

Building a gym in your garage or spare room can change your life – saving you from the inconveniences of sitting in traffic for hours to go to an overcrowded gym where the dumbbells are never re-racked and the best machines are always in use.

Since the pandemic, home gym equipment has become a lot more accessible, and though there’s a bit of a setup cost at first, in the long-run you can save money by not having to shell out for an expensive membership.

But setting up your own gym can be a daunting proposition. Fitting it out with all the machines at your big commercial gym will cost a fortune – and you probably don’t have the space for all that in the first place.

A few small purchases, though, can have you up and running with everything you need to get a full workout in, for a very manageable cost.

Keep reading and we’ll share a list of essential pieces to buy, before anything else, for your brand new home gym.

1. Dumbbells

First, we’d suggest getting a set of dumbbells.

Dumbbells are the most convenient and versatile piece of workout equipment. They allow you to work every single part of the body, with exercises from bicep curls to lat raises to Romanian deadlifts.

If you could only choose one piece of equipment to start your gym off with, it would be a dumbbell (or dumbbells).

If you’re looking to minimize cost and space, get a couple of adjustable dumbbells that allow you to easily switch up the weight. Otherwise, start out with perhaps 2-3 different weights, before investing in a whole rack of dumbbells.

2. Adjustable Bench

The second thing, and a great pairing with your new dumbbells, is a bench.

With a bench and a set of dumbbells, you can cover every single muscle group with multiple exercises. Bench press, incline bench, seated shoulder press, concentration curls, single-arm rows, Bulgarian split squats, step-ups… we could run through a hundred more.

3. Barbell and Plates

While a bench and a set of dumbbells is definitely enough to get a full-body workout, if you want to add mass, you’ll want a barbell, plus a set of plates to load it up with.

With a barbell, you’ll be able to add exercises to your routine like deadlifts (and deadlift variations, such as sumo or Romanian deadlifts), rows, clean and press, and a lot more.

Though you can do most of these exercises with dumbbells, a barbell will allow you to pack on more weight and make bigger gains.

4. Squat Rack

Once you’ve got a barbell and some plates, top it off by adding a squat rack.

A squat rack, funnily enough, lets you do barbell squats, which are the most powerful exercises for building size and power in the lower body.

But a rack is also useful for a ton of other exercises. You can slide your bench underneath it and do barbell bench presses. You can use it to rack up heavier weight for rows and RDLs, so you don’t need to pick the weight up off the floor.

Most squat racks can also double as a pull-up bar too, giving you access to another powerful full-body exercise.

5. Kettlebell(s)

With a set of dumbbells, a barbell, a bench and a rack, you have all you need for a full workout.

Yet if you want a little extra variety, add a kettlebell into the mix.

Kettlebells are another super-versatile piece of workout equipment, unlocking some amazing full-body, metabolism-boosting exercises, like kettlebell swings and Turkish get-ups.

You could add just one kettlebell, which will allow you to do a range of different exercises, or if you have room in your budget, buy a few different weights (a light, medium and heavy) that should be enough to cover a whole workout.

6. Floor Mats

One more important part of your home gym, that you probably haven’t thought about, is the floor.

Your current setup is probably not optimal under your feet, such as the hard concrete floor of a garage, or hardwood/carpeted floors inside your house.

Dropping heavy weights might damage your floor, which may require a lot of money for repairs sometime in the future.

Worse, the floor may lead to injuries, by being too hard and causing damage to your joints, or too soft or slippery and not giving you the support you need.

The easiest way to fix this is to get a set of rubber floor mats to cover your workout area, which prevents slipping and cushions any weights that drop on the ground.

Next Steps

With the six pieces of equipment above, you have everything you need to build a fully-functional home gym, and cut the cord of your expensive gym membership for good.

Later, if space and budget allow, you could consider upgrading your setup with a few extras. Next on the list would be a cable machine, which is super versatile and lets you hit each muscle group from a ton of different angles, and really round out your workouts.

You might also add a machine for cardio, such as a:

• Treadmill
• Stationary bike
• Rowing machine
• Elliptical

None are necessarily better than the rest – it just depends on what your preferred method of cardio is.

With that, your home gym will be the envy of everyone else still grumpily waiting in line for the squat rack, or looking at towels and water bottles left unattended on the last open bench.

As always, to get the most out of your workout, make sure you eat enough protein to recover well, or consider a shake with clean and high quality whey protein, like the grass-fed whey from Naked.

Written by Billy Guteng. February 24, 2025

Billy is a content writer for Kukun. He was born in France, and has lived in multiple cities around the world ever since. He loves art, design and architecture as well as construction and real estate.