Home Gym Setup: What to Buy First, and What Can Wait

A good home gym setup starts with what you will use in every session and adds the rest later. For most lifters that means, in this order: a floor that protects the room and keeps your feet planted, a way to load weight (adjustable dumbbells, or a barbell and plates), a solid bench, and a rack with safety arms once you train with a barbell. Bands, a pull-up bar and a few small grip tools add a lot of training for very little space. Cable stations, specialty bars and big machines can wait until you know what your training is missing.

What should you buy first for a home gym?

Buy in the order you will use things. The first pieces get used in every session. The later ones fill gaps you only find after a few months of training.

The order bends to your training. If you only train with dumbbells, you may never need a rack. If you want to squat and bench heavy, the rack moves up the list, because it is what lets you train a barbell without a spotter.

Dumbbells or a barbell: which should come first?

Both work. The right first buy depends on your room and on what you want from your training.

• Adjustable dumbbells take the least floor space and cover presses, rows, lunges, split squats and curls. They suit small rooms and lifters who train for muscle and general strength. Their limit is the top weight: heavy squats and deadlifts outgrow them.
• A barbell and plates let you load the big lifts heavy and add weight in small steps for years. They need more room, a rack for squats and bench presses, and a floor that can take a plate being set down hard.

Many home gyms end up with both: a barbell for the heavy lifts, and adjustable dumbbells for everything around them.

Which bench should you buy for a home gym?

After the weights, the bench is the piece you will use most. Look at these four things before you buy one.

• Stability. A wide base and a frame that does not rock when you sit down hard. A wobbling bench is the one problem you cannot train around.
• Flat or adjustable. A flat bench is simpler and usually sturdier for the money. An adjustable bench adds incline presses, seated presses and chest supported rows. If you choose adjustable, check that the gap between the seat and the back is small, so it does not sit in the middle of your back when the bench is flat.
• Height and pad. Most benches sit about 17 inches (43 cm) off the floor, which lets most lifters plant their feet. A firm pad that does not sag under your shoulders gives you a stable base to press from.
• The cover. Budget benches are usually covered in smooth, shiny vinyl. It wipes clean, but it gives your back very little to hold on to, and under a heavy press you slide toward the rack.

The cover is the easiest part of a bench to fix. Here is how to fix a slippery vinyl bench at home, at the gym and on the road. If the vinyl is torn rather than just slick, a weight bench cover fixes the outside of the pad.

“My home bench is cheap vinyl. This made a budget pad feel like a real bench. Best upgrade I have bought that was not another pair of plates.”

PR Grip is a double-sided grip mat made for exactly that. HexaTrac on one face holds the bench and the other face holds you. It grips through pressure, not adhesive, so it leaves nothing on the vinyl, and at 16 x 26 inches (about 41 x 66 cm) it covers the part of the pad under your shoulders and back. Here is whether a bench press mat is worth it on a home bench.

What flooring do you need for a home gym?

Flooring does two jobs. It protects the floor under it, and it gives your feet something solid to push against.

• Rubber mats are the standard. Thick rubber stall mats, often about 3/4 inch (19 mm), are heavy, good value for their size and take a dumbbell being set down hard. Lay them where you lift; they do not need to go wall to wall.
• Interlocking foam tiles are fine for bodyweight work and light dumbbells, but they squash under a heavy squat and dent under heavy weights.
• A lifting platform, with rubber where the plates land and wood in the middle, is the next step if you deadlift heavy often.

Pay attention to the surface you stand on. Vinyl plank, laminate and polished concrete are slippery under a squat, and a foot that slides is the last thing you want under a loaded bar. Here is how to squat on a slippery floor without your feet moving.

“Home gym is on vinyl plank. Squats were sketchy. Mat under the feet made a cheap floor usable. Huge if you train in an apartment.”

Do you need a squat rack at home?

If you squat or bench press a barbell, yes. The rack is what makes those lifts safe when you train alone.

• Squat stands are two separate uprights. They take little space and work for squats and bench presses, but many have short safety arms or none.
• A power rack is a cage with four uprights and safety arms or straps at any height. If you miss a rep, the safeties catch the bar. Most racks also have a pull-up bar on top and take attachments later.

Set the safeties before the first set, just below the lowest point the bar reaches on each lift, so a missed rep lands on them and not on you. Check the ceiling too: stand where the rack will go, hold a broomstick overhead at arm's length, and make sure there is room above it. Pull-ups on a rack need space for your head above the bar.

A barbell is about 7 feet 2 inches (2.2 m) long, so the room also needs to be wider than the bar, with space at each end to slide plates on and off.

What small gear adds the most to a home gym?

Once the big pieces are in, small gear adds the most training for the least space.

• Resistance bands. Assisted pull-ups, warm-ups, face pulls and banded lifts, all from one hook on the rack. The PR Grip Band Set has five loop bands from light to heavy. Here is what each band color means.
• A dip belt. Once bodyweight pull-ups and dips get easy, the PR Grip Dip Belt hangs plates from your hips, so a rack with a pull-up bar keeps giving you progress.
• Grip tools. Home gyms rarely have thick bars or grip machines. The PR Grip Hand Kit, Wrist Roller and Power Balls train the squeeze, the forearms and the open hand, and all three fit in a drawer.
• A sturdy box. For step-ups, box squats and split squats. Here is how high a step-up box should be.

What can wait?

These are good buys, just not first buys. Each one is easier to choose once you know what your training is missing.

• A cable station. Great for rows, flyes and lateral raises, but it is big and a large purchase. Bands cover many of the same movements until then.
• Specialty bars. Trap bars, safety squat bars and curl bars each solve a specific problem. Wait until you have that problem.
• Machines. A leg press or a lever machine takes a lot of floor space for one or two exercises.
• Plates you cannot lift yet. Buy plates as your lifts grow, not ahead of them.

How do you make a budget home gym feel like a commercial one?

Most of the difference is in the contact points: where your back meets the bench and where your feet meet the floor. A commercial gym has worn-in pads and rubber floors everywhere. A home gym has one new vinyl bench and whatever floor the room came with.

One mat covers both. Lay PR Grip on the bench for presses and rows, then move it under your feet for squats and deadlifts on a slick floor. When the session is done, roll it up and put it on the shelf. It also makes a good gift for a lifter who is building a home gym; here are more gifts for weightlifters they will actually use.

See the PR Grip mat

Frequently asked questions