best home gym equipment?

heartbreak_star

Body weight exercises rule. Push-ups, plank, lunges, squats (excellent bodyshaper), rows with cartons of milk, pull-ups on a door bar or simply by lying under your table and gripping the edges to pull, tricep dips off your sofa, stretching, balancing

HBS x

Bottleofrum

heartbreak_star wrote: »

Body weight exercises rule. Push-ups, plank, lunges, squats (excellent bodyshaper), rows with cartons of milk, pull-ups on a door bar or simply by lying under your table and gripping the edges to pull, tricep dips off your sofa, stretching, balancing

HBS x

:T Yes. :j I think push ups are great.

heartbreak_star

And so many variations

HBS x

Bottleofrum

heartbreak_star wrote: »

And so many variations

HBS x

Exactly, and it is so easy to perform. You can do them almost anywhere :T.

Hakis1991

No get a proper fitness program or your wasting your time IMO..
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olly300

The problem with getting a elliptical trainer, bike etc is that they tend to end up as clothes horses which is why there are so many on ebay.

I would get fitness DVDs, a skipping rope or anything else that is small. Swiss balls are good but I've only used mine as an addition to doing other exercise i.e. running and for sitting on.

In fact even youtube has fitness classes on it that instructors have kindly put on.

Strapped

Agree with the above - skipping rope, punchbag, body weight exercises, set of stairs. Don't bother with expensive bits of gym equipment when you can do everything you need.

Del_Astra

Does dd have a wii? Lots of options for increasing the heart rate and working up a sweet. We have got Zumba, the whole family does it, now I would be highly unlikely to attend a class, but in my own living room, I'll give it a blast.

You also get to turn the heating down if you do Zumba on the wii.

benjifrank

Great, I use treadmill & do exercise at home regularly for keeping myself fit & fine.

techno12

Highly recommend a crosstrainer if you have the space and cash..

I've used them for nearly 10 years, pretty much every day (easy if you download some telly to watch - my daily half hour just flies by). I love the convenience and as it's in the spare room it's easy to find a spare half hour. I've never set foot in a gym due to the high monthly fees and bad press regarding contracts.

You need to spend a fair bit on them though (maybe £400+) as the cheaper ones break. The cheapest one you see in Argos etc that is mechanical and has 'air cooling' started squeaking within days and one of the welds snapped within a month. I've broken 5 different machines and I spent more and more on each replacement once they were out of warranty.

The pics below are the last 2 breaks on my previous machine (£280), though that one was the 3rd complete replacement machine the company had sent me during the 3-year warranty period. The previous two were broken beyond repair due to the main frame cracking.





Spot the design flaw on that bracket! They even tried strengthening it after I'd had those parts replaced half a dozen times, to no avail ;-)


My latest one (£550 I think it cost) weighs about 80kg, is near silent, just feels 'quality' and has a 10 year onsite parts and labour guarantee. It's survived 18months so far with no hiccups at all, even the nuts and bolts haven't needed tightening up once (with the others they gradually worked loose and had to be tightened every few weeks).

I'm chuffed as I finally found a machine that didn't break at the welds/joints (or gradually develop hairline cracks along the main vertical stem, a couple of them did that. Or have the drive belt snap/slip off - again, that happened a few times too). A bit alarming when they fail mid-workout...

PS I'm 11 stone or so and thus the cheaper ones didn't fail due to excessive weight - they failed due to bad design or build quality.

PPS Blimey, I've waffled on a bit. But I've been through the mill with crosstrainers. Still love 'em though!