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Build Your Complete Home Gym for Under $1,000 | Bonus · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: Hey there, wits and Weights listeners, philip Pape here with a special bonus episode from the archives.
• 0:06
  Philip Pape: I'm dropping episode eight from the early days.
• 0:09
  Philip Pape: That covers everything you need to know about building your ultimate home gym, and a lot of this still holds up, even though I cringe a little bit at hearing myself back in the early days.
• 0:19
  Philip Pape: It's fascinating for two reasons.
• 0:21
  Philip Pape: One, you get to hear what one of the early episodes sounded like.
• 0:23
  Philip Pape: But number two, and most importantly, it really goes step by step through the principles and recommendations for building a home gym, which is one of the best investments you can make for your fitness journey.
• 0:35
  Philip Pape: It saves you a ton of time, it eliminates excuses, it gives you total control over your training environment and, of course, you can do it totally safely.
• 0:45
  Philip Pape: Now, to complement this episode, I created a brand new Ultimate Home Gym Guide that distills all of this information into a TLDR.
• 0:54
  Philip Pape: It's an easy-to-follow, just a few pages long format with my equipment recommendations and pricing, and it's structured to get you from a very basic, minimalist home gym for less than a thousand dollars up to the add-ons and toys and things you're going to want as you you may want as you build your gym.
• 1:12
  Philip Pape: You can download this free using the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash free, where you'll find lots and lots of other free guides.
• 1:19
  Philip Pape: But again, for this one, just click the link in the show notes or go to witsandweightscom slash free.
• 1:24
  Philip Pape: Now let's get into the original episode, where we cover the pros and cons of home gyms the space requirements, the flooring options, the essential equipment to start with, and how to gradually build your setup over time without breaking the bank.
• 1:39
  Philip Pape: Enjoy.
• 1:40
  Philip Pape: One of our big goals on this podcast is sustainability and consistency, and the whole process of going to the gym is sometimes a huge barrier for many of us to just that weather.
• 1:54
  Philip Pape: Convenience within our schedules, compounded by access to random equipment at the gym, sharing a rack or barbell with other members waiting your turn, sometimes dealing with policies like no deadlifting these are just some of the many reasons we find to just hit the snooze button and avoid our workouts altogether.
• 2:20
  Philip Pape: That's why building your own home gym can be a huge factor in developing good habits and consistency with your workout routine.
• 2:30
  Philip Pape: It saves a ton of time, you can choose exactly the equipment you need, you can control the entire experience and environment, and you could be more flexible with your training schedule.
• 2:42
  Philip Pape: It's a simple but highly effective step you can take to eliminate excuses and keep making progress.
• 2:49
  Philip Pape: In today's episode we cover the pros and cons of a home gym where in your home and how much space you need for your home gym, what type of flooring to use the basic equipment to get you started and make tons of gains on the main lifts, then some extra equipment you might need for accessory or bodybuilding movements and finally, nice to have equipment to cover almost everything else and build the ultimate home gym.
• 3:19
  Philip Pape: First, let's start by talking about the pros and cons of a home gym.
• 3:23
  Philip Pape: The biggest pro, the biggest benefit of a home gym is just that you don't have to drive anywhere.
• 3:29
  Philip Pape: It saves you a ton of time.
• 3:31
  Philip Pape: It could be anywhere from 30 minutes, but more likely to one or two hours because of the entire process of getting ready and traveling and getting your session going at the gym and doing that times two because of the round trip and because you don't have that extra fixed time of traveling to the gym.
• 3:52
  Philip Pape: You could split up your sessions, for example, or you can have smaller or larger sessions much more flexibly.
• 3:58
  Philip Pape: So there's flexibility with your time.
• 4:01
  Philip Pape: You can squeeze in an hour at lunch, if you're working from home, for example, or you can sleep in an extra 30 minutes and just get a little bit more recovery before you work out.
• 4:11
  Philip Pape: Of course, you don't need to pack a big gym bag or a change of clothes and you might forget something.
• 4:18
  Philip Pape: You have it all right there, convenient to you.
• 4:21
  Philip Pape: All of your equipment is there.
• 4:23
  Philip Pape: Everything's waiting for you, ready to go, with the settings you'd like, with consistently marked barbells, consistent weights between plates and dumbbells and so on.
• 4:35
  Philip Pape: And if you are taking care of your family, if you have children to care for or you need to be there for them or you're a single parent, it's just that much more convenient because you're in the same space.
• 4:46
  Philip Pape: You're only a few steps away.
• 4:48
  Philip Pape: So that's the big one related to time and convenience.
• 4:52
  Philip Pape: The second thing is you could research and buy the exact equipment you need over time for your specific goals.
• 4:59
  Philip Pape: The equipment will be consistent from one workout to the next.
• 5:03
  Philip Pape: You know I mentioned the plates and I mentioned the dumbbells, but you might also consider the barbell, the knurling on the barbell, the height of your rack, the height of the hooks on the rack, the height of your bench, the angle of your bench and so on.
• 5:17
  Philip Pape: You could also make sure that it's safe.
• 5:20
  Philip Pape: You know you have the right pins in the rack, the spotter arms.
• 5:24
  Philip Pape: You know how things are balanced, how things are level.
• 5:28
  Philip Pape: You have complete control over the equipment to become familiar with it and make sure that it's safe, which is a huge component of lifting over the long term and lifting sustainably.
• 5:38
  Philip Pape: And, of course, you can keep expanding your gym over time and add equipment as you need it when you need it for your particular goals.
• 5:47
  Philip Pape: This is your environment.
• 5:50
  Philip Pape: Now that is a huge one for some people.
• 5:52
  Philip Pape: You can wear whatever you want.
• 5:54
  Philip Pape: You can throw on whatever clothes you want.
• 5:55
  Philip Pape: Don't have to worry about the judgment of others or how you look.
• 5:58
  Philip Pape: You can listen to your music as loud as you want, whatever type of music you want.
• 6:02
  Philip Pape: You could change the temperature.
• 6:04
  Philip Pape: You could change the temperature.
• 6:06
  Philip Pape: You could change the lighting.
• 6:11
  Philip Pape: For example, I actually have a smart bulb right over my rack so that when I do bench presses, I could dim or turn off the light so it's not shining in my face.
• 6:15
  Philip Pape: You have privacy to practice your form without others commenting or trying to give you advice or bothering you, and for some people, this is much more of a problem than others in some of these big box gyms.
• 6:29
  Philip Pape: Having a home gym helps you establish consistency and accountability, because it's always visible, it's easy to access, it helps you stick to your routine, totally eliminating that excuse of going to the gym and, of course, you won't get the flu or COVID from those other disgusting gym patrons.
• 6:48
  Philip Pape: I'm kidding, or am I All right?
• 6:52
  Philip Pape: Now let's talk about some of the disadvantages that might come up that we have to consider.
• 6:55
  Philip Pape: The first one is it takes space.
• 6:58
  Philip Pape: You have to have enough space for all your equipment, but it's not as much space as you think, and we can get creative with this.
• 7:01
  Philip Pape: If you're able to find space for some of equipment, but it's not as much space as you think, and we can get creative with this.
• 7:05
  Philip Pape: If you're able to find space for some of the other things in your house you should probably be able to find space for if this is something serious for your lifestyle.
• 7:16
  Philip Pape: In addition to two-dimensional space, there's the three-dimensional space, the height that is required for not only pull and chin-ups but pressing, and we'll talk about the height requirements in a bit.
• 7:30
  Philip Pape: Cost, okay, some people think this is a disadvantage because now you have to buy all of this expensive equipment, or seemingly expensive, and there are strategies where you can shop used.
• 7:43
  Philip Pape: You could simply acquire what you need over time, so it's manageable within your budget.
• 7:48
  Philip Pape: But I would actually say that the cost could also be an advantage, because the equipment you invest in can easily last decades, if not your entire life if well maintained.
• 7:59
  Philip Pape: And comparing that to a monthly membership at a gym, over time there is a payback of probably five to ten years and once you get over that initial hump of equipment, after that it's really more of an elective process of if you need this or that over time and small investments here or there.
• 8:18
  Philip Pape: Now the next advantage is really a more practical one, and that is that you're going to have limited equipment, at least initially.
• 8:27
  Philip Pape: You're not going to have the 50 machines that a big box gym might have, so what you might do is keep paying your gym membership, which are usually pretty inexpensive $20, $30 a month.
• 8:39
  Philip Pape: It's really not that much for a typical gym membership.
• 8:42
  Philip Pape: Really not that much for a typical gym membership, just so that you can go in maybe once or twice a week or every now and then for special equipment like a calf raise machine or cable crossover or some other specialized device that you don't have space or budget for in your home gym, or it just wouldn't be worth investing in, given the cost versus how often you're going to use it.
• 9:03
  Philip Pape: And I guess the last disadvantage is that for some people a home gym is maybe too flexible, it's not structured enough and you may want the accountability of having to go to another place to work out.
• 9:16
  Philip Pape: But even in that case, consider a hybrid option where you have a very basic gym at home for the big compound lifts you know, the rack, the barbell, et cetera.
• 9:25
  Philip Pape: We'll talk about and continue to use the membership which gives you the option to go either direction on any given day for your workout.
• 9:32
  Philip Pape: Those are what I would say are the big pros and cons of a home gym, and maybe I'm biased, but I think there's a heavy lean toward the advantages of a home gym and some of the disadvantages can be mitigated in most cases.
• 9:48
  Philip Pape: All right, now let's talk about the location in your home and the space requirements for a home gym, just so you can think ahead about this and really plan it out, so you don't just start throwing equipment in some random spot in your house and then regret it a few months later, especially how heavy some of this equipment is.
• 10:10
  Philip Pape: The first consideration is a solid floor that can support enough weight.
• 10:14
  Philip Pape: This may seem obvious, but some of you might live in an apartment, a condominium, or be considering the second or third floor of your house, and you just have to make sure that the load that it can support is sufficient.
• 10:28
  Philip Pape: This usually then leads to using a garage or basement, which tend to have concrete floors, or some sort of extra room on the first floor or corner of a big room.
• 10:42
  Philip Pape: Now I actually have my gym in what's called a bonus room.
• 10:46
  Philip Pape: It's a room over the garage, but it's climate controlled and I'm fortunate enough to have the space there.
• 10:52
  Philip Pape: I also know how the house was built because I built it myself and per today's code, you have to have these massive laminated beams.
• 11:03
  Philip Pape: It supports thousands of pounds of weight.
• 11:05
  Philip Pape: I did the calculations.
• 11:07
  Philip Pape: There's no way I'm going to exceed that.
• 11:08
  Philip Pape: In whatever configuration I use up there A garage, in most places you're going to have to deal with the climate, meaning cold space in the winter, a hot, humid space in the summer.
• 11:20
  Philip Pape: The humidity could be a challenge for your barbell and your plates, but plenty of people have garage gyms.
• 11:26
  Philip Pape: It works and if that's the best space for your gym, go for it.
• 11:29
  Philip Pape: Basements tend to be a little more temperature controlled, a little more stable throughout the year, a little bit on the cool end, but stable, so those will work.
• 11:38
  Philip Pape: The problem with the basement tends to be height.
• 11:40
  Philip Pape: Most older houses, or even modern houses, sometimes have a low ceiling, as low as, say, seven feet, and we're going to talk soon about the need for eight feet to do everything you need to do.
• 11:53
  Philip Pape: If you can't, then you'll be limited in what you can do, or you can split up in your house where you perform certain movements like pull-ups and presses might have to be performed in a different spot than everything else.
• 12:06
  Philip Pape: I would say maybe the best option is if you have an extra room on the first floor climate controlled supports the weight that's a great option, something like a spare bedroom or office, or if there's a corner or section of a larger room.
• 12:20
  Philip Pape: Most people don't want a bunch of gym equipment staring at them in their living room when they're hanging out, you know, at the kitchen or watching TV.
• 12:28
  Philip Pape: So again, you have to consider all these lifestyle and comfort factors.
• 12:32
  Philip Pape: Now, what about the space needed?
• 12:34
  Philip Pape: All right, I was remeasuring my gym, I was looking at it again, I was checking out some equipment online and I think that a reasonable space to cover most of your needs for the vast majority of your early lifting career is 12 feet by 12 feet, and this will allow you to lay down some solid flooring, have a power rack clearance for your barbell.
• 13:03
  Philip Pape: Consider that a barbell is a little over seven feet long, so when it's sitting in the rack you need at least the seven feet.
• 13:10
  Philip Pape: But you also need room to maneuver to the sides of the bar to load plates and you don't want to be crammed up against the wall either and you don't want to be slamming your bar into the drywall.
• 13:23
  Philip Pape: So you want that extra space.
• 13:25
  Philip Pape: So 12 feet gives you the room, and then 12 feet the other direction.
• 13:29
  Philip Pape: The depth gives you room for your bench or incline bench to stick out, as well as room in front of the rack for pressing, for deadlifting and for other movements.
• 13:40
  Philip Pape: You're going to want to do dumbbell movements, say, with an incline bench, and you don't necessarily want that crammed inside your power rack movements.
• 13:43
  Philip Pape: You're going to want to do dumbbell movements, say, with an incline bench, and you don't necessarily want that crammed inside your power rack.
• 13:47
  Philip Pape: So the space of 12 feet by 12 feet should be fine.
• 13:51
  Philip Pape: My own gym it's about 13 feet wide, which is plenty of space.
• 13:56
  Philip Pape: I actually have extra equipment on either side and then it's 12 feet deep and I actually even have a vertical leg press machine in the corner of that, 12 feet in front of the rack, and it still gives me enough room to work.
• 14:10
  Philip Pape: And then, as far as height, you need 8 feet and that's because typically a pull-up bar, you'll want it to be about 7 feet high.
• 14:18
  Philip Pape: If you buy a economy I'll call it or a value power rack, the pull-up bar tends to be raised a bit and it's at about seven feet, which is tall enough to hang from it and do your pulls.
• 14:30
  Philip Pape: But then you also need a one foot clearance above that for your head and your shoulders when you do those pulls, but also for overhead presses or shoulder presses.
• 14:41
  Philip Pape: Consider that a six foot tall male would push the bar up to about seven feet.
• 14:47
  Philip Pape: But then the plates the radius of a plate is eight inches.
• 14:52
  Philip Pape: So you definitely want that extra foot above the seven feet.
• 14:55
  Philip Pape: And of course if you're extra tall you may need slightly more than that.
• 14:59
  Philip Pape: So that then tends to limit you to a garage, or a typical house has eight foot tall ceilings or in many cases, first floors today have nine feet tall ceilings, and this goes back to my comment about basements being a little bit low.
• 15:13
  Philip Pape: If it's not eight feet, you're going to have to consider what to do in that situation.
• 15:17
  Philip Pape: For pull-ups and chin-ups.
• 15:19
  Philip Pape: You could always put a rig anywhere, basically a pull-up rig or a doorframe bar one that sticks out enough so you're not hitting yourself on the door frame.
• 15:29
  Philip Pape: But you still need that extra height for the overhead presses.
• 15:31
  Philip Pape: Otherwise you'll be limiting to doing Z presses and seated presses, things like that, but we really want to do the full standing overhead press.
• 15:38
  Philip Pape: The only other space that you'll want to consider is for the extra equipment you might have, like a dumbbell rack or extra benches or a stand, a freestanding plant stand for your plates, and this is where, again, like let's talk about the plates for a second I have plate holders that attach into the holes on my power rack that save space, or there are wall mounted racks and shelves for different things, so you can get creative.
• 16:06
  Philip Pape: Of course, you can have other gear.
• 16:08
  Philip Pape: You can have your dip belt and your shoes and collars and all these things, and for that you can go with a storage bin or shelving or something like that.
• 16:17
  Philip Pape: Now let's talk about flooring.
• 16:18
  Philip Pape: Right, we're working our way up from the floor on up.
• 16:21
  Philip Pape: We've got our space and now we have to have flooring.
• 16:24
  Philip Pape: Well, if you're in a garage or a basement, you've got concrete flooring.
• 16:28
  Philip Pape: I don't think you want to be doing certain movements and dropping your bar and dropping your dumbbells on right onto the concrete, and similarly, if you're in a carpeted area or hardwood flooring, you don't want to damage the flooring.
• 16:42
  Philip Pape: So we want something that's hard but somewhat shock absorbing and a very common solution, and one that I use myself and I'm sure there are superior solutions depending on time, money, resources, creativity.
• 16:55
  Philip Pape: What I use is plywood covered by horse stall mats, and you see this as a very common solution.
• 17:02
  Philip Pape: Google it online, you'll see, see floor plans, you'll see how to do this.
• 17:05
  Philip Pape: But you can easily take, say, half inch or three quarter inch plywood, go ahead and get the the finished grade plywood that's really smooth, that you can just lay right on your carpet or right on the concrete, and then horse stall mats.
• 17:20
  Philip Pape: You can go anywhere from specialized gym rubber flooring, which tends to be a bit pricey, all the way down to the horse stall mats, a tractor supply, which is what I got, and they do give off a little bit of a smell.
• 17:33
  Philip Pape: Initially they go through what's called off gassing, but if you let them sit in your garage for, say, a week, bring them in, they're fine and they're great.
• 17:43
  Philip Pape: They're thick, they're great, they're thick, they're shock absorbing and they make a perfect cover on top of the plywood to give you gym flooring.
• 17:51
  Philip Pape: Now some people like to have a deadlift platform in addition to that.
• 17:55
  Philip Pape: You can make your own or you can purchase one.
• 17:57
  Philip Pape: They tend to be a little more expensive and I'm not really including this in the initial equipment because you don't have to have it.
• 18:03
  Philip Pape: When I do deadlifts, I don't throw the bar on the ground like I learned to do in CrossFit with bumper plates.
• 18:10
  Philip Pape: I use iron plates, so I'm lowering the bar to the ground.
• 18:14
  Philip Pape: If the flooring supports the weight and you've got some shock absorption, you should be fine.
• 18:20
  Philip Pape: But if you're worried about it, there's something called a deadlift platform, meant to absorb the shock from deadlifts and protect your floor further.
• 18:27
  Philip Pape: You can also get drop pads drop pads that go on either side of you so you could drop the bar onto the pads and they absorb the shock.
• 18:35
  Philip Pape: The problem there is you need to then be on a platform yourself so that the bar isn't elevated.
• 18:41
  Philip Pape: Anyway, that's flooring.
• 18:43
  Philip Pape: And again, I would just start with the basic plywood and rubber mats, and that should be fine for quite a long time.
• 18:50
  Philip Pape: Now let's talk about the basic equipment.
• 18:52
  Philip Pape: If you can acquire the things we'll talk about in this section of the episode, then that will be enough to get you going pretty far before you become intermediate or advanced.
• 19:05
  Philip Pape: And if it works for you, you'll quickly decide that you want to start gathering some of the other equipment because you'll see how convenient, how much fun it is.
• 19:13
  Philip Pape: But I'll let you get there on your own.
• 19:15
  Philip Pape: Let's just talk about the equipment itself.
• 19:17
  Philip Pape: The first thing, the most important piece of equipment and one of the best investments you can make, is, of course, the barbell.
• 19:24
  Philip Pape: And we are looking for a barbell that will last you a lifetime, that will support all the weight you could ever lift, that is of high quality, that has the right markings, the right knurling, that can be maintained, that has the proper coating.
• 19:41
  Philip Pape: There's all these things.
• 19:42
  Philip Pape: So we're looking for the standard Olympic or seven-foot power bar or similar that has the proper coating, there's all these things.
• 19:46
  Philip Pape: So we're looking for the standard Olympic or seven foot power bar or similar that has several features and I'm going to tell you what I like in a bar and it's not what I had in my first bar.
• 19:54
  Philip Pape: So when I bought my first bar, it was from a guy off of, I think, facebook market and I met him in a parking lot but he was a college student who could deadlift 600 pounds.
• 20:04
  Philip Pape: That's what he'd use the bar for was all of his training.
• 20:07
  Philip Pape: I think he was a football or hockey player and he was going to be an engineer.
• 20:12
  Philip Pape: He was upgrading his gym and he didn't need the bar anymore and I think I paid something like 75 bucks for it.
• 20:18
  Philip Pape: But that bar lasted me a long time and I did tons of work with it, but it lacked some of the features that I got with my current bar.
• 20:27
  Philip Pape: My current bar is a Rogue Ohio power bar and you'll probably hear that all over the place the more you get into this, because it's one of the most popular, effective bars out there.
• 20:36
  Philip Pape: It's a high quality piece of equipment.
• 20:39
  Philip Pape: Now I bought it as part of their Boneyard sale, so this is one of my pieces of advice is just look for sales, buy used when you can, as you build your gym, save some money, get the same quality.
• 20:52
  Philip Pape: The Boneyard bars from Rogue are just bars that have some sort of imperfection.
• 20:58
  Philip Pape: That is non-functional, and I don't even know what the problem is with my bar.
• 21:02
  Philip Pape: To be honest, it's a beautiful bar.
• 21:04
  Philip Pape: Now here are some of the features that it has that I would look for in any bar that will last you a lifetime.
• 21:09
  Philip Pape: First of all is the knurling.
• 21:12
  Philip Pape: Does it have fairly aggressive knurling?
• 21:16
  Philip Pape: Knurling is the cross hatching that's etched into the bar, and I would look for center knurling.
• 21:22
  Philip Pape: Okay, so right in the middle there's knurling, which is great for squats because the bar will stick to your back, and then I would look for a smooth section on either side of that and that's where your shins will be when you deadlift.
• 21:37
  Philip Pape: And then more knurling beyond that, up to the sleeves.
• 21:40
  Philip Pape: On that outer knurling, there should be at least one ring grooved into either side at 32 inches apart, and this is the standard width for power lifting, for the bench, and it serves as a reference point for bench pressing, pressing, squatting, so that you can standardize your lifts.
• 22:01
  Philip Pape: This is one of the benefits of being at home and using the same bar over and over.
• 22:05
  Philip Pape: You know where your grip's going to be and you know how the bar is going to feel.
• 22:10
  Philip Pape: The next thing is look on the end of the bar and you should see no hex nut in the center of the end.
• 22:17
  Philip Pape: You should just see it.
• 22:18
  Philip Pape: It should look flat or slightly recessed, but no nut at the end of the bar.
• 22:23
  Philip Pape: That indicates that it's a good quality bar, that it's nut at the end of the bar.
• 22:25
  Philip Pape: That indicates that it's a good quality bar, that it's smooth at the end.
• 22:27
  Philip Pape: The sleeves themselves should spin very easily.
• 22:31
  Philip Pape: And then the material.
• 22:32
  Philip Pape: I have a raw steel bar Now, a raw steel bar.
• 22:35
  Philip Pape: It's going to last me forever.
• 22:37
  Philip Pape: It's strong, it looks great, it's just metal and all I have to do is wipe it and oil it with three-in-one oil and a bristle brush occasionally.
• 22:48
  Philip Pape: Now I don't have a humid environment.
• 22:50
  Philip Pape: It's climate controlled, so I have a lot of leeway in how often I do that.
• 22:53
  Philip Pape: If you are in a humid environment and you go with raw steel, you just have to keep it maintained to avoid rust and oxidation.
• 23:00
  Philip Pape: But there are many other coatings and a lot of it's based on preference and feel you know there's zinc coatings, there's black coatings, different colors, different materials.
• 23:11
  Philip Pape: So just do the research and pick something that you think will work for you.
• 23:15
  Philip Pape: Now, cost-wise, a barbell a good barbell should run you anywhere from, I mean, on the low, low, low end, maybe $200, and then up to mid $400, $500.
• 23:27
  Philip Pape: So the Rogue Ohio Power Bar last I checked was in the low $400s and the version I got on sale I think it was like $250 or $275.
• 23:37
  Philip Pape: So it was a great deal.
• 23:38
  Philip Pape: But budget about $300 or $400 for your barbell, unless you get it used, and then you might get a great deal.
• 23:44
  Philip Pape: And then to go with the barbell, we need a power rack, also called a power cage.
• 23:50
  Philip Pape: In some cases some folks go ahead and get a squat stand, for example, which doesn't have the full four or six uprights.
• 24:00
  Philip Pape: It's not a box, it just a stand.
• 24:03
  Philip Pape: I would recommend going straight for the power rack because it's very versatile.
• 24:07
  Philip Pape: It's going to provide you a lot more capabilities for accessories, for expandability in the future.
• 24:13
  Philip Pape: It's strong, it's safe.
• 24:15
  Philip Pape: It's just the way to go, especially given the price difference today.
• 24:20
  Philip Pape: It's not very much.
• 24:21
  Philip Pape: I would go straight for a power rack.
• 24:23
  Philip Pape: A power rack is simply a box of steel angle iron posts.
• 24:29
  Philip Pape: It's typically a budget or value power rack like the one I have.
• 24:33
  Philip Pape: It's four upright posts with a base connected at the top with a couple pull-up bars, with neutral handle bars connecting the two pull-up bars.
• 24:44
  Philip Pape: Mine has 2x2, but you can find 3x2 or 3x3 steel with holes at different distances and the holes are where you will fasten the hooks to put your barbell in.
• 25:01
  Philip Pape: You can put in your pins, your safety pins, your spotter arms and then all sorts of other attachments like plate holders.
• 25:10
  Philip Pape: A power rack is typically about four feet by four feet in terms of footprint, unless you go with bigger, more expensive, maybe one that has six uprights, something like the Sorenax or you know, in the really pricey range.
• 25:22
  Philip Pape: Then you start to take up more and more space.
• 25:24
  Philip Pape: But consider about 4x4, and this is where you've got your power rack.
• 25:28
  Philip Pape: You've got your bar.
• 25:29
  Philip Pape: The 12 feet total width makes a lot of sense, and the 12 feet depth because it gives you all that extra space around it to get all your work done.
• 25:39
  Philip Pape: I would say today you could get a decent power rack for anywhere on the low end, as low as potentially $300.
• 25:46
  Philip Pape: If you go to Amazon or something like that.
• 25:48
  Philip Pape: You can find decent power racks.
• 25:50
  Philip Pape: You look at the reviews, you look at how it's tested.
• 25:53
  Philip Pape: They hold up really well.
• 25:54
  Philip Pape: But then the price of a power rack can go up to $400, $500, $600 for a pretty good one, up to $1,000 and up.
• 26:02
  Philip Pape: I mean, you know, sky's the limit, depending on what your budget is and what you're looking for With the power rack.
• 26:08
  Philip Pape: It should at a minimum have safety pins or spotter arms.
• 26:13
  Philip Pape: You have to have that for safety during bench, press and squats.
• 26:17
  Philip Pape: So when you bench you're going to set the pins between your chest and neck height so that if you fail a bench, you're just going to gently lay it onto the pins.
• 26:27
  Philip Pape: It's not going to crush you.
• 26:28
  Philip Pape: That is the least safe movement when it comes to working by yourself.
• 26:34
  Philip Pape: So you have to have those pins.
• 26:35
  Philip Pape: Squats similarly.
• 26:37
  Philip Pape: You would set the squats low enough so that if you failed it, you could just drop the bar onto the pins gently.
• 26:44
  Philip Pape: I would also recommend, if the power rack doesn't come with J-hooks, if it comes with these small hooks that don't have much of a vertical back to them that goes up maybe 6, 8, 10 inches along the upright, to get a separate set of J-hooks, and J-hooks are nice because then when you slam the bar back onto the uprights, when you push it into the rack, when you're racking it, they hit the back of the J-hook and not the upright itself, so you're not going to wear or damage the uprights.
• 27:19
  Philip Pape: You're going to push it on the hooks.
• 27:22
  Philip Pape: So we've got our barbell and we've got our rack.
• 27:25
  Philip Pape: The other things we need are bench and plates.
• 27:29
  Philip Pape: So let's talk about the bench.
• 27:30
  Philip Pape: At a minimum, you want a flat bench and there are many options there as well, but make sure the bench can support plenty of weight.
• 27:38
  Philip Pape: And then look at the base of the bench, look at the feet, make sure they're high quality.
• 27:44
  Philip Pape: There are some benches that are more like powerlifting style, like a tripod.
• 27:49
  Philip Pape: They might have a single leg in front to give you plenty of clearance for your feet, but almost any bench will work.
• 27:55
  Philip Pape: Plenty of clearance for your feet, but almost any bench will work.
• 28:01
  Philip Pape: And if you want to invest now in something that will give you more flexibility down the road, get an adjustable bench that can go into an incline, also called an FID, which is flat incline decline bench, so that it allows you to incline presses and other movements like decline sit-ups.
• 28:18
  Philip Pape: And then, on top of that, if you can find an FID bench that allows for attachments, like the one I have now.
• 28:26
  Philip Pape: I actually just acquired an FID bench that has a leg developer attachment for curls and extensions.
• 28:32
  Philip Pape: It also has a preacher curl attachment.
• 28:35
  Philip Pape: The more you want in something like this, the more it's going to cost.
• 28:38
  Philip Pape: So, from a starter perspective, a flat bench that's $100, $150 should be fine, but you can go all the way up to $400, $500, $600 for these more advanced benches.
• 28:48
  Philip Pape: And finally, you need plates, of course, to go with your barbell, and at a minimum I would say you need at least three or four pairs of 45s, depending on how strong you are.
• 29:00
  Philip Pape: If you're pretty weak, if you're just getting started, then three pairs should be enough, because three pairs will get you to 315 pounds on the bar and you can always go a little bit higher than that with the smaller weights added to it.
• 29:12
  Philip Pape: But get four pairs if you're a little bit stronger than that to it, but get four pairs if you're a little bit stronger than that.
• 29:19
  Philip Pape: So, three or four pairs of 45s, at least one pair of 25s, at least two pairs of 10s, a pair of fives and a pair of two and a halves.
• 29:30
  Philip Pape: Also, I would suggest microplates Microplates you could usually buy a package of microplates that give you a quarter, a half, three quarter and one pound plates.
• 29:39
  Philip Pape: This is for more incremental loading on something like the overhead press.
• 29:44
  Philip Pape: And then when you buy your plates, make sure to weigh them, take out your scale right when the plates come in or right when you buy them.
• 29:51
  Philip Pape: Weigh the plates and make sure they're very close to what's marked.
• 29:55
  Philip Pape: You don't want a 45 pound plate.
• 29:57
  Philip Pape: That's 41 pounds.
• 29:58
  Philip Pape: This has happened to me a couple times and I had to reach out to manufacturing, say hey guys, what are you giving me here?
• 30:04
  Philip Pape: I need to send these back.
• 30:05
  Philip Pape: Send me something that's close to what it's rated now.
• 30:08
  Philip Pape: Iron plates cast iron plates are the cheapest.
• 30:10
  Philip Pape: They'll last you forever.
• 30:12
  Philip Pape: That's what I use.
• 30:13
  Philip Pape: That's what most serious lifters use who don't want to then invest in olympic or bumper plates, which tend to be more expensive.
• 30:23
  Philip Pape: But they're nice because they save your floor.
• 30:26
  Philip Pape: They're great to put onto the bar with deadlifts.
• 30:30
  Philip Pape: You could do a hybrid approach.
• 30:32
  Philip Pape: You can get a pair, one pair of bumper plate 45, throw those on the bar and then use iron plates for the rest of the weight when you do a deadlift, and that'll soften the landing when the bar is lowered.
• 30:45
  Philip Pape: When it's lowered, not dropped.
• 30:47
  Philip Pape: When it's lowered, because we're not going to be dropping our bars in our house, we're going to be lowering them.
• 30:51
  Philip Pape: The price of plates can vary widely, especially in today's supply chain and crazy market.
• 30:58
  Philip Pape: There's places like Rogue and Titan Fitness and even Amazon that sells, I think, the Cap brand, and as long as it's a piece of iron with a two-inch hole that weighs what you need to, it's probably going to work.
• 31:12
  Philip Pape: Now, the only other consideration with plates are where you're going to store them.
• 31:16
  Philip Pape: So if you have a power rack, then you might be able to put on plate holder attachments.
• 31:21
  Philip Pape: They look like the two inch rods that stick out onto a base that attaches to a hole on the rack, or six of those to hold all your weights.
• 31:37
  Philip Pape: That's how I do it.
• 31:37
  Philip Pape: Or you can get a freestanding plate holder that goes on the ground.
• 31:39
  Philip Pape: And then don't forget to get bar collars.
• 31:40
  Philip Pape: They might get thrown in with the rack or some of the other equipment, the spring-loaded collars, and there's different variations of collars.
• 31:47
  Philip Pape: Basically, these go on to the end of the bar to hold the plates on.
• 31:51
  Philip Pape: For certain movements.
• 31:52
  Philip Pape: I wouldn't use bar collars for bench presses, for example, because you might want to shift the plates off from a safety perspective, but any movement where the plates can slide off, you would use the collars.
• 32:05
  Philip Pape: And that's it for basic equipment that will let you perform the deadlift, the squat, the bench press, the overhead press, pull-ups and chin-ups.
• 32:14
  Philip Pape: That'll take you very far and if you have just that, you can do a lot of your programming, even as you get into intermediate and advanced stages, and you can combine that with a commercial gym for some of the other work and that's a pretty good, a reasonable approach.
• 32:30
  Philip Pape: But if you want, like me, to continue to build your home gym and do more and more from home to the point where you probably don't even need to go to the gym, let's talk about some of the extra equipment that will cover, I'll say, 10 to 15% of the remaining 20%, and the first is going to be dumbbells.
• 32:52
  Philip Pape: You could either acquire individual pairs they're not too expensive.
• 32:56
  Philip Pape: They've definitely gone up in price over the last couple years this is 2022, and we saw them go up during the pandemic and some of them are still fairly expensive or go ahead and invest in a pair of adjustable dumbbells.
• 33:09
  Philip Pape: I have a pair that's similar to the Bowflex, I think Selectex.
• 33:15
  Philip Pape: They're similar to that, but it's an off-brand.
• 33:17
  Philip Pape: There's also the Powerblocks.
• 33:19
  Philip Pape: There's other brands coming out all the time.
• 33:21
  Philip Pape: I would look for dumbbells that can go up to at least 90 pounds.
• 33:25
  Philip Pape: Don't get the ones that are limited to 52 and a half, because those will just.
• 33:30
  Philip Pape: You'll hit a wall pretty quickly when you get to things like pressing or shrugs or something like that.
• 33:37
  Philip Pape: So get as heavy as you can that you can afford, and these tend to be fairly expensive.
• 33:43
  Philip Pape: Let's say anywhere from $400 to $800 for the pair, or even more.
• 33:48
  Philip Pape: But comparing that to a bunch of different pairs of iron dumbbells, it may be the better investment.
• 33:55
  Philip Pape: And then you of course need a stand or a rack to hold the dumbbells or even the adjustable dumbbells.
• 34:00
  Philip Pape: But dumbbells open up a ton of movements where your arms can move independently, whether it's bench presses, overhead presses, rows, shrugs, all sorts of bodybuilding movements like side laterals, front raises and so on.
• 34:16
  Philip Pape: And these are the kinds of things you will start to incorporate as you become more advanced as variations of the main lifts or accessories for weak spots and for bodybuilding.
• 34:25
  Philip Pape: If you're really on a budget, you could just get dumbbell handles that you can load plates onto either the one-inch plates, but then you would need to buy the special one-inch plates.
• 34:36
  Philip Pape: Plates onto either the one-inch plates, but then you would need to buy the special one-inch plates or the Olympic size where you can throw your two-inch plates right onto the handles.
• 34:46
  Philip Pape: The downside of that is the inconvenience and the hassle of constantly taking off and loading the weight, especially if you want to do something like drop sets or you want to change the load or go from one movement to the next.
• 34:54
  Philip Pape: It is kind of a hassle.
• 34:56
  Philip Pape: I wouldn't necessarily recommend that.
• 34:58
  Philip Pape: If you can go ahead right for full dumbbells or the adjustable dumbbells that have the dial on it.
• 35:04
  Philip Pape: While you're getting acquiring dumbbells, you might want to buy one or two medium or heavy kettlebells, if that's part of your programming or what I have is actually a kettlebell handle.
• 35:15
  Philip Pape: It's a plastic handle with a rubber insert where it wraps around the dumbbell handle and turns the dumbbell into a kettlebell.
• 35:25
  Philip Pape: The second piece of equipment would be a dip attachment for your power rack.
• 35:30
  Philip Pape: You can obviously buy a separate dip machine, but you don't really need that if you could just get either the matador attachment or, like what I have are two separate handles that go into the holes on the power rack and now you can do dips, and if you have a dip belt, you can also do weighted dips, and dips are a fantastic movement as an accessory to your pressing into your triceps All right.
• 35:53
  Philip Pape: As an accessory to your pressing and to your triceps All right.
• 35:56
  Philip Pape: Then the next big piece of equipment would be a lat pull-down cable attachment.
• 36:01
  Philip Pape: Now you could buy a freestanding, all-in-one functional fitness machine is what I think they call them which tend to be quite expensive.
• 36:11
  Philip Pape: We're looking at maybe at least $1,000 just for that.
• 36:14
  Philip Pape: But if you planned ahead and you purchased a power rack that can support a lat pull down, that lat pull down itself may only be a couple hundred dollars as an attachment to the power rack.
• 36:24
  Philip Pape: And that's what I have and what's great about it.
• 36:26
  Philip Pape: It is plate loaded, so it's not a stack.
• 36:29
  Philip Pape: If you'd rather have a stack, you're probably going to pay a little more for that.
• 36:31
  Philip Pape: It's plate loaded, but it has a cable at the top and it has a cable at the bottom and it attaches to the power rack, so the rack itself provides stability.
• 36:40
  Philip Pape: Now this is where, if you have extra space and extra money.
• 36:44
  Philip Pape: If I went back to square one and budget was no limit, I might actually consider a functional fitness machine or a crossover a cable crossover machine where you have two separate cables, which really opens up a ton of more movements, things like flies and lots of other things.
• 36:59
  Philip Pape: But you don't need that.
• 37:01
  Philip Pape: A straight pull-down cable attachment will still let you do lat pull-downs with wide or narrow grips, seated rows, tricep press-downs, rope curls, one-arm cable variations like flies, lateral raises a ton of versatility.
• 37:17
  Philip Pape: A lot of these are, as you can tell, bodybuilding movements, but still we're talking about the next level of your home gym.
• 37:24
  Philip Pape: All right, let's go through some more equipment, and this isn't an exhaustive list or a list where you have to get everything.
• 37:31
  Philip Pape: This is to give you ideas of how you can add versatility, to give you ideas of how you can add versatility and movements to your home gym and start to whittle away the reasons that you need to go to another gym outside your house.
• 37:44
  Philip Pape: So the next thing is a landmine attachment, and these actually are fairly inexpensive.
• 37:49
  Philip Pape: They would attach to the base of your rack and it looks like a cylinder on a pivot, and the cylinder, which tends to be about maybe six or eight inches long is where the end of the barbell is inserted, and then there tends to be a tightening screw and now you have a free floating barbell attached on the floor that can pivot and it opens up movements like T-bar rows and landmine presses, and you can get attachments that go in the end for those types of movements.
• 38:22
  Philip Pape: So, for example, I like to do t-bar rows occasionally, really hit the lats the upper back and load a lot of weight for not much extra investment.
• 38:30
  Philip Pape: All right, to enhance all of this are some smaller items that I would consider.
• 38:36
  Philip Pape: One of those is an easy curl bar.
• 38:38
  Philip Pape: An easy curl bar is pretty inexpensive.
• 38:41
  Philip Pape: You can get one on Amazon for probably as little as $100 or less and they're great for curl variations, line tricep extensions, french overhead presses, and it's just one of those extra types of bars that you can get for very little additional investment.
• 38:59
  Philip Pape: Okay, the next item is a box, a strong box, probably 12 inches high.
• 39:06
  Philip Pape: Sometimes it's called a plyo box, or maybe one of those wood boxes that you see for box jumps and crossfit, or a steel box, or you can make your own, and these would be for box squats.
• 39:17
  Philip Pape: So it has to be low enough that you get to below parallel or right around or below parallel, but they could also be used as a platform.
• 39:25
  Philip Pape: You know you can stand on them before you do your dips or you could put your feet on them for deficit push-ups very versatile.
• 39:33
  Philip Pape: The next item is a bar holder.
• 39:35
  Philip Pape: Now that you have an easy bar and a barbell and when we get to the next section, we talk about other types of bars you may need a place to hold all these.
• 39:44
  Philip Pape: Or, if you have dumbbell handles that are the two inch dumbbell handles, you might need a bar holder that can hold something like five barbells.
• 39:53
  Philip Pape: The next item is a deadlift jack.
• 39:56
  Philip Pape: Now, I only got one of these.
• 39:57
  Philip Pape: Recently I saw Jujimufu talk about how this is the first piece of equipment you should get, which I thought was a little bit of hyperbole, and I realized how useful it can be.
• 40:09
  Philip Pape: It's basically what it sounds like it's a small jack and they come in different styles, different designs that you can insert under a bar, prop the bar up and then load your plates.
• 40:19
  Philip Pape: It holds the bar up just high enough so you can load your plates and avoid the awkwardness of trying to jimmy on all of your 45s before you do your deadlifts.
• 40:30
  Philip Pape: The next item is an ab wheel.
• 40:31
  Philip Pape: Yeah, as seen on TV from the 1990s infomercials.
• 40:33
  Philip Pape: Yeah, as seen on TV from the 1990s infomercials.
• 40:35
  Philip Pape: But the ab wheel is still around because ab wheel rollouts are a fantastic ab exercise, also called a roller ab roller.
• 40:45
  Philip Pape: There's the traditional wheel with the two handles and there's something like the Sorenex roller, which looks more like a rectangular frame that's flat on the ground with four wheels, great for ab workouts.
• 40:59
  Philip Pape: And then the last piece of equipment might be a calf block.
• 41:02
  Philip Pape: You could make your own.
• 41:03
  Philip Pape: Just look it up how to make a calf block.
• 41:06
  Philip Pape: Make it out of wood, or you can buy one made out of metal.
• 41:10
  Philip Pape: It's a simple horizontal bar, or some of them are triangular to put your feet, you know, on a wedge at an angle.
• 41:18
  Philip Pape: And these are for you guessed it calf raises, seated, seated or standing calf raises.
• 41:23
  Philip Pape: It just gives you a nice stable platform so you can get the full stretch and the full range of motion with your calves.
• 41:29
  Philip Pape: And finally we get to the ultimate gym equipment.
• 41:34
  Philip Pape: You've covered all the other bases.
• 41:36
  Philip Pape: Here are a few other things you might want to add to your gym and again, this is like kind of like a menu.
• 41:42
  Philip Pape: These last two sections here, the one I just covered in this one, in that you can pick the pieces from each that makes sense for your programming and your goals.
• 41:51
  Philip Pape: I have some pieces from all of these lists, but I don't necessarily have them all.
• 41:56
  Philip Pape: So for ultimate equipment, the first one is cardio machines.
• 42:01
  Philip Pape: Now I talk a lot about how cardio isn't all that important when it comes to lifting for strength, but it's still important.
• 42:08
  Philip Pape: And cardio machines can come in handy for warmups.
• 42:13
  Philip Pape: You know, if it's a cold day and you want to just jump on your assault bike, your fan bike, they're good for a quick hit session, high intensity interval training, or if you're just trying to get in extra steps, or low intensity cardio on the bike, on a rower, on a treadmill whatever works for you.
• 42:33
  Philip Pape: They tend to be a little more expensive.
• 42:36
  Philip Pape: Treadmill whatever works for you, they tend to be a little more expensive.
• 42:39
  Philip Pape: I personally have a fan bike.
• 42:40
  Philip Pape: I think I got it from Titan Fitness.
• 42:41
  Philip Pape: I'd love to have the Rogue Echo bike.
• 42:42
  Philip Pape: It's super smooth but it's very expensive.
• 42:46
  Philip Pape: So, again, you have to balance budget with quality, with your needs.
• 42:50
  Philip Pape: So cardio machines are going to take up space, but they could be a great addition to your gym.
• 42:57
  Philip Pape: The next item would be something like a glute ham developer, a GHD machine where you could do back extensions and glute ham raises.
• 43:06
  Philip Pape: Now I have a very simple version of that where I could do back extensions but I can't do GHDs, so I tend to do those at a commercial gym.
• 43:15
  Philip Pape: But if you can get the all-in-one, which tends to be more expensive and it takes up more space, then go for it.
• 43:21
  Philip Pape: Great hamstring workout, great lower back, great posterior chain light work.
• 43:26
  Philip Pape: So related to this would be a reverse hyper.
• 43:30
  Philip Pape: Reverse hyper extension machine.
• 43:32
  Philip Pape: We're getting into very specialized equipment here, but the footprint isn't very big.
• 43:38
  Philip Pape: They're plate loaded and if you've got back issues or this is a important part of your workouts if you follow the west side or conjugate programming, you do a lot of posterior chain work the reverse hyper could be useful.
• 43:52
  Philip Pape: The next item would be one or more pieces of equipment for leg work, and I'm thinking the leg press, the hack squat.
• 44:01
  Philip Pape: I have a vertical leg press.
• 44:03
  Philip Pape: It really doesn't take up much space, it's maybe two by two and it's plate loaded.
• 44:08
  Philip Pape: But there are more expensive machines and some of them are multifunctional with the track you know, for the hack squat or the leg press, the track and the plate loading.
• 44:17
  Philip Pape: They take up more space.
• 44:19
  Philip Pape: They cost more.
• 44:20
  Philip Pape: If you have the room and that's part of your programming, again, it's something to consider.
• 44:25
  Philip Pape: An even more specialized piece of equipment would be a calf raise, machine standing or seated calf raises.
• 44:30
  Philip Pape: That's basically all they're good for.
• 44:32
  Philip Pape: I don't have one of those.
• 44:34
  Philip Pape: I like to hack up my calf movements.
• 44:38
  Philip Pape: I'll either do a calf raise on my leg press or I'll rig up some sort of donkey raise with a barbell, or I will do seated calf raises with a barbell.
• 44:51
  Philip Pape: And then, finally, there are lots of different specialty bars.
• 44:55
  Philip Pape: There's a specialty bar which is the kind that has multiple hand positions and angles.
• 45:02
  Philip Pape: There are safety squat bars.
• 45:05
  Philip Pape: There's the transformer bar by Kabuki Strength, I think, which can go into multiple positions for things like front squats.
• 45:13
  Philip Pape: There's cambered bars, for example.
• 45:17
  Philip Pape: If you want to get really deep into a bench press, a cambered bar can be a great tool, and there are lots of other variations of bars out there if you want to look for them.
• 45:28
  Philip Pape: As you can see, although you can eventually build your ultimate dream home gym with time and money, all you need to start are a rack, bar, bench and plates.
• 45:39
  Philip Pape: At the very least, you should be able to do one or two full workouts from home each week as you design and build your home gym over time.
• 45:47
  Philip Pape: I personally find that the option to roll out of bed, throw on my gym clothes, get in a good session from the comfort of my home is a big motivator when compared to the hassle of going to a gym.
• 45:58
  Philip Pape: But I still have a membership so that I can work on specific movements like reverse hypers, since I don't have that at home, look for deals, buy used if needed.
• 46:09
  Philip Pape: Check out Craigslist or Facebook.
• 46:10
  Philip Pape: Get started on creating that fun space for you to make gains at home.
• 46:15
  Philip Pape: All right, that wraps up our bonus episode on building your ultimate home gym.
• 46:20
  Philip Pape: I hope you found this dive into the archives helpful to plan or upgrade your own lifting space and remember.
• 46:27
  Philip Pape: If you just want a simple, digestible guide that spells all this out, gives you some links, recommendations, go download my ultimate home gym guide at witsandweightscom slash free or just tap the link in the show notes.
• 46:39
  Philip Pape: It includes a three-step framework to build your gym in an escalating way, updated equipment recommendations, budget breakdowns, some layouts to help you create the perfect training environment so you don't waste your money and you get right to it, as always.
• 46:54
  Philip Pape: If you're enjoying this podcast, please hit follow and leave me a rating or review.
• 46:58
  Philip Pape: We haven't gotten a lot of those lately.
• 47:00
  Philip Pape: I haven't really been asking for them, but it really helps people find the show and understand if it's right for them.
• 47:05
  Philip Pape: Please go to Apple or Spotify and give us a five-star rating and, if you have an extra two minutes a review, I would be very, very grateful.
• 47:13
  Philip Pape: If you love the show, that's the best way, one of the best ways you can support me.
• 47:18
  Philip Pape: But until next time, keep using those wits, lifting those weights, and I'll talk to you Monday on the Wits and Weights podcast.