Weights for your Home
Your gym isn’t complete without a set of weights for your home. While cardio training has many benefits for the body, building muscle with the help of a home weight set is also incredibly important. Just a few of the many benefits of strength training include:
- Helps support healthy and strong bones
- Increases metabolism to help lose weight
- Builds muscles to improve strength
- Improves coordination and balance
The beauty of strength training with free weights is that it doesn’t require hours upon hours of exercise each day. In fact, with the right routine in place and a complete home weight set, you can improve your strength and build a strong, toned body with as little as three, 20-minute strength-training sessions a week!
Best Weights for Your Home Gym
Dumbbells
Dumbbells are a great option for weights for your home gym. They work for both beginners and advanced weight lifters. Beginners will appreciate that dumbbells are easy to use even as they force you to improve your coordination and keep your core activated. More advanced exercisers know that dumbbells can help them isolate specific muscle groups or hit larger muscle chains. For example, bicep curls, chest presses, and tricep extensions with dumbbells let you build individual muscles in your upper body. Holding heavy dumbbells on your shoulders while you squat or lunge also let you sculpt your lower body and hit those big muscle groups!
Whether using dumbbells independently or sitting on a bench, you have a few different choices when selecting a set of dumbbells:
Hex Dumbbells: Each Hex dumbbell is a specific weight. While these may be the easiest to use (no adjusting the weight or running out of space on the dumbbell bar), they do require a bit of an investment. You’ll need several different weights so you can select the correct one for the exercise you are performing. The amount of weight you are able to lift will also increase as you become stronger. Buying a full set of Hex dumbbells will allow you to customize every workout, so that your reps and sets are challenging enough that you will continually get stronger.
Spin Lock Dumbbells: Spin lock dumbbells contain a bar that allows you to add weight plates and keep them in place with a spin lock device. This means that you don’t need to keep an entire set of individual dumbbells in your home gym. Instead, you can easily switch weights on or slide them off depending on the exercise you want to perform and the difficulty you seek. Spin lock dumbbells are a great option for people who lift lighter weights, because you are somewhat limited by the amount of weight you can fit onto the bar.
Adjustable Kettlebell: Kettlebells are large, heavy spheres with a handle attached at the top. They come in varying sizes and weights, and are a great option for a complete full body workout. You can swing the kettlebell to add a cardio and metabolic component to your workout, or use it as a weight to add resistance to bodyweight movements. For example, you might try a “goblet squat” which entails holding the kettlebell to your chest while performing air squats.
The Apex Adjustable Kettlebell is a great option for someone who is new to kettlebells. You can start with an easy 20 lb. bell and add on weights to work your way up to 50 lbs. This not only saves you the space needed to store multiple kettlebells, but it’s extremely budget friendly because you don’t need to purchase the individual kettlebells to cover the weight range provided by the Apex Adjustable Kettlebell.
Barbells
Barbells have many of the same benefits and uses as a set of dumbbells, but barbells allow you to lift more weight due to their design. These excellent weights for your home gym also promote balance and activate important stabilizer muscles when you perform popular movements like back squats, front squats, and thrusters.
To build a barbell set in your home gym, choose whether to invest in a standard barbell or Olympic barbell. The difference has to do with the size of the opening where the plates attach to the bar. Once you’ve made your choice, then it’s time to purchase weight plates. We suggest investing in a variety of weight plates, so you can perform lots of different movements and so you can increase the weight as you become stronger.
Once you have purchased weights for your home gym, consider adding more accessories to give yourself even more exercise options, like a weight bench or power rack.
If you would like to start out with a new Olympic weight set, consider the 110-lb Olympic Weight Set MCW-110. It contains everything you need, including a 30 lb. bar, an assortment of grip plates, and two clip collars.
Other Weights for home
In addition to barbells and dumbbells, you can add a few other useful pieces of equipment to your home weight set to spice up your weight training routine.
To give yourself a huge cardiovascular challenge, strap on a weight vest before going for a run. You can also use these to improve your explosiveness by wearing a weight vest during box jumps and broad jumps. To improve your strength, wear a weight vest while doing bodyweight movements, like pullups, air squats, lunges, and pushups.
A medicine ball is also an excellent piece of equipment that can help you turbo charge your cardio and strength training routines. Medicine ball slams can get your heart rate up while developing your shoulders and back muscles. Medicine ball squats and medicine ball sit-ups add weight to these bodyweight exercises to help strengthen and tone your lower body and core.
There are many ways to build a home gym set so that you can add strength training to your fitness regimen. At Marcy, we offer the best weights for your home gym, whether you want dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, free weights, or functional equipment like weight vests and medicine balls.
Contact us to learn more about Marcy’s variety of free weights and weight training equipment and get started today!
