Best Home Gym - Your Own Body

By: Jay Villa Click author's name for more of his/her articles

As a certified fitness trainer, I often get asked what's the best type of equipment for a home fitness center. In the past I've informed the individual that such and such a brand name is good for various reasons. Don't get me wrong, there are some great quality pieces of inexpensive home gym equipment that will get you in incredible shape, but lately my answer to individuals as to the best piece of equipment for a home gym has been.. your own body using bodyweight training.

When one thinks of bodyweight movements they often think of pushups and maybe chinups. They also think that bodyweight exercises are good to "just stay in shape." Nothing can be further from the truth.

Bodyweight training can absolutely transform your physique when done accurately. If your goal is weight loss, bodyweight training can get you to that objective. If your aim is to develop muscle, bodyweight training can do that as well.

One of the benefits of bodyweight training is that the gym is always with you. Everyplace you go, you have access to "the gym." I've done chinups on park monkey bars while my daughter plays. There is always something accessible to push off of or pull up on.

If you have the space in your house, I highly suggest a piece of equipment usually called a "power tower." This is a self standing piece that allows you do chinups, dips, pushups and leg raises for your abs. This one lone piece of equipment, which doesn't take up much room, can transform your physique.

It is the one major piece of equipment I make use of in every workout session. As a matter of fact, I've sold most of my home gym equipment and rely largely on my power tower for a full upper body workout. In my view there is no other exercise that compares to dips and chinups for the upper body.

What about exercising your legs you may ask? Bodyweight squats are excellent for your legs and for a challenge you can do them one leg at a time. There is an additional little torture piece of equipment I own called the Roman Chair Squat Bench that allows for remarkable bodyweight squats to be done with modest space. That is for another discussion however.

Although all you could do with is your bodyweight to get a good workout, there will come a moment in time when your own bodyweight doesn't offer an adequate amount of resistance to make the workout difficult enough to elevate muscle building for example.

Certainly you can just keep doing more and more reps each workout but if your goal is to build some muscle you will need to keep the reps below 15 and if your bodyweight is not enough, you'll need to add resistance someway.

This is where a weighted vest and/or dip belt comes in handy. A dip belt is merely a leather or fabric belt that hangs round your waist with chains in the front to support weight plates. This will allow more than enough resistance to be added to make dips and chinups more tough. The weighted vest can be used for pushups and squats.

So for a few dollars you have all you need to get in magnificent shape. I can hear some people now wondering where are the curls, the tricep exercises, and so on. How will I get enormous biceps if I don't do my million curls?

Believe me, if you can do chins with your bodyweight plus an additional 50lbs - 100lbs round your waist, I can promise you will not have small biceps.

All that's left is to plan a routine based around pushups, squats, dips and chins. Although there are other great bodyweight exercises, these are the most fundamental for most folks to do safely and without difficulty. Other bodyweight exercises like handstand pushups will blast your shoulders but that is a bit more advanced and out of the scope of this article.

A routine can consist of bodyweight squats, dips and chins done 2 - 3 times a week. Just like any weight training routine, more is not better. You want time to let the muscle recuperate so 2 - 3 times a week is more than sufficient. Especially when you start to add resistance to the exercises.

If your aim is weight loss, bodyweight training can do the trick while still building some muscle along the way. All you want to do is take less time between sets in order to set in motion the fat burning process in your body.

For example, if you do bodyweight squats for 5 sets of 25 reps with very little rest between sets, I guarantee your heart rate will be up and you'll be burning body fat. Similar thing goes for dips and chins. Take less time between exercises for fat burning and take additional time to recuperate when muscle building is your objective.

I trust you can see the advantage of bodyweight training in terms of complete fitness and cost effectiveness. You don't need the newest home gym or infomercial product to get in fabulous shape.

Now go and pull yourself up on something.

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

About The Author: Jay is an IFPA Certified Fitness Trainer whose goal is to get people in shape as easily and quickly as possible. His site on Weight Training DVDs cuts through all the nonsense in terms of what works and what doesn't.