How to build a home gym on a budget – it’s the question on the lips of every fitness enthusiast who’s fed up with commercial gyms.
Is £1,000 a lot of money in the British home gym world? Would it buy you a workout space to rival your local commercial gym? Or would it only be enough to buy a couple of rusty weight plates, a wobbly bench and a bar that may or may not give you tetanus?
In this post, I’m going to answer all those questions by showing you how to build a home gym for £1,000. I will show you how to equip yourself with everything you need to stay fit and strong for an entire lifetime – and still have enough change left over for a packet of crisps!
You can actually equip a home gym for any price. Even £100 will buy you a decent enough setup. And if you are prepared to shop around, hint for second-hand bargains and wait for sales, you could potentially buy everything I suggest below for up to £200 cheaper.
But perhaps you don’t have that kind of patience. Maybe you want to begin your home gym journey right away. And perhaps you (or maybe your better half) have come to the logical decision that you should cap your spending at a nice round number – like £1,000.
If so, here is just one way you could go about getting everything you need for under a grand.
Let’s get started!
How to Build a Home Gym for a Grand: The Rules of the Game
For the sake of simplicity (or I don’t know what), I have divided this list into two sections. The first deals with weights and bars, and the second with everything else your gym needs.
Be sure to buy all Amazon picks in orders of £25 or above to avoid having to pay for delivery. Many of the eBay vendors I use offer free delivery, but always double-check. Strength Shop offers free delivery for orders over £100, and Mirafit charges a flat £4.95 for delivery, so get everything you need from them in one go.
Most UK home gyms are housed in small spaces, so I find that a system based on free weights, resistance bands and bars works best in most cases. If you are a fan of machines and cables, you may want to splurge on a functional trainer instead, but I’d advise against it.
You may ask yourself where all the cardio equipment is, but I think that the UK is so runner- and cyclist-friendly that you can (and probably should) do all your cardiovascular workouts outside.
You may decide to save money by choosing to stick to 1” (standard) bars and weight plates, which cost a lot less. Good idea, if so. Don’t listen to Olympic bar supremacists who tell you it can’t be done.
But I am going to work on the assumption that you are a gym-goer who has had enough of commercial establishments and wants to migrate your fitness journey to your house – without downgrading your workouts.
As such, everything on the list is in the 2” Olympic universe – for better or worse. And I have no affiliation whatsoever with any of the firms mentioned below. I’ve also rounded up prices that end in .99p to the pound. I’m not dealing with all that nonsense!
Bars & Weights
Olympic bar pick: Strength Shop Original 2028 Olympic Bar. Cost: £130.
A good budget bar with a max. suggested load of 250kg. Can likely handle a bit more if you’re a really big lifter.
Weight plates pick: Mirafit Cast Iron 2″ Olympic Tri-Grip Weights (100kg) Set. Cost £260.
Excellent coating, relatively slim and the tri-grip “handles” help with storage and workout variety.
More weight plates: Mirafit Cast Iron 2″ Olympic Tri Grip Weights 2×2.5kg Cost £17.
You’re going to need more weight than that, so buy these, too. More of the above, but lighter.
And even more weight plates: FK Sports Weight Plates 2x5kg Cost £28.
You can never have too many 5kg and 10kg plates, so get these, too. Budget weight plates are hit-and-miss, but the coating is good and won’t require maintenance.
Fractional plates pick: Strength Shop Fractional Plate Package with Bag – 8 x 0.25kg Steel Plates Cost £40.
Progressive overload works a lot better when you can micro-load your bars from session to session.
Dumbbell handles pick: Strongway 2’’ Olympic Dumbbell Barbell Set Pair with Spring Collars Cost £38.
Cheap and cheerful, but will do the job without breaking the bank. Comes with a set of collars, which are always handy.
Collars pick: Iron Lab Olympic Barbell Clamps Cost £11.
Generic collars like these are often on sale on Amazon and eBay, so look out for bargains.
Subtotal
=£524 (plus Mirafit £4.95 delivery fee)
Everything Else
Squat rack pick: Gym Master Power Rack Cost £200.
Building a home gym necessitates buying a squat rack, and you MUST buy one with sturdy safety pins. This will do the job without breaking the bank, plus it has a nice pullup bar.
Storage (weight plate tree) pick: Cap Barbell ‘A Style’ (get at least two) Cost £37.23×2 = £74.46.
These have a decent height and you can use the middle pin for smaller weight plates.
Resistance bands pick: Beenax Resistance Bands Cost £20.
Bands add versatility to your workouts, help you with pullups if you are struggling and can help with injury rehab. This is a well-priced and durable set.
Booty bands pick (fabric): Anything in the £5 range that looks like this. Cost £5.
Because clamshells rock and I won’t hear otherwise. Avoid the latex versions, they snap if you even look at them the wrong way.
Flooring pick: Easimat Heavy Duty Rubber Stable Horse Mat Cost £39×2 = £78.
Two of these should be enough for your needs. One under your weight trees and another you can move about as you like.
Adjustable bench pick: JX FITNESS Adjustable Weight Bench Cost £70.
Wait for this to go on sale at £70 or less (it will do, give it time!). A budget, no-frills bench, but unless you have £200 or over to spend, you won’t find anything with commercial gym-like sturdiness. It’s foldable, too.
Loading pin pick: LFJ Weight Loading Pin 34cm Cost £18.
Use for additional weight plate storage. You can also combine it with something like this to create a very basic cable setup for triceps pushdowns.
Ab wheel pick: Anything for under a fiver. This’ll do. Cost: £5.
Better versions are available, but no need to spend big on this item.
Subtotal
=£470.46
Grand total (incl. Delivery):
£999.46 Ta-da!
You see, putting this all together for (less than) £1,000 wasn’t that difficult after all. Perhaps you think you could do a better job, and maybe you could!
How to build a home gym for a grand? Now you know how…
