Where to buy home gym equipment if you live in the UK: What a conundrum! Well, it is at least a lot easier in post-COVID Britain than before the pandemic. Interest in gym gear ballooned in 2020 – and is still going up. But the sad truth is that compared to many other countries, we’re still struggling to find good home gym equipment in this country.
Particularly if you compare our options here to those in, say East Asia (where they make most of the stuff) and the USA, it’s relatively speaking slim pickings.
Sure, it is obvious that the short answer is that you need to shop around. But there’s a lot more nuance to the question and the answer than that.
So come with me on a journey around the UK home gym equipment market – and learn how and where to shop for gear that should last you a lifetime.
Where to Buy Home Gym Equipment in the UK: Is British-made Best?
First of all, this site is totally independent. We have absolutely no affiliation with any company. If that ever changes, I will be sure to let you know. So what I am about to say here comes purely from my own experience, not from my desire to make you spend your money on some company or product.
Now that’s out the way, the first thing you might want to consider is where the equipment you are going to buy comes from. As you may have noticed, the UK doesn’t really manufacture much anymore. That means that most gym equipment you buy here is imported.
There are some exceptions. Raze Strength and other Indigo Fitness brands have a British manufacturing plant. Raze claims that “many” of its products are UK-made. Which ones, I don’t know.
Besides these, I believe that some firms like Bulldog Gear offer UK-made products. And Anvil Strength and Conditioning claim to make their equipment out of “British steel” (although their website is a hot mess).
You could also check out Exigo, but I feel they aren’t really geared towards the home gym market.
However, these types of manufacturers are few and far between. The majority of bigger UK gym equipment retailers – maybe with the exception of BlkBox, who claim to have a manufacturing plant in Belfast – are importing their products.
That doesn’t mean that the equipment you buy from these retailers has nothing to do with the UK. I have no doubt that they design their goods here.
But in the case of Mirafit and Strength Shop, the two companies that have arguably made the biggest inroads into the UK home gym scene, their headquarters appear to be warehouses.
Maybe this means something to you, maybe nothing. How important buying British-made gear is to you is really up to you. But if you are going to pay hundreds of pounds for a product and use it every day, you may want to spare a thought for where it is coming from.
The Big Two: Mirafit and Strength Shop
If high-end, commercial-grade quality is something you are after, neither Mirafit nor Strength Shop really offer it. For that, you will need Blk Box. Or if you have really deep pockets, someone like Elieko.
However, unless you are a personal trainer who trains clients in a home studio, there is no way you actually need to spend Elieko prices.
You will no doubt look like a badass with a garage gym full of colour-coded, calibrated weight plates that look like they could be used in the World Weightlifting Championships.
But let’s face it, you’re not Lasha Talakhadze or Liu Xiaojun.
So unless you have several thousand pounds burning a hole in your pocket, you will gravitate towards Mirafit and Strength Shop – unless you are on a lower budget (more below).
Both claim to produce commercial gym gear, but most of their products appear to be more tailored to the home gym community.
Except for its M4 range, which is supposedly a commercial gym brand, Mirafit’s entire product portfolio is intended for home gym use.
Strength Shop, meanwhile, certainly produces a lot of durable equipment, but I have yet to find a lot of commercial gyms that make extensive use of their equipment.
Delivery costs are worth factoring in: Mirafit generally charges around a fiver for all deliveries, while Strength Shop waives delivery fees on orders over £100.
Lower Budget Equipment: Here Be Dragons – and Gold
Beneath the Big Two (price-wise), you used to be able to find very good deals at Hardcastle Bodybuilding. However, their site appears to have vanished from the web recently – although you can still find a lot of their equipment online. Their weight trees are great quality and good value.
That leaves you with essentially a lot of no-name manufacturers and outlets that appear to originate in China with very small marketing teams in the UK, or the likes of Decathlon and Argos.
Bigger firms like Decathlon and Argos tend to cater to the lowest of home gym budgets, people who really just want to dip their toes in the water before possibly upgrading to something different. And the Chinese firms also tend to be jack-of-all-trades types that sell their no-name ware on Amazon and eBay.
For the latter category, you are often taking a trip into the unknown. Some of the gear you will buy here is fantastic, other items are poorly made and ultimately a waste of money. It’s the Wild West, and while you could end up with gold, you are equally likely to end up with something you need to replace fairly quickly.
The Second-hand Market
I retract what I just said. If there’s a home gym Wild West, it’s certainly the second-hand UK home gym market. Unlike the US, where people buy and sell a large amount of good quality equipment for very reasonable prices, the UK market is a very hard place to go shopping.
I will go into this in more detail another post, but I will say here briefly that I find home gym equipment generally overpriced on Facebook Marketplace, local community groups, Gumtree, Craigslist and the rest.
A quick example: This is what a search for “Olympic barbell” returns on Facebook Marketplace today.
No brand info on any of these bars (to the naked eye, they look like no-name bars), pictures that really could be of anything, no idea what kind of condition these bars are in, I have to go and pick up these items in person, pay in cash…what am I actually paying for here?
If you want a no-name Olympic barbell – boom, here you go. Delivered to your door for 70 quid and you can return it if you aren’t happy with it. I wouldn’t advise you to buy it. But nor would I advise you spend £90 (or even £40) on a bar like the above.
You could even get this bar, which looks suspiciously like the Mirafit M3 Hybrid bar, with a 20kg weight and a 320 max load – for under £100.
There ARE bargains to be found in the second-hand market, because some people are selling good gear and often for reasonable prices. But in most cases, I’d argue that you’re better off buying new.
Conclusions on Where to Buy Home Gym Equipment in the UK
Building a home gym is not a process you can get done in a few days. It takes months, maybe years to get things exactly as you want them. And that means shopping around for deals and keeping your eye out for sales.
Make a note of the prices of products you want so when things go on “sale,” you can be sure you aren’t being duped by dodgy claims of price drops.
Keep an eye, albeit a sceptical one, on the second-hand market in your area and spend some time thinking about the items you are prepared to spend big on (maybe squat racks, your main barbell and an adjustable bench), and where you can afford to cut corners (cable accessories and weight plates, for instance).
If you stay informed about home gym prices, you will quickly learn how to differentiate a bargain from a rip-off – and tool up with high-quality, but affordable, equipment that will last you a lifetime!
