The best slam ball for a home gym is the Yes4All sand-filled 20 lb. It ties for the highest rating in our group and carries by far the deepest review history, its 9.75 inch iron-sand core stays dead on the floor, and the shell held its shape through weeks of overhead slams on a garage … Read more
If you want one honest answer to the best sandbags for functional training question: the Yes4All Sandbag is the one most people should buy. It has the largest review base of any bag we looked at, a 1000D coated Cordura shell, seven handles, and a 5-200 lb range that covers everything from a first deadlift … Read more
Most home gym equipment is a compromise between what moves your body and what fits in a spare room. A battle rope is one of the rare pieces that refuses to compromise. It delivers a genuinely hard conditioning session in a footprint smaller than a yoga mat, it needs no power and no electronics, and … Read more
Short answer: wood is the best plyo box material for most CrossFit athletes, foam is the safest starting point for beginners, and steel is the choice when load rating matters more than portability. Size the box around the 20 inch women’s Rx and 24 inch men’s Rx Open standards, then check the weight rating against … Read more
A bare garage slab is the worst surface you can drop a barbell onto. Rubber gym flooring for garages is the fix that costs the least and protects the most, and the best rubber gym flooring for garages in comes down to how much thickness you need, how big the space is, and whether you … Read more
A weight plate tree is a vertical floor-standing rack with short horizontal pegs that stores Olympic or standard weight plates on edge, usually with built-in barbell sleeves, so plates stay off the floor and are easy to grab mid-workout. Anything beyond a few pairs leaning against a wall is better served by one. That is … Read more
The best bumper plates for garage gyms are the CAP Barbell Rubber Olympic Bumper Plate for most people, the AMGYM 190 lb set for maximum floor protection, and the Papababe 45 lb pair for the highest owner rating in this group. All three use a 2-inch steel hub, fit standard Olympic barbells, and are sold … Read more
If you are building a home gym, the barbell is the piece of equipment you are most likely to still be lifting with ten years from now. Plates wear out, racks get replaced, but a good bar keeps its shape and its bearings for the better part of a decade. That makes it the one … Read more
A hyperextension bench, also sold as a Roman chair, back extension bench or 45-degree hyper bench, is an angled bench with hip pads and a footplate that anchors your legs so you can hinge forward at the hips and extend your torso. It trains the erector spinae, gluteus maximus and hamstrings, and it is the … Read more
A Roman chair, also called a hyperextension bench or a back extension bench, is an angled padded bench that hooks your ankles under foam rollers and supports your hips so you can hinge forward and extend your spine against gravity. It is one of the cheapest ways to train the posterior chain, and it fits … Read more