In this post, I’m breaking down the items I used in my exercise room and why they make the list of workout room favorite products or least favorite products! Not everyone can have a dedicated workout space, and many like me, have to put it in a basement where the ceilings limit what you can do. However, if you’re creative, there’s a way to incorporate a workout space no matter the space!
I should go measure the room for some context, but it is a small square room with a deep closet attached. It’s designed to be a reach-in closet, but is not framed out nor does it have any doors. You can read how that was an advantage in my previous post detailing the workout room makeover.
Many of these items I’ve bought over the course of the last two decades and others I’ve only bought recently.
TreadClimber:
And the prize for the oldest item in the room goes to my TreadClimber from 2009/2010! I’m not exactly sure which year, but I remember having to move this thing out of my apartment and was terrified my father was going to kill himself with it. I could just imagine it sliding down the stairs and crushing him. I had to be quite rude and insist that no one would be on the bottom side and that if it were to fall, everyone was to let it go! This thing is a MONSTER! It’s so compact that you would never expect that it’s so heavy.
I believe this is a 1200 model and has a whopping top speed of 2 mph! It’s an awful choice for runners. I really feel like I paid $2500 for it, but I honestly don’t know. I can drop some crazy money on things and also be completely stingy with others. I was hard-core dieting at the time and this was going to be the thing! You know, the thing that made me like working out.
It has two treadles that can lock down like a treadmill, but they were designed to lift as you walk so you feel like you’re walking through sand. Of course, this particular device, like an elliptical, was marketed to be the superior calorie-burning cardio workout. I can’t speak to that as my thighs couldn’t get to a workout level with it. Though many years later you have to warm up on it like a stair stepper, it makes all the difference. Regardless, a cheaper model would have done what I actually used this for and might have even allowed me to run. This one doesn’t go fast enough for a slow jog and it takes some getting used to having split tracks.
It has really lasted. It’s a bitch to move. I rarely use functions besides a flat treadmill. Now granted, I’m never going to opt for the treadmill over outside. This is really only for quick warm-ups or cool-downs and bad weather days now. I live by a bike path and a small walking path so I now have much better options for getting my exercise. Not to mention that you get sun if you go outside too.
The price probably does compare to a model of a treadmill that can run complicated elevation patterns and speed mixes, which is what I enjoyed most at the gym, but this guy can’t do that either. Start with a basic treadmill or just rely on the great outdoors depending on space.
Cycling Bike:
This one is relatively new for me. I’d mentioned that I have a bike trail near me, but for much of the summer, I struggle with humidity-triggered neuropathies that mess with my balance, motor control, and vision. So I opted to follow one of my favorite YouTubers Frugal Fit Mom’s videos for a budget Peleton hack. I had never taken a cycling class at the gyms I’d been to, they honestly intimidated me. I’m not sure how I got the impression that everyone in there was in a cult and there were unspoken rules, but I did. So I never did.
However, when I was a kid I loved biking and I’d been enjoying biking when I could outside. As I mentioned above, I have some issues getting back to biking some of these hurdles I may never be able to overcome, but my main goal was building up stamina. If I can get enough stamina and good posture, I should be able to better tolerate the real terrain around me on the paths and get some actual distance and still know I can get home safely. Without these unique issues, I don’t think I’d recommend anyone pay that much for equipment that they didn’t first use at a gym.
So far it’s a really good bike. I was able to fit the bike to my 5’8″ frame, and the YouTubers I’ve been following describe the resistance level in such a way that I can get there or adapt easily enough. I’m a data freak so I would have fun with something a bit more numbers based for tracking my progress, but honestly, I’m not there yet. I’m using duration as my metric for now.
Elliptical:
So, I’ve had one of these in the past and it’s a hard no for me. I bought one that was designed to fold up. It’s a great concept for someone that can’t dedicate a room to a gym, but in order to not have to move it, you have to be willing to look at a wall. Not for me folks. Plus it killed the smaller muscles just on top of the knees and caused me to have bad MCAS flares (swelling, red skin, and itching). If you already love this at a gym and it’s all you need, you might consider getting on. Otherwise, it’s just too specialized and the calorie burn is negligible.
With equipment, I think KISS is the best way to go. Walking, weight bench, cycling, or rowing, and only if you really love these things.
AeroPilates Reformer:
A bit more than a year ago I purchased an AeroPilates reformer for roughly $500 on Amazon. This thing is really not as smooth as a gym reformer, but if you’ve ever taken a reformer class you know this thing pays itself off quickly! Gym reformers are no joke and the classes are very small, so the cost is additional with specialized training.
I did a 5-person 30-minute Reformer Pilates class for something like six years prior to the pandemic and it was the greatest thing for my recovery. Building strength is so important. It helped my mood, it helped my tight muscles, and it was fun. The class held me accountable and I enjoyed the entire deal. However, COVID really destroyed that class. So many of the members retired and stayed home instead or switched to private classes and my instructor left to start his own business that initially had no Pilates reformers. The Pilates director at the gym opted to retire and the gym sold…again. Twice in three years.
So I switched to an in-home version. For me, this is a good investment. The reformer folds up and rolls into a narrow closet door. The resistance bands don’t work as well as springs, especially for low force high exertion exercises, so the more advanced you are the less happy you’ll be with it. I’m not really there, but I’m exhausting the top end of one particular exercise. It also makes a loud pop/clicks when the rollers cross between bars with legs-in-straps work (’round the worlds). It’s still such an affordable option.
If you have not trained long enough to know how to set it up properly or know the correct form to use, please don’t go this route. Take a class for at least six months. Otherwise, have a solid grounding in floor Pilates, but there are a lot of machine-specific aspects. The other downside that will be true for everyone is that you need at least 8’x6′ space to use this machine well and even that will make you paranoid. I also recommend you don’t bother with the added kits. It’s impractical to store most of it.
Small Exercise Equipment:
Body balls are the most inconvenient thing. The pumps for them are weak so you don’t blow them up but then it’s difficult to make them small when you aren’t using them. They are very handy for making crunches easier to tolerate or to do things that let you move a range of motion. However, they don’t store well. They break down pretty poorly if not taken care of. People constantly discard these things at garage sales and such because they are just so inconvenient to store.
The verdict on this item is Yes if you have a dedicated exercise room and No if you don’t. You can do nearly everything the body ball enables you to do, just not quite as smoothly. I did buy a new one because the old one I had access to was sticky. The plastic was breaking down.
Floor Pilates Equipment:
Most of this is just a no for me. Floor Pilates is much more difficult than reformer Pilates. Tons of abdominal work and the accessories are really just designed to put more load on the abs. I don’t see that as necessary. Over the years I’ve had the ball you put between your knees, a weighted Thai Chi ball, and a 3-segmented weighted Pilates bar. In reformer Pilates, these had beads that would also run from side to side so you had to balance them. Nightmare workouts. I didn’t keep any of these except the 3-segmented bar. Each segment is 8 lbs and so I can work out various ways with them as if they are hand weights or a bar. It works for me, but I wouldn’t have bought it if I knew this was how I was going to use them.
I also consider the 3 lb weights I’ve had for decades to be worthless. I think the idea was that overhead work needs this, but really…it’s pointless and I can’t remember what drove me to the idea in the first place. It’s possible I copped out thinking 5 lb weights were too expensive. A mind is a funny place, but these are very old.
I’ll detail more about the differences between Pilates mats/Exercise mats and yoga mats in the next post, but I have one of each. The exercise mat was free for me and there are valid reasons to have either. The carpet can work almost as well though.
My Workout Room Favorite Products are Resistance Bands:
Most of us are familiar with the exercise rooms you can find in a hotel and if you’re lucky they have some free weights, but typically they are cardio-focused. After I’d been doing reformer Pilates for a while, I’d asked my instructor how I could best keep this up while traveling for a week or more and he’d suggested buying a resistance band kit.
Personally, since being in another PT program I now have bands without straps and you can tie a handhold in and loop them around door handles. They are much more friendly to travel and less heavy so I’d opt for those for traveling. However, these larger resistance band packs that have attachable handles, and components that let you put them on top of or between doors, etc. are a wonderful strength training option for people at home with limited space.
In these kits, the band length can’t be adjusted and they don’t grip well, however, by adjusting your own height like kneeling, you can pretty much do everything a cable machine can do. It’s been interesting trying to adapt a cable machine program to resistance bands but I’m finding that it mostly is one-to-one, but the range of motion covered is critical on resistance bands. Outside of it, you have no resistance or far too much. These are a winner in my book.
Mirrors: Mirror tiles are not a favorite product for workout rooms
There are many people who have no desire to look at themselves while working out. I’m one of those people that like to dissect all the motions and muscles involved in a workout and I need to check my posture regularly because my tendency is to pull down and to the right. I also have a tendency to do more work with the right side and in some cases, my right side will refuse to engage and force ancillary muscles to pick up the load and this is when injuries start to occur. This is why I wanted mirrors for this room.
I had been watching Marketplace for some time and hadn’t seen the right size of mirrors pop up without damage. I also didn’t know how to install mirrors for working out. I probably should have done some more homework on this. There were even some full-sized gym mirrors being sold but I figured they’d be too heavy and too large to fit in my car. So opted for light mirror tiles. Of course, the photo showed these perfectly like a mirror.
The reality was not anywhere near as perfect. The walls aren’t straight and I couldn’t afford to affix them in all four corners. The tiles themselves flexed and overall the image is very disjointed. In the long run, I will likely replace these. For now, they do let me see enough to know if I have the correct posture from the resistance bands and the bike and that’s what I need. The panels were too expensive for how they really turned out so I’d recommend looking for a good-sized mirror on Marketplace and going that way. The tiles cost about $50 altogether with Command strips.
Entertainment and Décor:
I cannot stop raving about Sonos. I was a big Bose fan before but Sonos has been blowing them out of the water with concert music sound. There’s so much more range. I’m a fan of the Alexa-enabled ones as they don’t overreact as Amazon Dot and Show microphones do. You can also turn off the microphone if you don’t want it listening and if you get the right generations together you can perfectly sync the sound across all of them. They are great! I now have a Soundbar, sub, Beam, and three One speakers.
The television is not so critical. I barely evaluated the one I picked up off of Marketplace and I’d intended to use one that was 15 years old. This one is obviously better. I purchased a Roku to make sure I could finish watching something from one tv to the other while doing a workout. That way, “I want to finish this before I work out” is never a good excuse.
TV mounts are a pain. Even after purchasing I really wasn’t sure that it would work. The new tv needed more adapting in-depth than the mount would allow so I was able to keep the expense down and the device is fairly low profile and very light. It seems like it’s going to work. I picked it up from Amazon. The biggest issue really seems to be that tv makers allowed their single HDMI ARC port to be directly under the mounting hole as if they assume you won’t use a sound system if you are going to mount your tv. Clearly not true. In this room, I couldn’t afford to give up space to furniture.
After my 5k craze ten years ago, I’d picked up a medal holder that really spoke to me. I’m sure they thought they were targeting marathon runners, but for me exercise is about listening to my body and adapting to what I have each day. I’m better off doing a little of whatever I can do correctly rather than skipping a day. I think this one came from Amazon as well.
Leave a comment below, I’d love to know what kind of home gym you have, if any, and what you’re MVP equipment is!