Home fitness equipment

The most suitable home fitness equipment for ordinary people does not require a ten-piece set from Internet celebrities. It is the best choice if it contains less than 3 pieces, matches your current athletic ability, does not take up space, and you are really willing to reach out and use it.

When I first followed the trend of home fitness two years ago, I encountered a lot of pitfalls. I bought whatever bloggers recommended. Folding elliptical machines worth thousands of dollars, adjustable dumbbells worth hundreds of dollars, thickened yoga mats, elastic bands of different pounds, and even Internet celebrity trampolines. Can you believe it? I bought 6 elastic bands of different pounds alone. When I received the delivery, I felt so ambitious. I was about to develop my vest line, but in less than three months, there were three or four replaced coats piled on the elliptical machine. The trampoline became my cat's exclusive jumping platform. Now I can't find any elastic bands except the commonly used 15-pound model. The only yoga mat with the highest utilization rate was mainly used to spread on the ground during that time to unpack express delivery. Now that I think about it, I just paid an IQ tax.

The fitness circle has been quarreling over this matter. One group is the hard-core party that "doesn't work out without equipment". They believe that at least a foldable squat rack and a barbell set are required at home. It will be ineffective if you can't train heavy weights. The other group is the minimalist group. Let alone equipment, you can train all over the body with bare hands. Buying equipment is a waste of money. In fact, there is nothing wrong with both of these statements, but they are suitable for completely different groups of people.

If you have already had a foundation of strength training for one or two years and like to train with heavy weights, and you happen to have a small spare bedroom or a balcony of more than 1.5 square meters at home, and your landlord allows you to drill two small holes to fix the equipment, then buying a set of basic strength equipment is indeed much more cost-effective than going to the gym. My former colleague installed a foldable squat rack on his balcony. He can fold it up and put it against the wall without taking up any space. He can do leg and back exercises on weekends. After using it for almost three years, it is cheaper than paying for an annual gym membership for two consecutive years. To him, this money is worth more than anything else.

But if you are an ordinary office worker who works nine to six, and you usually get home from get off work at seven or eight o'clock, and you can only spare thirty or forty minutes to move around at most, and you rent a house where you don't dare to drill holes and modify it, then you really shouldn't touch any large equipment. The only two pieces of home fitness equipment I always have on hand now: a 15-pound resistance band and a non-slip TPE yoga mat, which together cost less than 100 yuan. Just hang the resistance band on the door handle to do back exercises, put it on your knees to do clam poses for buttock exercises, and it doesn't take up much space in your bag when traveling on business. The yoga mat is enough for dancing Pamela or doing core training. I have been using it for almost a year and can use it almost three or four times a week. The price-performance ratio is ridiculously high.

Oh, by the way, some people also asked me whether yoga mats must be expensive. I have really stumbled on this before. At first, I bought a thin model for 9 yuan with free shipping. When I was dancing Pamela, my socks slipped out and sprained my feet. It took me half a month to recover. Later, I changed to a TPE non-slip model worth more than 100 yuan, and I have never had this problem again. But on the other hand, if you only do infrequent movements such as planks and crunches, an old carpet is actually enough. There is really no need to buy expensive ones, just adapt them to your needs.

There is also the fascial gun that has been popular for a while. Many people regard it as a must-have for home fitness. I have one myself. To be honest, if you usually exercise a lot and your legs are so sore after training that you can’t even go down the stairs, using it to relax your deep muscles is really useful. But if you don’t exercise much, the most you buy after buying it is to massage your shoulders occasionally, and it is not even as comfortable as a massage pillow worth dozens of dollars. There is no need to follow the trend. Don’t believe the multi-functional propaganda that “one piece of equipment is worth ten”. My best friend bought an abdominal machine two years ago that claims to be able to train the abdomen, legs, and shoulders. After buying it and using it twice, she found it awkward and threw it away. It was half-sold, half-free, and hung on Xianyu for three months without anyone asking. It seems to be full-featured, but in fact every function is very useless. The experience of using it is terrible, and it is not as convenient as a small piece of equipment with paid functions.

To be honest, I have been involved in fitness for so long, and I have seen too many people buy a bunch of equipment that ends up gathering dust. I have also seen people actually carrying two 5-liter barrels of cooking oil to practice shoulder exercises, and holding a full bucket of mineral water to practice deadlifts. The core of home fitness has never been about how many high-end equipment you have, but whether you can move. If you can ensure that you train at least three times a week for half an hour each time, even if you don't buy any equipment, you can still get results by following the video and doing freehand training. If you fish for three days and dry the net for two days, even if you move the entire gym home, it will only be used as a storage rack in the end.