By: Thad Pickering
There is plenty of home gym equipment to choose from these days, but all gym equipment is not created equal. As with most home fitness equipment, there are pluses and minuses for almost every model you want to name. But when you read all of the consumer reviews that are available, certain models do rise to the top of the ratings. And here are the results of those findings now.
First of all, we have to divide the reviews into two parts, the first having to do with the most popular home gym equipment that uses bars and rods to create the resistance needed for each exercise. These type of home gyms often fold up and take up very little floor space. They tend to be very convenient and easy to use. The second type of home gym equipment still uses a weight system of some type instead. Because of that, they are often much more bulky, large machines that take up more space.
The two most popular home gyms that feature rods and bars for resistance are the Bowflex made by Nautilus, and the Crossbar made by Weider. Each machine has it's own strengths and weaknesses. The Bowflex is much easier to assemble, and it comes with excellent instructions on how to use it. The Crossbar on the other hand, takes more time to put together, but it costs and awful lot less than the Bowflex. All things considered, most reviewers and consumers seem to feel that the Crossbar gets the overall nod mainly based on price. Both machines seem to do almost equally as well as each other when actually performing exercises. Expect to pay between $1500 and $2000 for a Bowflex, and around $500 for a Crossbar.
If you are really serious about home strength training then you will probably opt for one of the more traditional weight stack machines instead. There are several of them on the market that do a fine job, but one that seems to get very good reviews and reports from consumers is the Hoist V5. It's certainly not cheap, costing well over $3000. But according to all sources it is a very high quality, strong and sturdy, strength trainer that will do just about everything that you need. It includes a 200 lb. weight stack, a chest press, a lat pulldown, and a leg extension/curl feature. It functions smoothly and easily with near gym quality motion.
One very important point to keep in mind is that no strength training machine will help you reach your goals if you don't remain consistent in using it. So having the best equipment and training inconsistently will never match the performance of a lesser quality home gym that is used on a regular basis.
It's also important to enlist the help of your doctor to make sure that the strength training program you are engaged in will be beneficial and not cause you injury.
There is plenty of other home gym equipment to consider when shopping in this field, but hopefully the information we have provided above will help you decide on equipment that will best fit your needs.
