Shopping for Home Gym Bodybuilding Equipment and Supplements

You need the right tools to start an effective home gym bodybuilding program. To keep your body progressing and prevent plateaus, you know enough to expand your arsenal of workouts by changing up methods. You can also get maximum gains by taking supplements.

The Equipment for the Bodybuilder

For the new lifter, here is a short list of home gym bodybuilding equipment you will need to begin working out. It will include options for free weights and bodyweight exercises, as well as a rack and bench for pressing heavy weights.

At a minimum, consider purchasing:

• A Gym Mat – a quality mat is a must for bodyweight exercises such as push-ups (all variations), plank, bridge, ab crunches, etc.
• Free Weights – a set of free weights (including dumbbells, bar and plates, resistance bands, and kettle bells) of varying weights will allow you to progress quickly as you gain in strength. Using an Olympic bar and plates is ideal for squats and dead lifts to build the lower body. Dumbbells are versatile and are a must for upper body training.

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• Weight Bench – this is the one piece of your home gym bodybuilding equipment that you’ll use for both free weights, bodyweight exercises such as crunches, and using with a rack, cage, or Smith Machine. Get a weight bench that can incline and decline, and fits under the low bar of the power rack.

A Great Selection of Weight Benches

• Power Rack – for lifting heavy, nothing beats the versatility and safety of a power rack or cage. The power rack should have adjustable stoppers and allow a bench to fit under it comfortably. Ideally, you want your rack to have enough clearance between the top bar and the ceiling in your basement so that you can do chin-ups and pull-ups. The pull-up is the number one exercise for building upper body strength.

Power Racks, Squat Racks

• Chin, VKR, Dip Power Tower – This is an inexpensive (around $200) and essential need for home gym bodybuilding. It allows you to work on chin-ups, pull-ups, vertical knee raises, captain’s chairs, and triceps dips. Note: get a power tower that allows for multi-position grips, especially close grip pull-ups, and is not limited to wide grips.

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Supplements to Feed Muscles and Progress Quickly

Fatigue is the necessary ingredient for muscle growth and rapidly increasing strength. A typical home gym bodybuilding workout will require you to take a couple of “recovery days” between workouts so your muscles can repair themselves. Once you’ve begun training on a particular muscle group – your biceps for example – you may not see a noticeable change in size right away, yet your body is working continuously to increase the thickness of the muscle fiber. A muscle fiber is thinner than a human hair but can support up to 1,000 times its own weight, so increasing volume in the muscle fiber causes hypertrophy (an increase in mass), which then allows for more force production.

So when you aren’t working on bodybuilding in the home gym, you can work on two other important areas: diet and supplements. We won’t go into diets here, since that is another article entirely, but you can consider vitamins and supplements to help you reach your transformation goals.

Bodybuilding supplements are designed to encourage lean muscle growth, as well as promote fat burning, and fast recovery from exercise. For those just starting out, stick to Whey Protein, Glutamine, Creatine Monohydrate, and possibly a weight gainer. A sample of muscle building supplements includes products such as:

• Hydro Whey (Advanced Hydrolyzed Whey Protein) is a pure, quickly digested protein that builds muscles fast as well as replenish amino acids.
• N.O. Xplode is a top-selling pre-training energy formula that helps you focus on the workout as well as increase your training level physically, giving you more stamina and energy than you’ve ever experienced before.
• Micronized Creatine is a high-powered metabolite used to regenerate ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the energy sources for the muscles. Cretine Monohydrate is a phenomenal bodybuilding supplement that can help you achieve huge gains.

If you are into serious lifting, and are shopping for home gym bodybuilding equipment, eating the right diet and taking supplements will absolutely help to maximize your workouts. But be safe: for best results, take the time to educate yourself about creatine, proteins, glutamine, and other supplements. With the right knowledge, you’ll save money by getting what you need and you’ll reach your goals faster.

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