Help Wanted: Home Equipment

Hey guys,
I'm new to the forum and somewhat new to lifting. I have been on and off for the last 3 years with my longest continuous regime lasting about 8 months.

I've recently got an itching again, and I want to get some equipment for home rather than join a gym as I feel this will help keep me lifting more regularly and for a longer period of time as the convenience is there. I know most of you will probably think this is silly, especially once I full explain my situation but hopefully you can still give me some good advice.

I'm at Uni 5 days a week and my weekends involve me working a part time job on saturday and studying on sunday. I dont have a car available to me much of the week (Im 19 and I can't afford it). Hence, I either train at my local gym (which has some pretty lousy opening times) or I get some equipment for home. I'm opting for the latter, however this raises some issues aswell.

There is nowhere in my house to put any equipment apart from my room, we have a one car garage but dad stores his car there so there is no chance for me to get a power rack. Ontop of this, my ceiling is exceptionally low (just over 2m) so I can't even fit in a halfrack as most are around 210+ cm tall.

My plan is to buy some equipment of gymdirect.com.au, and i was hoping you could point me in the direction of some more adequete products or just confirm what I think is a reasonable selection. I will try to justify my choices in each case, but I'm sure if you consider saving on space, costs while maximising exercise range you will get the picture.

Equipment:
Olympic Dumbbell Handles (Pair of Olympic Dumbbell Handle)
5ft Olympic Barbell (150cm (5ft) Olympic Barbell (700lbs)
Olympic EZ Curl Bar (Olympic Ezy Curl Bar Bonus spring collar)
About 80kg of Rubber Coated (Olympic Size Rubber Coated)
Bench w/ leg attachments and possibly a preacher attachment (TR74B FID (Flat Incline Decline Bench with Leg Curl Extension and Preacher curl)

Essentially, I want a set of dumbbells to use for all my presses due to safety in the absence of a power rack and safeties. But i figured if im going to be getting a barbell for deadlifts and the like, then I may as well reduce the number of plates needed and opting for olympic size in both cases as I dont fancy fiddling with screw collars when spring collars are so much easier.

In regards to the bench, would this be suitable and how is the build quality and comfort? I want the leg adapter because I'll only be able to do light BB squats and dumbbell squats never worked too well for me. And I have always liked preacher curls too.

Im not convinced on getting the EZ Curl, but I really do like using them compared to a straight BB as it's more erganomic and comfortable on the wrists, and if i have a preacher attachement, why not right?

I also want to try keep this purchase to below $800

Thanks for your help,
Andrew

Another question:
Would it be suitable (more importantly safe) to do a two hand overhead tricep press with the olympic dumbbells? Im just thinking that while spring collars may stop plates falling off, they wont infact hold them on like a screw collar would. The exercise I refer to is this: Seated Triceps Press Exercise Guide and Video

Do skull crushers, that exercise is retarded.

The dumbbells and the curl bar are not essential.
If I was in your position I would get a pair of squat stands that you can squat and bench with.

SST2 Adjustable Width Squat Barbell Rack with Dip handles

An olympic barbell with 150kg of weight plates or more.

And a flat or incline bench.

Make yourself your own chin up bar and do chins outside.

Get the squat rack linked above, with a bench and barbell set. I use to have a squat rack with bench and full olympic barbell inside my bedroom, worked great. You can do overhead presses seated on a bench if ceiling height is an issue.

Where you from?

I'm from sydney.
The issue is there is nowhere in my room I can accomodate a 7ft barbell, 6ft would be maybe okay. [Edit] Just measured, and the spot in my room in which a squat rack can be put can only take a 5.5ft barbell, a 6ft barbell would be one hell of a tight squeeze at both ends. So can the above rack fit a 5.5ft barbell or a 5ft one?

I was looking at that squat rack but it just seemed a little unsafe to me, but if people are willing to share their experiences then I'd be happy to change my mind.

I doubt I'll be needing 150kg of weights anytime soon, but thanks for the advice

J3TR33 said:

The dumbbells and the curl bar are not essential.
If I was in your position I would get a pair of squat stands that you can squat and bench with.

SST2 Adjustable Width Squat Barbell Rack with Dip handles

An olympic barbell with 150kg of weight plates or more.

And a flat or incline bench.

Make yourself your own chin up bar and do chins outside.

Click to expand...

I agree with this.
It's all you need for now.

Maybe something like this:
64 Package Deal _ SST2 Squat Rack + ASFID FID bench + Olympic bar + 80kg Olympic weights $825
If you got a flat bench instead, that would save about $200 off the price, for more weights.
Or you could get the better bench and slowly add more weights later as you get stronger.


Just saw that you don't have room for a 7ft bar.
You can get a shorter olympic bar, otherwise there are shorter standard bars too.
Standard is cheaper if you're no lifting big weights.

Aaron said:

Callan just bought some of these. Great value for money, and it collapses very well.

To the OP - your original list looks like a set up for a bro-curler. All arm work. What are your goals? I'd strongly recommend you have a good look through the training logs here and go from there.

Click to expand...

Any ideas on the max load these can take?

adamklam said:

Any ideas on the max load these can take?

Click to expand...

No massive loads, probably about 200kg conservatively.

I agree - probably about 200kg. But you'd want to be somewhat gentle.

Aaron said:

Callan just bought some of these. Great value for money, and it collapses very well.

To the OP - your original list looks like a set up for a bro-curler. All arm work. What are your goals? I'd strongly recommend you have a good look through the training logs here and go from there.

Click to expand...

You could just come to PTC sydney

Aaron said:

To the OP - your original list looks like a set up for a bro-curler. All arm work. What are your goals? I'd strongly recommend you have a good look through the training logs here and go from there.

Click to expand...

I was on a very good program in my last gym stint, and saw some really good gains over 3-4 months in my lifts and size. I know that the original set up looks like it would be lots of arm and upper body work, but that is not what I was intending to do. I was going to be doing lunges, calf raies, squats with the dumbbells, as well as hack squats (where you pick up the barbell behind you) with the BB as I would be unable to lower it onto my shoulders. This is why I wanted the leg attachments for the bench to make use of ham curls and leg extensions to somewhat compensate.

I can fit the rack in my room no trouble, but there is only one place for it to go and the bench will not be able to fit underneath because there isnt enough room due to my bed only being able to be moved so far. This eliminates any barbell bench presses.

So what to do now?

Get the rack and use it just for squats with a barbell?
Use dumbbells for bench presses, shoulder presses and the rest like I originally planned?

Not much point in working out at home if you are so cramped for space that you can't do the basic exercises properly.
You will soon get tired of trying to work in a cramped area.

Must be able to come up with alternatives to training situation.

I have space for both a rack and a bench, but the way my room is shaped where the rack will fit in wont allow the bench to fit in the same space.

So it's not worth doing DB bench press and shoulder press etc and using the rack for squats?

Andrew1 said:

So it's not worth doing DB bench press and shoulder press etc and using the rack for squats?

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There will be only so far you can progress using DB for bench at home... I.e. can you pick up two 50kg db and start DB pressing, in your cramped room?

Follow what the Hulk said - find a better training alternative. If you can't gym it, and can't properly use your room - ghetto style it! lol

Short term buy as cheap as you possibly can and chuck everything outside. Throw a tarp over it. It'll do the job til you come up with a better idea