inexpensive equipment for natural bodybuilding home workouts to maximize muscle and fitness gains

Scooby's Home Bodybuilding Workouts

Home Workout Equipment

To work out at home you will need some minimal equipment. Your first purchase should be a used dumbbell set. If you have room, a used adjustable bench is a good addition. Dont buy any of these items new, you can get them for pennies on the dollar buy buying them at garage sales or online at a place like craigslist. Many people just want these type of items out of their garage and they dont care how much they get as long as you haul them out of the way for them!
Essential Equipment
	Essential, A pull-up bar. All the time I get emails from people without pullup bars asking for an exercise they can substitute for pullups - there are none! Pullups are an essential upper body exercise and you must have a pullup bar if you are serious about bodybuilding and want to work out at home. Get creative. Look in your basement for a pipe you can do pullups on. Look for a tree with a low branch you can use. Childrens playgrounds are a perfect place to do pullups, the steel structure of many of the slides and play houses are perfect for doing pullups. Anything horizontal and strong can be used with a little creativity. Most convenient is having a bar at home. If you have a place to install a bar, go to the hardware store and get some galvanized fence top rail or a closet pole, shouldn't cost more than a few dollars. Put it in your garage, attic, basement or wherever you have room. If none of the above options is possible, then you are going to have to spend some money and buy a doorway mount pullup bar. Make sure and get one that lets you have a wide grip (wider than the doorway). Creative Fitness makes one that costs about $50 from amazon and although its not quite wide enough, its a good value. A much more deluxe version can be purchased from pullupbar.com but their model UD-6 is about $70.
	Essential, Used dumbbell set. Dumbbells are the ultimate in versatility and convenience, they can be used to exercise every single body part and they can be stored in a small corner of your closet - try that with a rowflexx! Get these used at a garage sale, no need to buy them new - you should be able to find a used set really cheap. Use craigslist.org to locate them, a good price is $0.25/lb to $0.50/lb - that is, a 310lb olympic set should sell for $75 - $155. Best are solid metal plates (not sand or concrete filled) and handles that allow quick plate removal. If you don't want to hunt at garage sales, you can click here to buy a 160lb weight set, or a 300lb weight set. An excellent price for a new weight set would be $0.73/lb, if you pay more than $1/lb you are paying too much. If money is no object, these PowerBlocks and SelectTech instant-adjust dumbbells are really slick
	Essential, Chair. An old chair with a back for shoulder exercises if you dont have the above bench
	Essential, cardio equipment. If you want to jog for cardio get a good pair of running shoes. If you want to bike then get an inexpensive bike like this, this one is $215 but you can probably get one for $140 at your local big-box store. Don't get anything with gears, we don't want maintenance problems here as we are trying to save time not add more complications to our life and besides, the idea is to get more exercise and you get more on a one speed bike than a 21speed! Make sure you get one that will let you raise the seat to the proper height. Many have blown out their knees riding on a bike with the seat too low. Jump rope is a good cardio option for those who dont live in a place where its possible to run or bike during the winter.
	Essential, Cushion. A good cushion is needed to protect your knees while doing dumbbell rows and other exercises.
Optional Equipment
	Optional, Lifting straps. Good if your wrists give out before your back does when you are doing pull-ups. Also useful if you are doing lunges with a heavy weight. You can buy inexpensive lifting straps from amazon for $7 or nice padded straps for $18.
	Optional, Footstool for lunges and calf raises, optional. I made this one in 7th grade shop class, make sure yours is very sturdy.
	Optional, Push-up stand. A pushup stand ($13)is great for allowing you to do pushups without damaging your wrists or hands. You can also use a set of octagonal dumbbells. Many people ask about the Perfect Pushup , at $40 I think its overpriced but many swear by them. Personally I dont use either, I do them on my fists (with padding).
,	Optional, Bench. These are handy but take up lots of space. I bought mine used for $60 and it included 120lbs of weights! I use it for doing inclines, preacher curls, leg curls and leg extensions. Flat bench press and flat dumbbell press I still do by laying on the ground directly. Again, you dont really need one of these and I would advise against buying one but if you must have one you can buy a weight bench at amazon.
	Optional, hanging ab straps. I use them a fair amount to exercise my lats when my elbow tendonitis is flaring up (see the working around injuries section). These hook onto your pull-up bar and can be used for ab exercises and for lats exercises when you have an injured elbow or hand. Get them at your local sporting good store for about $35 or click here to buy hanging ab straps from amazon.
	Optional, Self spotting rig. If you have a very strong pullup bar in your workout area then it can double as a self-spotting rig. This is very helpful in getting a good workout without risking injury. The weights are secured at the correct height to prevent you from hyper-extending and injuring a joint. Very helpful in chest and shoulder exercises which use a lot of weight.
	The most important thing you need is a place to workout. A garage or spare room is idea so things dont rust. Most of us dont have a room we can dedicate to a weight room which is why dumbbells are perfect. The picture on the left is in weight-room mode with the pullup bar and dumbbells spread out. On the right was taken 5 minutes later after I put everything away because company was coming over.