What equipment should I buy for my home gym?
If you want to start strength training at home, dumbbells are unequivocally the best tool to purchase.
Dumbbells (sometimes called hand weights) are small, easy to store in your home, and relatively inexpensive.
They are highly versatile, allowing you to easily do an effective, full-body workout with just a few pairs.
Dumbbells are also ubiquitous and you can find them in nearly every gym, community center, apartment fitness room or hotel workout area.
You can find dumbbells in a variety of different styles. If you already have some ready to use, great.
If you are looking to purchase to purchase dumbbells for the first time, I recommend dumbbells with a steel handle and rubber hexagon ends. These dumbbells are durable and easy to manage for a variety of different lifts. If you decide down the road that you no longer want your dumbbells, this style of dumbbell is easy to re-sale as they are popular with athletes and more serious lifters.
Some people prefer dumbbells with a neoprene coating over the handles, because they offer a little extra padding for the hands. I personally do not recommend these. As you go up in weight with this style of dumbbell, the handles get thicker and they actually become harder to hold. The neoprene can also get dirty and crack, making these dumbbells harder to re-sale or reuse and perhaps more likely to end up in a landfill.
Remember, a big benefit of strength training is developing a stronger grip. Part of that includes training the skin on your hands to be more resilient to pressure. While the metal handles might feel in your hands at first, most people quickly adapt.
You can use thin lifting gloves if you need additional padding for your hands.
When it comes to choosing weights, you want to begin with something that you can confidently press overhead for about 6 repetitions. For most of the beginners that I work with, this is 5# or 8#, but for some people it is less. For a few people, it is more.
If you want to purchase multiple sets of dumbbells, purchase in 2# or 3# increments.
A good starter package is 5#, 8# and 10#.
Make sure to purchase your dumbbells in pairs.
Here is a link to the style of dumbbells I recommend.
Here is a link to the neoprene dumbbells that some people prefer.