Written by: Mitchell Jones, @garagegyms_oz
Through my experience of Garage gym owners, we don’t require the best equipment, gear or accessories, and we aren’t always hoping to have the most muscular or fit looking bodies around, but we do require the basics that give us a good all round workout that we benefit from.
You will see some awesome looking garage/ home gyms grace the walls of the garage gym pages of Instagram, and for the serious gym owner that is exactly how you want it. It may have taken years to acquire all the equipment that has allowed you to personalise your garage gym exactly how you want it. But for the people that are just starting out, we recommend getting a few pieces of basic equipment and seeing if the whole garage gym works for you.
Whether you are working out to get fit, lose weight or maintain a healthy life balance, a few simple pieces of equipment will get you by. It’s what you do with the basic equipment that will make all the difference. A Functional training method will best suit the beginner garage gym owner.
Let’s use a slam ball for example. The basic exercise for the slam ball is to pick it up, and slam it down. In that motion you are squatting, lifting and exerting power to slam it down. They are all functional movements of everyday life that the human body needs to do to stay in shape.
Any exercise you can think of can be applied. The slam ball will simply add weight, but can redefine the way you workout.
Now if you think outside the square a little, that basic slam ball can be used in a multitude of ways to get a very beneficial workout from. Some examples are, but not limited to:
•Front squats
•Overhead squats
•Shoulder press
•Wall balls
•Biceps curls/ tricep extensions
•Jump overs
•Pushups on ball
•Alternate arm pushups on ball
•Sits ups with ball
•Over the shoulder throws (keg throws)
•Sit on a chair, ball between your feet leg extensions
•And my favourite, burpee throw the ball broad jumps.
By using the above exercises you can make up a very good circuit that can be used for cardio or strength depending on the weight of the ball and the time under tension you use.
So whether your looking for strength, power, endurance or cardiovascular fitness it can be achieved with a minimalistic approach. It’s not the gear you have, it’s how you use it.. train smarter not harder.
*Thank you to @garagegyms_oz for taking the time to write this post. If you are interested in writing something for the home gym community, please just send an email to jake@garagegymexperiment.com.