Len's Home Gym Equipment List

<I am wanting to get a basic free weights setup at home. I was just looking for a little bit of advise about what basic equipment I should start with, what weights, bars, bench, etc. Thanks, Nick>

My wife and I started out with Weider's Total Gym, got a good deal from Sears. We have since sold that to upgrade to an adjustable bench from Legacy 570 Bench with 5 adjustments, 4 adjustable heights for the cross bar, including a Squat tower and a Leg Attachment.

Also available is their Preacher Attachment and T-Bar for seated Preacher Curls or remove the attachment and you can do Seated Rows. By the way the bench does have decline, flat 30', 45' and 90' adjustments. You can also do Crunches, Reverse Crunches, Incline Crunches, Standing Leg Curls, Leg Extensions, Lying Leg Curls and Standing Calf and Seated Calf Raises. It has an adapter for Oly Plates too! I have since modified this to allow for 70' angle.

I have added by my own design a Cable tower with multiple pulleys for an additional fifty or so exercises.

This added Lat Pull Downs, Reverse Grip Cable Pull Downs, Standing and seated Cable Curls, Wrist Curls; Reg. & Reverse, Adductor & Abductor Leg Work, Cable Seated Rowing, Rev Grip & Regular Cable Pressdowns, Rope Hammer Curls, Forward and Reverse Rope Crunches, Rope Pull Downs, One Arm Cable Raises; Mid, Posterior & Anterior, Cable Preacher Curls, Cable Wrist Curls (both), Blaster Curls, Cross Chest Pulls, Cross Face Pulls, Bent Over Cable Rows; Wide and Narrow Grips, Cable High Pulls, Cable Shrugs, One Arm Cable Flyes, Machine Pullovers, Lying Cable T-Bar Rows, Hyper Extensions, Good Mornings, Deadlifts, Three Part Curls, Standing Two Hand Cable Curls, One arm Cable Pressdowns and much, much more.

Look in Arnold's Bible to get a good idea of the rest as I can do 80% of those exercises comfortably. All of this for a mere $400.00 and some time to design and have a friend build. I know you can buy commercial equipment for a lot more, but if you take just a bit more time you can save hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

I'm not a cheapskate or a miser, just patient. I mean, when we started this whole ordeal two years ago, we were fat. Kind of like some of the folks on the IOL network that needed to and/or wanted to make the change for the better. We both have lost over 30% BF and have a bit more to go. My wife went from a size 8/9 to a 0/2 with NO Shoulder Pads, just Delts. The money we saved we put into floor mats, a real good treadmill, a Vertical Bench and a Bose Stereo System. The room is always clean, unlike most gyms with other people's sweat all over the place. It's air conditioned and available 24 hours a day as we both work for companies that rotate our hours.

So when you buy remember the acronym for GYM; Got Your Money!

Len and Jamie

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