D.I.Y. Home Gym

If you’re interested in living a healthy lifestyle, creating an exercise routine is a must. But working out on a regular basis can be tough on your body- and your wallet.

Health club costs, as well as the hassle of making it to the gym on a regular basis, can often lead you astray from a fitness regiment. In fact, only 44 percent of people who own a gym membership actually get to that club more than 100 times a year, according to the International Health, Racquet and Sports Club Association.

Working out at home may seem like the ideal fit for you, but you may not have the income to spend thousands of dollars on pricey home gym equipment. Here at American Better Health Organization, we’re dedicated to finding ways to help you live a healthier lifestyle- at an affordable price. We’ve come up with 5 items that will help you kick up your home workout routine a notch. Best of all, they’re all available online from Walmart for under $50 total!

Let’s start with a fun, high-calorie burning cardio tool that you probably already know how to use- the jump rope. Jumping rope gives you an amazing aerobic workout, burning about 10 calories per minute, according to the Compendium of Physical Studies. (That’s the equivalent of running an 8 minute mile!)

Often called the best all-around piece of exercise equipment you can own by fitness experts, jump ropes are cheap and portable. They promotes strength gaining, improved coordination and fat loss. Jumping rope builds bone-mineral density, and involves nearly every muscle for a great all-over workout.

Walmart’s website has lots of jump rope options, starting at $2.57 and ending with a high end fitness rope at $39.34.

For our next home gym requirement, we turn to resistance bands, which can take the place of a roomful of gym machines. Some fitness experts say resistance band are even more effective than a set of dumbbells, because they improve strength and balance. When working with a band, you move in a full range of motion, so it targets muscles that you might miss with weights. Best of all, resistance bands are great for achy joints or injury recovery, because they’re a lower-impact option to build muscle than weight lifting.

The internet is crawling with great resistance band workouts, and Walmart offers some low-cost options. Their cheapest band runs at $4.77; their most expensive is $83.33.

Our next must-have for a home gym is one you may have already guessed would be included: dumbbells. You can strengthen your arms, legs, back, chest and more with just one single pair of dumbbells. Dumbbells are extremely effective because parts of your body are worked separately, so the strong side can’t compensate for the weaker side, as can happen with barbells. Ranging anywhere from 1 to 95 pounds and even higher, dumbbells are available for any fitness level.

Walmart’s website features a plethora of dumbbell set options, starting at $2.78 for one pound dumbbells and going up from there.

For building your core, think about adding an exercise ball to your home gym. Exercise balls, also called stability, balance, Swiss or fitness balls, are great for core-strengthening exercises. Exercising with the large, soft elastic improves strength, cardio endurance and balance, while focusing on your ore muscles (abdomen, back and the muscles around the pelvis). By mastering basic moves like push-ups, squats and planks on an unstable surface, muscles get more of a work out. Exercise balls are also great for injury recovery because they can reduce muscle and spinal strain during some exercises.

Just be sure to use an exercise ball sized so your knees are at a right angle when you sit on the ball with your feet flat on the floor. People smaller than 5 feet 4 should use a 55-centimeter ball; 5 feet 4 and up, 64-cm. Walmart’s website has exercise balls of all sizes, starting at $9.76 for a 55 cm ball.

There’s another ball that would be a welcome addition to any home gym: a medicine ball. These smaller, weighted balls can be used for core exercises too. Medicine balls are usually sold as 2–25 pound balls and are often used in plyometric weight training to increase power in athletes. Some medicine balls are in the form of weighted basketballs.

A weighted ball is a great training tool because you can add it to almost any exercise. It exercises your core stability and improves coordination. While it can work like a dumbbell, a medicine ball is more versatile, with most exercises involving throwing, catching, holding, and lifting the weighted ball. Check out Walmart’s website, with prices starting at $5.84 for a four pound ball.