Recommended Products
Building your own home gym? Don't waste your money on big expensive machines and equipment.
These products are everything you need to ease pain, keep active, and maintain your lifestyle as you get older from the comfort of your own home.
Foam Roller
Many of the self mobilizations and massages I recommend require a foam roller to perform. While any foam roller will do, I personally suggest a 36 inch foam roller as all most people will ever need. For those looking for a fancier foam roller, the Trigger Point foam roller is my pick. Its plastic inner ring provides firmness and stability while the foam padding on the outside keeps it soft and comfortable on your muscles and joints.
Resistance Bands
Easily the most versatile tool for your home gym. Rubber functional fitness bands are great tools for stretching, adding resistance, and providing assistance to more difficult movements and should be part of your home gym. Whether you prefer loop resistance bands or bands with handles, most exercises can be performed with either of the band sets below. Note: If buying the loop bands, most exercises can be performed with the red (10-35 lbs) and black band (30-650 lbs), which is why I recommend starting with these two.
Perform Better Mini Bands
These versatile mini-bands provide resistance for many of the early exercises I use in my programming. I recommend The Perform Better Mini-Band Pack with four different resistances to give you options depending on the exercise you are performing.
Suspension Trainer
A suspension trainer is an amazing tool that not only provides a large variety of exercises, but can be used initially to add assistance to help you build confidence in certain movements that may be difficult or painful initially. The TRX Suspension Training system is the gold standard of suspension training. For the home gym, the TRX Go Bundle is enough to get you started.
Kettlebells
I strongly believe that EVERYONE should have access to kettlebells. These versatile weights are great for any level. Training with kettlebells recruits more muscles than traditional barbell or dumbbell training. The strength of your core and grip will often be the limiting factors. Skill with kettlebell lifting is very important as well and many find that when lifting heavier they “muscle up” the weight rather than lift it with correct form. Going lighter (at least to start) allows you to learn proper form and reduce your risk of injury. Recommended starting weights are listed in the table below (when in doubt, always go lighter!)
Weight recommendations
Experienced lifter
Men: 16 kg (~35 lbs)
Women: 8 kg (~18 lbs)
Brand-new to lifting
Men: 12 kg (~26 lbs)
Women: 6kg (~13 lbs)
Stability Ball
A stability ball can be used to train the core, glutes, and hips as well as providing support for other functional movement patterns. Theraband makes a great stability ball that comes in four different sizes based on the user’s height. Note – to get the most out of your training with a stability ball it is essential to have the correct size stability ball for your height. Below you will find a list of the four ball sizes and their corresponding user heights.
- Blue: 6’2” to 6’8”
- Green: 5’7” to 6’1”
- Red: 5’1” to 5’6”
- Yellow: 4’7” to 5’
McKenzie Lumbar Roll
A lumbar roll offers support to one’s low back while sitting and therefore provides relief of low back pain. It can also help reinforce proper sitting posture thus helping to reduce “text neck”. The McKenzie Lumbar Roll is the one used in our clinic and is the gold standard for lumbar cushions. There are two different densities – standard and firm – and which one to get largely comes down to body size and personal preference (for reference we use the standard in our clinic).
McKenzie Cervical Roll
A cervical roll offers support to one’s neck while lying and therefore provides relief of neck (and often headache!) pain. It can also help reinforce proper sleeping posture thus increasing sleep comfort. The McKenzie Cervical Roll is the one recommended in our clinic and is the gold standard for cervical cushions.