Best Portable Home Gym

Portable home gyms allow you to exercise at home, at the office, or even when on the road! We reviewed the top 10 best portable home gyms on the market.

Introduction

If you’re considering buying exercise equipment for your home, you don’t have to buy something that takes up a lot of space, like a stationary bike, a treadmill, or a rowing machine. There are some amazing portable home gyms, that allow you to develop either a particular muscle group or for full-body workouts. Depending on the product, you’ll find exercises for cardio, weight training, endurance, and more. They can be an inexpensive alternative for a gym subscription as well. And best of all: they’re usually small and light enough that you can take them along with you, whether when on a trip, or to your office, or even outdoors!

What are the Different Types of Portable Home Gyms?

Most portable home gyms are based on isometric strength training. Isometric training is where you have two sets of muscles applying equal tension or pressure against each other. Isometric exercises are much like grabbing one end of a towel in each hand and trying to rip it in half by pulling. Such exercise makes you condition your muscles by pulling or pushing, even if your joints are remaining static.

Portable home gyms usually fall into one of several categories:

• Resistance bands: Many portable home gyms employ resistance bands. These can be made of latex or some other elastic material. You attach one end of the band to a stationary base, or to a door, or even a tree branch! Pulling on the resistance band with your arms can condition your upper body, while pulling with your legs will condition your legs and lower body muscles. One of the most popular examples is the BodyBoss 2.0. You attach one end of the resistance bands to the Vectorfit base that they provide, and the other end to a workout bar. Though it seems like a very simple setup, it lets you perform over 300 exercises that can tone muscles just as well as gym equipment that would cost much more.

BodyBoss 2.0 Home Gym

Another portable home gym, the Brayfit home gym equipment, uses resistance bands from stranded rubber, that you can attach to any door in your house. It allows you to do whole-body workouts that build muscle, burn fat, and increase your endurance and flexibility.

The Brayfit Home Gym Equipment, illustrating just some of over 200 possible exercises

• Bows: Some portable home gym manufacturers make a bow with a resistance band serving as the “bowstring”. You can vary the resistance by changing the bowstring, or adding several bowstrings in tandem. For example, the Gorilla Bow Portable Home Gym comes with 4 bands varying in resistance from 10 lbs to 50 lbs--but you can order more bands that allow for a total resistance of 300 lbs! The original version is 56” long, and can’t be collapsed down to a smaller size. But, they also make a travel version, where the bow can be disassembled.

Gorilla Bow Portable Home Gym

• Proprietary resistance devices: There are also specially designed pieces of equipment, where you either push or pull against resistance. One of the most famous is the Bullworker, a product based on the discovery of how much muscle growth can be achieved just by isometric resistance training, either pulling or pushing against resistance. The Bullworker works on springs to provide the resistance. You can add or remove springs, to modify the resistance offered.

Bullworker, displaying the springs of varying resistance

Another fascinating device is the OYO Personal Gym. Owing to its compact design, it was used by NASA astronauts in the International Space Station! (When in a weightless environment, there is a significant loss of muscle tone and bone density. Exercise for the astronauts is a very important part of maintaining muscle and bone mass.) The OYO Personal Gym allows you to vary the resistance by clicking on resistance packs, for a total of 25 pounds of resistance. It also includes a door attachment, for even more exercises.

OYO Personal Gym

What can a Portable Home Gym Accomplish?

• Wide variety of exercises: One problem with exercises such as weightlifting is that the exercise can become monotonous and boring. But you’ll be amazed at the versatility of many of these portable home gyms. For example, the Fusion Motion Portable Gym, includes resistance bands, a roller wheel to exercise your abdominal muscles, and pulleys. It has a base into which you insert the various other components, to set up for a particular set of exercises. It comes with a manual that contains 200 exercise ideas! And many come with instructional videos as well. One thing is for certain: you’ll never be bored!

Fusion Motion Portable Gym

• Take note of the resistance: Some have reservations about the OYO Spiraflex Personal Gym, since it only is able to generate 25 lbs of resistance. You may find that using it is no longer challenging after a while, and prefer something else. On the other hand, the Gorilla Bow can provide you with 300 lbs of resistance.

Who can Benefit from a Portable Home Gym?

• For people with want to exercise on the go: The products that you see in the MSN Top Ten home gyms differ in how compact they are, and whether it’s lightweight. For example, the BodyBoss equipment totals 15 pounds and comes in a carrying case. On the other hand, the TRX suspension training system weighs only 1.7 lbs! Also, check the size of the home gym. The Gorilla Bow comes as a 56”-long bow, which might be a bit difficult to pack away. You might want to choose their travel or lite version.

• For developing lean muscle as well: One of the surprising facts about isometric exercises is that they force you to exercise opposing muscle groups. So, even though you do curls with your forearm, you’ll end up exercising both your biceps and triceps at the same time. The advantage is that you burn 2x as many calories, and develop two muscle groups at once.

• Even good for cardio: A portable home gym doesn’t burn as many calories or exert your heart as much jogging or swimming. But, surprisingly, a portable home gym can even provide cardio exercises. By doing squats or jumping jacks with resistance bands, you can achieve results that will increase your cardiovascular endurance.

• Good for people recovering from injury: Many isometric exercises require that you hold your muscles in a particular position, to improve muscle strength. If a person is recovering from an injury that makes it painful to flex their joints, they can use isometric exercises such as the Bullworker or BodyBoss, and still maintain muscle tone. Also, the fact that these exercises are low-impact, they can even be performed by people suffering from arthritis.

Wrap Up

We examined some of the best portable home gyms on the market. But we’ve just scratched the surface of how versatile they can be. If you wish, you can select a portable home gym that can provide you with a full-body workout. Check out the MSN list of the 10 Best Home Rowing Machines, or other MSN lists of the best home exercise equipment. It’s a cost-effective alternative to gym membership, and you can exercise wherever and whenever you want!