The 9 Best Home Gyms of 2021, According to a Certified Personal Trainer

Best Overall: Bowflex PR3000 Home Gym

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This reasonably-priced Bowflex design really does it all. The total-body home gym can be used to perform more than 50 different strength training exercises, and it uses a power rod resistance system in lieu of cables and pulleys to make transition time between moves quicker and more efficient. Use as little resistance as 5 pounds or as much as 210 as you navigate from exercise to exercise. And if you need a little more, you can upgrade the resistance on the machine to up to 310 pounds.

For such a versatile piece of equipment, its overall footprint is surprisingly small, making it a great option for compact home gym spaces. Meanwhile, its size doesn’t impact its durability. The heavy-duty steel frame construction is built to last.

Best Budget: Weider Ultimate Body Works Bench

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This piece of equipment helps strengthen and tone your entire body at an affordable price. The glide board-based home gym uses an incline bench to add challenging resistance to your workouts. It’s less aggressive than the number of resistance levels offered by other systems, but it does provide a maximum weight resistance of 50 pounds, plus the use of four resistance band levels. Home gym newcomers and seniors are likely to benefit more from this equipment than more advanced weight lifters.

The compact design makes it an excellent solution for smaller workout spaces, and it has a maximum weight capacity of 250 pounds. It’s sturdy and silent when in use, and it accommodates a solid variety of exercises, thanks to the foot board, pull-up bar, and sit-up station attachments.

Best Splurge: MiM USA Commercial Hercules 1001 Jumbo Trainer

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This all-in-one weight lifting rig truly leaves nothing out. It combines both cable and pulley systems with weight plates to give you the heavyweight capacity you need. It includes a smith machine, functional trainer, power cage, vertical leg press, dip and chip-up station, and adjustable weight bench, giving you the ability to perform hundreds of exercises in this single giant setup.

What’s more, it includes a full set of accessories: a V handle, a strap handle, ankle straps, a triceps pull-down rope, a push bar, grips, leg press attachments, push-up and sit-up attachments, an arm workout tube, a knurl barbell, a straight barbell, a functional training barbell, a triceps barbell, crossover handles, bar storage, and all necessary hooks. The only thing you have to buy separately is the weight plates of your choice.

This tough, durable machine is perfect for full-body workouts of all intensities, and is also ideal for bodybuilders, thanks to the range of exercises offered.

Best Design: Technogym Unica

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Made in Italy, this multi-functional machine really does give you all the benefits of gym strength training in your own home. The unit fits in approximately 16 square feet of space and helps you work your arms, legs, chest, and more with at least 25 different exercises. It supports moves like the leg and hip extension, chest press, arm curl, and pulldown.

Meanwhile, the sleek weight stack core provides up to 180 pounds of resistance in 10-pound intervals, and the seat cushions are plush enough to feel comfortable yet sturdy enough to support you while you exercise.

This top-of-the-line pick also comes with a handful of accessories, including but not limited to a stretching mat, a workout ankle band, a workout handgrip, a workout pulley bar, and a DVD guide for all of the exercises you can perform on the machine.

Best for Small Spaces: Total Gym XLS Workout Machine

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This pick, popularized by none other than Chuck Norris, provides an excellent full-body home workout in minimal space. While the equipment can handle a weight capacity of 400 pounds, it can also be folded to fit under your bed when it’s not in use. It’s also simple to set up and take down, unlike larger, more cumbersome models.

The glide board can be set at six different incline options, allowing you to increase resistance with your own bodyweight instead of a bulky weight stack, and the cable pulley mechanism makes it easy to incorporate challenging exercises for your upper body.

Ideal for seniors and young fit folks alike, this Total Gym model supports more than 80 different exercise movements, ensuring that you can get your blood pumping and work your muscles without getting bored.

Best Portable: BodyBoss 2.0 Full Portable Home Gym

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If you want to be able to take your workout with you on-the-go, consider this crafty setup from BodyBoss. When in use, it’s no bigger than a yoga mat, and when stored, it can be carried like a lightweight suitcase. Meanwhile, its exercise versatility is impressive. The resistance band-based system enables you to complete tough upper body workouts, lower body workouts, cardio resistance boxing workouts, and more.

Simply attach the cloth-covered resistance bands to the fold-up platform and either the handles, the collapsible workout bar, or the wrist/ankle straps, and get to sweating.

You can perform more than 300 exercises with this home gym, and you can make the moves easier or more difficult quickly by lengthening or shortening the resistance bands. The truly portable design of the BodyBoss Gym helps users remain consistent with their workouts and reach their goals more effectively. 

Best for Full-Body Workouts: NordicTrack Fusion CST

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The sleek tower base of this NordicTrack model houses a 10-inch tablet screen that enables you to follow along with trainer-guided total-body workouts without even thinking about it, and the 20 resistance levels are manipulated via a nearby digital display so you don’t waste extra seconds adjusting the machine between each exercise. Each movement uses the pulley system powered by the silent flywheel in the center of the machine.

What’s more, during the workouts, the trainers automatically adjust your resistance levels in the machine to ensure that you get the most out of your exercises—the machine comes with a chest strap heart rate monitor to power these personalized sweat sessions.

The home gym purchase includes one year of a NordicTrack iFit membership, so you have plenty of time to experiment with these features and see how well they work for you.

Best Suspension Trainer: TRX HOME2 System

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When looking at this set of black and yellow straps, you probably wouldn’t consider this workout tool to be a “home gym.” However, once anchored on your wall of choice, these smart straps enable you to strength train every part of your body, customizing the intensity with your body weight as you position yourself closer to or further away from the anchor point.

The maximum weight resistance depends on the weight of the person using the straps, so it’s probably not the best fit for traditional weightlifters. With that said, this suspension trainer promotes a strong sense of body awareness as you learn how to perform exercises with the correct form and muscle engagement. In a sense, your body becomes the machine with this home gym.

The TRX system comes with free access to the TRX app for one year, which showcases the wide variety of exercises you can perform with these straps. It also includes a door anchor, a suspension anchor, and a mesh carry bag.