How to Put Together a Low Cost Home Gym Setup
Today, I’m going to show you to do a really awesome, fully functional low cost home gym setup using some bands and this little thing we called control track for under $150.
Let’s take a look…
My Current Home Gym Setup
Since 2003, I have been working out almost exclusively from home using mostly Beachbody products. I’ve had every kind of home gym you can think of…from just some little corner of a living room with a few weights, a yoga mat, and a lot of creativity all the way up to a full blown gym in a garage where I had a squat rack and pull up bars and it looked like the set of P90X.
That was pretty awesome, but now I have a little bit different space in what was my son’s bedroom. He’s off the college at University of Washington, so now his room has become a guest bedroom/gym.
So, now I have a little bit more room, which is cool and allows me to get creative.
Over the years, I’ve kind of engineered a lot of my own little workout solutions. And, my current setup is really one of my favorite setups yet…for a variety of reasons.
Let me just give you a breakdown of what I have in here…
First, I have this strap called a control track. It’s designed to be mounted on a door.
One of the most awesome things about this equipment is that you can take it with you. This and a band and you’re good to go. I’ve taken it on vacation a couple of times and it’s been great.
The doors in my room won’t work cause they all open inward and you want to be on the other side of the door so you can use the jam as a support for this thing. So, I have added bands to it and mounted it to the wall.
Although wall mounting is an option, it doesn’t come with the hardware. In the video below, I’ll show you the hardware and some additions I’ve made, including some clever little things I did with these carabiners that I just got off of Amazon for some added versatility.
What’s really cool about this is that you can change the angle that you’re working out on it. But, you can save some money and eliminate this and just do what I show you in the video.
As you can see in the video, I’ve got a super solid mount going on. It’s got two lag bolts. I don’t know what the exact dimensions of the lag bolts are, but they’re big. It’s anchored well.
On the bottom, I just have a standard eye bolt. It’s solid and stable and I really, really like it.
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If you’re going to run bands through the control track, you have to take the handles off the bands. With these smaller bands, that’s not a big deal..it’s pretty simple. You take the handle off, you thread it through and you just kind of put the handle back on with the smaller ones.
But, when you start to get into the bigger bands, it’s a real task to change the handles out. So, I came up with an idea—I got a beefy carabiner off of Amazon. I don’t know what the weight test on this thing is, but it’s a lot.
This is not like a carabiner you would use for like clipping your keys to your backpack or something. It’s big. The reason it needs to be big is because these bands are big.
I have two—one on the top and one on the bottom. The bottom is not as substantial as the top one…the one I used is probably a little bit overkill, but I already had it and I’m using this for a lot of pull downs and other stuff. Check out the video for how I have it set up.
Again, it’s mounted into a stud so it’s not going anywhere. I’ve worked out with it a ton and it’s been great.
How I Use My Home Gym
In the video, I show you some of the awesome things you can do with this setup. For the price of this, you have something that’s super versatile and much less expensive than a weight rack.
And, I love that it’s compact and portable. You can break this down very quickly. We do that when guests come to visit.
There’s a whole workout that Autumn Calabrese does called Control Freak where you can use these. If you have a Beachbody on Demand (BOD) subscription, it’s included with that.
There is a TON on there for an outstanding monthly price.
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How Much Does a Low Cost Home Gym Cost?
All right, let’s break down some costs here.
The control track retails for about $65, but if you’re eligible to get a coach or preferred customer discount, the price drops down to about $50. It’s a super affordable little piece of a gym equipment.
By the way, the discount is really easy to get. It works kind of like a Costco membership, so you get a discount on everything Beachbody, including stuff like bands and the control track.
The basic set of bands retail for about $23, which drops to just over $17 with the discount. I bought the heavier set for about $40 (you can save $10 with the discount). For a system like this, don’t use old bands. If you’ve never had a band snap on you, it’s bad. Just buy a new set and save yourself a trip to the hospital.
The price of the mounts are kind of hard to price out. I’m sure you could find something in the $10 range.
The carabiners I used were about $17. I would not buy cheap carabiners. You want to get something that has a serious weight rate and keep in mind when you have these bands under tension, there’s a ton of load on them.
Total cost is about $150—the Beachbody Coach/Preferred Customer discount drops it down to $120 bucks.
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I do use the weights I show you in the video that are not included in this price. I use the bands more than the weights, but I appreciate that I can do different things with them and I can use them to stretch.
Make SURE Your Home Gym is SAFE
Now, a word about safety…
Although I show you how I made my gym in the video, they are not installation instructions. You really need to make sure that you know how to do everything—or hire someone who does.
If you’re wall mounting this, understand that these things are heavy duty equipment and need to be mounted in a wall stud. Do NOT try and just screw these into drywall. Can you imagine if you had this under tension and this whole thing comes flying out at you??? That’s a recipe to get seriously injured…maybe even die.
BE SAFE.
You’ll need basic equipment, like a stud finder, a drill, and those good solid wall mounts. Don’t try to use little screws that you would use for hanging a plant. Everything needs to be really heavy duty and rated for a ton of weight so that none of it comes ripping out of the wall and flying at you.
And, do NOT put anything into straight drywall or anything weak, even if you’re using dry wall screws. That’s NOT enough.
If you have any questions about setting up your own low cost home gym and/or you’re interested in getting the discount I mentioned above, please reach out to me.
