How to Build a Home Gym in 2025 (Step-by-Step Guide)

I often get asked about what I would recommend for people to start their home gyms. So I wanted to take time to go through a video on what I would recommend on the thought process and some of the things that you should consider when going to start your home gym based on space, budget, needs, preference, and even your personality style. I want to talk to some of the things I like and what I would do if I were to do it all over again from my own perspective. So let's check it out. Hey guys, this is Michael with the Jungle Gym Reviews. Today I'm going to walk you through my thought process. If I had to start my whole gym completely from scratch in 2025, some of the things I might mention specific products, other things I might mention product categories. But quickly I want to mention I'm only going to talk about my perspective and this is highly, highly subjective based on my own training style. But I at least want to give people the thought process and logical flow of things that goes into, hey, this is what I would recommend for how you should approach starting your own home gym. Before I get into the video, if you could quickly hit that subscribe button below if you haven't already, don't continue to help us grow the channel and make sure you get notified when we post these weekly review videos throughout the rest of 2025.

And if you're interested in purchasing anything after the review with any of our affiliate links, please check out that description below. As you're going through this whole thought building process, one thing you really have to think about is not so much the equipment and somewhat about you as a person. If you know you're a highly motivated and highly accountable individual, when you start to build this, you can kind of do it a little quicker or put money or thought into this long term gym ecosystem that you plan on building.

Now if you're not that kind of person, not self accountable, I would strongly consider your personality type and your motivation at the core of some of these decisions as well. All right, so at the base of everyone's list, no pun intended, should be flooring. What I recommend, tractor supply company, four by six horse stall mats, three quarter inch thick, they weigh about 100 pounds.

Best of all, you'd use this black thick gorilla duct tape right down the middle and this stuff has been holding strong for two years. After flooring, I would typically suggest if your goal is strength training like mine is, more hypertrophy oriented and now more functional training. Still at the heart of everything is typically some sort of bench and adjustable bench is probably preferred something that can go obviously flat to incline, potentially even decline. If you'd like to do decline bench, I really like to do decline sit ups. This bench here is just a FI bench, but I have had many FID, D being decline benches in the past that have the leg roller attachment for you to do decline sit ups. Unfortunately, a good bench is anywhere from $300 to $600 and I wouldn't really skimp out on a bench or some of these things. Again, me personally, I think long term, the value really pays off. One thing I would consider when getting a bench though is get one with one of the two by two or similar type of tubes at the end so that you can do things like the upcoming attachments that a lot of the companies now are offering.

If you do have something like that, with the attachment post, it adds a little more variety and expandability over time. One of the companies I really recommend for a good adjustable bench selection is going to be Rep Fitness. They're definitely bridging the gap between cheap, but also extremely functional and well made and they have everything from a couple hundred dollar benches to their top of the line fully adjustable FID benches.

I'd recommend at least starting there, getting an idea on the different types of functionality and the different price ranges and then you can decide whether to purchase for them or other similar competitors that have similar options. After flooring, after a bench, I'd probably go to some sort of free weights. Typically for most people, that's going to be barbell and weight plates just because that's the most accessible and sometimes just the cheapest, best bang for buck as far as overall value. Again, you don't actually technically need a squat rack or a power rack yet.

We'll talk about that in a second. A good old fashioned barbell can go a long way. Barbells are highly subjective and up to your preference. Any sort of decent Olympic bar, whether it's on Amazon, whether it's used on Facebook marketplace, whether it's on sale from any major manufacturer, spend $100, $200, find a bar that suits your needs. Obviously an Olympic bar that takes Olympic weight plates. You need plates to put on there in order to bench press, in order to squat. I like change plates, bumper plates take up more space. So then you got to have more storage to do it. And I think just typical Olympic rubber coated grip plates are typically what I would recommend.

Now the next category categories are where we start to really get highly subjective. Now most people once you have your barbells, your bench probably going to go for something like a power rack. Power racks very wildly from the cheap Amazon brand all-in-one plate loaded cable machine will probably get the job done for most people anywhere from $300 to $500. Then there's things like the typical two by two racks, everyone from Titan Fitness to Rep Fitness sales.

And they will get the job done for pretty much anyone for life, but don't really have a whole lot of options as far as attachments or expandability over time. Then you move up to the three by three type of racks, three by three, meaning three inch by three inch racks, three by three is typically what I recommend. It does not have to be the one inch holes, although that does offer the most long term universal compatibility. I typically recommend this if you're going to do things that are either centered around a power rack or honestly because most companies and their racks and their rack attachments and ecosystems are going towards this all-in-one multifunctional. What can we put all in one power rack from a huge cable system to a lap pull down, a mid tier or inch of tier rack can be $400 and these three by three racks can be somewhere $800- $900. That's really not that much when we're talking about gym equipment over a long period of time, five years, 10 years, or potentially longer. So I would typically recommend people to do that.

Yes, it might send you back at first, but long term, it'll probably be worthwhile because the way the industry is moving and because of the way that it allows you customization and stuff over time. Now, this is a little bit of a hot take because I've started my own gym or helped others start their gym anywhere from three to four to five times. And if I did this all over again, I don't think I would actually get dumbbells free weights next. I would actually probably go with something like a cable system, also known as a functional trainer, cable crossover. I've heard a million different names for those.

But let me tell you why and let me show you exactly what I mean. There's a couple different styles you can get. There is the all in one rack.

This is really dangerous for me to be doing. But what I would typically recommend is what people usually think of when they think of a functional trainer, something with dual weight stacks, dual sides that has a trolley system that can move things up and down. I would actually argue and try to vouch for someone getting something like this prior to dumbbells fixed and or adjustable because I find at least in my training, cables are a lot more versatile and can pretty much do the exact same thing that adjustable dumbbells do or dumbbells in general do and more.

So I would typically see just cables. You can change the height, you can change the angles, you can quickly change the weight stack up and down, things like this actually store in half that can be super near a profile. I'm literally just talking about the concept of a functional trainer and you can pretty much do anything on a functional trainer that you can with dumbbells.

And I think even more personally, I like that resistance style just a lot more. But if dumbbells seem more up your alley, again, this is a little subjective, a good pair of adjustable dumbbells for a home gym will go a long way. I have probably what I consider to be one of the best, if not the best adjustable dumbbells here in the original Pepin fast series dumbbells that go from 20 pounds to 120 in five pound increments. But there are just so many different types of adjustable dumbbells and so many different price ranges, power blocks I see on marketplace all the time. You can buy things new from many different manufacturers, Iron Master, even the old loadable spin lock dumbbells. So much of it depends on your price needs for durability, needs for space, all of those things, but adjustable dumbbells are another key centerpiece of your gym. Power rack attachments, as I mentioned, are probably going to be my next thing that I recommend, because that's where you can just go from this basics of adjustable dumbbells and free weights to now I can have all these crazy things, things like this built in dumbbell storage. We have dumbbell storage trays.

Oh, did I mention those plates you bought earlier, you could store the plates right along the uprights. So you're not taking up any other space needing a weight tree or anything. Barbell storage in the same vein, vertical barbell storage, it all kind of goes on here.

And of course, some sort of pulley or cable system. Now you have a lot of options here that are already integrated into your rack. And you want storage shelves for dumbbells.

And oh, maybe you want fixed dumbbells or kettlebells or attachment storage. Boom. There it is in the back. You can do something like that. This is where it gets highly customizable depending on your needs. Because you've bought that three by three rack, you can actually drop in the functional trainer later, the weight stack later, the lat pull down the low row later.

These are essentially the same as your functional trainer that I showed you out there, slide it up and down to be able to do everything you want as a cable pulley cable crossover system with two arms individually and center mounted options for lat pull downs, center mounted options down low for low rows with adjustable foot plates. And because of all those attachments, you can get things like Smith machine attachments to add to three by three racks in order to simulate machines and a vertical fixed path. So the three by three ecosystem just allows for so much customization and modularity that I highly recommend that over time.

But we're talking about this could be six months, this could be six years for you, but these things will still exist and still be available. The cool thing about this is if you step back and just look at the space, it's a very small footprint like we're only talking about four feet by five feet here. And I can put an a bench in here, I have my J cups, I can put my spotter arms on the front, especially again, personality style, don't just go buy this on a whim unless money is no object to you, or you have that sort of privilege to just say, well, I'll see a five grand, it'll work out for me. Now that you've taken over your entire basement or garage with the four mentioned items, then you can move into your master bedroom with things like equipment, things like a dual leg press and hack squat machine are great because it allows two movements, clearly takes up a lot of space. But having machines, I think, ultimately is like where everyone really kind of wants to go when they have home gyms. That's why we have the all in one cable power rack systems because it makes that most functionality and machine like in a single footprint. But then the next best thing is actually having machines to do that, leg accessories, more than anything else seem to be really hard, at least in my opinion, to mimic just with cables and free weights, chest presses, multi presses, there's pendulum squats, there's calf raises, there's ISO rows from companies like Temple of Gaines.

So having things like that are great. And last but certainly not least is the cardio equipment, something to allow you to sprint, depending on what type of cardio you like, jogging, running, if you like hiking, if you like stair climbing, and if you like big screens and TVs, things like steppers are potential for you in your home gym. Now with these cardio pieces of equipment and the machines, we're now talking about a disproportional amount of price on these compared to things like your bench, your barbell, your weights and your rack, which you can buy probably all of those things I just mentioned for the price of any one of these. The point is over time, you can truly build home gyms to whatever you want. There are so many good options now in the home gym, gym equipment space. And then once you've bought all your other strength training machines, I hope you've been keeping an eye on the numerous awesome manufacturers that make attachments and accessories and products.

And you can build a storage wall or basically just have a collection of different accessories. Home gyms are great. I mean, home gyms are just really great because you can build it to exactly what you need and what you like. So guys, that's it for this kind of crazy video, my thought process and order of how I would put together my own home gym if I had to start from zero. As always, if you have any questions or comments, please leave them down below.

I'll be happy to answer or at least try. This is Mike from the Jungle Gym Reviews. We'll see you next time. Take it easy. Peace.