Home Gym Essentials on a Budget

Any serious lifter would tell you that you’d need a squat rack, adjustable bench, pull up bar and weight plates to set up a proper home gym. And they’re mostly right.

However, it’ll cost you upwards of INR 50000 and take up a significant amount of space at home.

Over the past two years, I’ve been trying out alternative home fitness equipment due to the pandemic.

What I’ve found is that even though you can’t fully replicate the effectiveness of a commercial gym, you can still gain or at least maintain strength and muscle with minimal equipment at home.

This post is my guide to setting up a minimalist home gym for anyone living in India.

A home gym that’s simple, effective, portable and costs just INR 3700.

The Budget Home Gym Essentials

Equipment	Cost
Adjustable Dumbbells	INR 1400
Resistance Bands	INR 1700
Pull Up Bar	INR 600
TOTAL	INR 3700

And that’s it!!!

Disclaimer : I do not have any affiliation with the products recommended in this post. My suggestions are based on their cost and my personal experience with them.

Adjustable Dumbbells

A pair of dumbbells can help you target almost all major muscle groups effectively. You can go for a bench too if you can afford it, but it’s not mandatory.

I’d recommend the PVC Dumbbells by Kore. They cost just INR 1400 for 40kg of weight.

However the maximum weight you can use on one dumbbell is 16 kg. They give you four plates each of 2,3 and 5 kg.

That’d mean you get to use 4kg, 6kg, 10kg, 14kg and 16kg of resistance per dumbbell in your workouts.

Having said that, these are very ugly and take up quite a bit of space. They are also uneven and it’s a pain to switch weights in between sets.

But for this price, they’re totally worth it.

Resistance Bands

Resistance bands are compact, simple and are surprisingly challenging. I personally use Slovic Resistance Bands.

I wrote about them last year in detail here

For INR 1700 you get 3 bands of different levels (light, medium and heavy). Their resistance ranges from 7kg to 45kg.

You can use them directly for all exercises. You can even add them to your dumbbell workouts whenever you have to increase weight. This will save you the cost of buying more and more weight plates as you get stronger.

In the squat for example, if you use two 16 kgs dumbbells and add in these 3 bands, you’d get 100+ kilos of resistance!!!

Pullup Bar

There’s no good substitute to pull ups when it comes to upper body strength.

If you already have a hook on your ceiling, you can use a hanging bar. It costs just INR 600 and requires no setup.

There are several variants in the market like wall mounted and door frame based pull up bars.

Any of them are fine, just double check the installment measurements before you make a purchase.

Even if you can’t do a pull up yet, you can use resistance bands for assistance.

Sample Workout

Note : All exercises are done for 3 sets of 6 to 15 reps. Once you’re able to do 15 reps in any exercise, increase the resistance using weights or bands. Rest 1 – 2 minutes between sets.