Do you NEED expensive home gym equipment to make progress? Based upon the success of lifters like Dennis Cornelius and the legendary Tommy Kono, the answer is no. So why do we think you need expensive home gym equipment to achieve our fitness goals? So if you ask me if you can make progress in a home gym with basic equipment I’ll say a resounding YES! Here’s why.
Companies Want You To Buy Expensive Equipment for Your Home Gym
Gym equipment is increasingly expensive to make because of the research cost of innovations in engineering and design plus the rising cost of steel. So brands naturally have to pass that cost on to the consumer and if they don’t sell their expensive equipment, they’ll never recoup the investment they’ve made in product development. After all, workers have to be paid and no sales mean a brand will go out of business.
These Champion Athletes Became Successful Without Buying Fancy Equipment
- Dennis Cornelius Became A Powerlifting Champion Using A Homemade Power Rack – When I interviewed drug free powerlifting champion, Dennis Cornelius, for Power Magazine several years ago, he mentioned that he and his dad built a power rack when he was in high school and it’s the same rack that he uses to this day.
- Tommy Kono Qualified for the Olympic Games While Training on a Dirt Floor n His Basement. If you watch the excellent YouTube documentary “Arnold Knows Me”, you get to see footage of Tommy’s old basement gym complete with dirt floor and a ceiling that was so low, he sometimes hit the rafters when he put the barbell overhead during a lift!
- Paul Anderson Trained for the Olympic Games in His Backyard – one of Paul Anderson’s lifting secrets was to dig a hole and stand in the hole to squat. Each week he would add a little dirt and by the time he was standing on level ground, he was squatting more than he could at the start of his training cycle.
- Farmer Bob Peoples Broke Records While Training in a Basement He Dug Out by Hand – Bob Peoples farmed all day and then deadlifting in his basement at night. He dug the basement out by hand and used techniques like rack pulls to deadlift over 700lbs raw in the era of black and white television!
So Do You Need Expensive Home Gym Equipment To Make Progress
I say you don’t. In fact, if your equipment is TOO expensive, it might make you baby your equipment because you’re too worried about messing up your shiny gym candy to actually be able to use it to make the progress you want.