The pandemic has restrained most of us to our homes, and not that we needed any more excuses to bunk the gym, but now we have a legitimate one – there’s literally a virus on the loose! But ignoring our health and fitness is something we simply cannot afford to do anymore. If there’s one thing that COVID-19 has instilled into us, it’s that health really is wealth. And, as much as I love procrastinating, and putting off any form of exercise for as long as I can, I cannot deny the fact that health must be considered a top priority for us all. And, so what if we cannot go to the gym, we can bring the gym to us! This collection of home gyms will not only motivate you and excite you to workout, but will also ensure you stick to your daily exercise routine. No more skipping leg days!
Oliver Perretta’s Kondition was inspired by a piece of furniture that actually resembles a standard workout bench, IKEA’s BEKANT series. Both IKEA’s BEKANT and Perretta’s Kondition have similar personalities as they appear as modest, simple furniture designs whose true essence shines through in their ability to blend into any given room. At first, an unassuming side bench or low-rise table during living room hours, and then, an adjustable home workout with a sliding bench come gym time. Perretta was certain to make bullnose corners for Kondition’s workout station in order to enhance both the piece’s adaptive nature and its approachability in its inherent baby-proof design. Additionally, Perretta plans to utilize aluminum extrusion in any eventual construction process as that would ensure a high strength to weight ratio for more intense workouts. Stamped panels also make for easy and deep cleaning so that job won’t ever feel stressful after a good sweat.
Instead of answering the unanswerable (really, who can say what’s up next for 2020), the team behind G-Wall designed their home gym specifically so that it could be stored behind a closet or armoire cabinet’s door. That way the time that you would have spent making room for your home fitness system, instead is spent actually putting it to use. G-Wall’s Home Fitness System has several standout features: variable modules, user-adjustability, and compatibility, to name a few. Each user decides on which modules they want to comprise the larger system. This means that despite the amount of space in your home, G-Wall’s design makes it possible to incorporate a home gym anywhere. The different modules that users can decide on range from cardiovascular equipment, to free weights and even heavy training. The gear that comes with each module is stored in cabinets or racks that easily hang behind doors or however the user deems appropriate for their personal space.
SlimBeam is an elegant, multifunctional home cable machine that offers a wide array of workout options for users and its sleek, wooden body fits into any interior living space. The cable machine comes with an incorporated pull-up bar, weights, accessory adapter, and plenty of different cord options for different weight exercises like tricep extensions or pushdowns. The designers at NOHrD made all of these exercise options available to users because cable machines are intended to target those deeper layer muscles that isolated weight training misses. SlimBeam’s body might be slim and minimal, but no functionality was sacrificed in the making of this cable machine. Standing at just over seven feet tall and 16 inches wide, SlimBeam offers cord extension of up to eight meters, giving users the chance to practice that golf swing or rowing stroke.
Recognizing that most people don’t have the space for gym equipment in their home, or the money for a gym membership, or even the willpower to head to the gym every day, Josh Hume embarked on a journey to bring the gym to the household. The catch? It had to be the smallest, most exhaustive (and exhausting!) gym ever made. After multiple iterations, the FITT Cube was born. With its 450mm edge dimension, the FITT Cube occupies as much space as a footstool, and comes with a mini-stepper (with its own seven-segment LCD display), a rotating seat, gripping handles, a plyometric platform, and even resistance bands. The FITT cube also comes with a user guide, exercise chart, and nutrition guide to keep you on top of your fitness game.
This 3-in-1 fitness wall by NOHrD christened Wall Compact is an exception, and surprisingly it takes up as little space as imagined – no more than your small couch. The home fitness solution is designed by WaterRower’s (expertise in developing rowing machines for over three decades) sister brand NOHrD that focuses on form and function. Their design ideology is centered on the user and the aesthetic appeal of the fitness equipment while still maintaining the highest standards of strength training backed by science. You can tone all the important muscles in your body with this multifaceted fitness machine that comes with its own virtual coach interactive workout program accessed via the touchscreen. You can perform chest, forearm, biceps, triceps, shoulder, and back exercises on the cable stations on each side –while the SwingBells on the wall gives you more freedom of taking up your free weight training sessions.
The Tempo Studio is a gym-set that comes complete with a display and a motion-tracking camera that actively scans and monitors your exercise in 3D. With built-in exercise routines that are guided by expert trainers performing live exercise sessions, the Tempo is the equivalent of going on a Zoom video call with your gym trainer. Hop onto a personalized live session with a gym trainer of your choice and the trainer on the other side of the screen guides you through your workout. The Tempo Studio comes built-in with a workout mat as well as all the training gear you’d need, and Tempo’s AI-enabled camera module captures and tracks your body’s movement as you work out, allowing the trainer to remotely know where you’re going wrong.
No larger than two shoe-boxes kept end-to-end, the Gym Box by James Wall looks deceptively small for a home gym, however, it transforms into an extensive resistance and box-training kit once opened. Complete with an adjustable bench, a step-up box, a resistance platform, and multiple resistance-bands, the Gym Box can be used in a variety of ways, spanning more than 165 exercises to give you full-body workouts for losing weight, toning up, or building muscle mass. Designed to be two things – Compact and Versatile, the Gym Box allows you to fit all your gym-equipment into something that’s small enough to slide under your bed or into the bottom shelf of your wardrobe. It weighs 28 lbs, and measures not more than 45-inches in length, making it perhaps one of the smallest all-in-one home-gyms. Once it opens up, its parts can be configured into any variety of arrangements, or even used independently. The adjustable bench can be set to a 90° angle, or reclined to a full 180°, with 1¼-inch thick steel tubing to ensure it’s just as robust as the equipment you find in gyms.
Designed to adapt to your flexible lifestyle, the NOVA by Paul Francis lets you transform your health and body no matter where you are without needing to go to a gym. The single exercise device is a heavy-duty portable gym that uses high resistance to provide total body strength training at home, office, or on the go. “The NOVA Gym provides up to 40lbs (18kg) of resistance in each hand in all planes of movement, yet only weighs 2.5lbs (1.12Kg) and folds up to go anywhere,” says Paul Francis who created the design and is also an architect, industrial designer, and inventor. The team uses their patented SpiraFlex technology that provides weightless resistance and was actually the first resistive exercise device used in space (NASA iRED) – Francis is truly an inventor because his technology is ‘out of this world’! SpiraFlex feels smooth and linear like free-weights, without the weight or momentum. The stainless steel cables have been coated with nylon to remain durable for long-term use with high resistance.
The Groove was conceptualized around the efficiency of pilates reformers, resistance training, and gymnastics, integrating an entire gym into one piece of furniture. Hannah Fink reimagined working out at home by merging practicality with style. The Groove mounts three cushioned units onto quiet, rubber wheels and connects them with resistance bands, allowing for a catalog of possible exercises: heel raises, bicep curls, leg presses, sliding planks. Pulling on inspiration from pilates and gymnastics, The Groove incorporates the four pillars of fitness: aerobic, strengthening, stretching, and balance. Since most pieces of home gym equipment focus on only one pillar, users might unknowingly neglect other muscle groups, which can lead to an imbalance that contributes to overuse injuries.
The WalkingPad opens up into a full-size treadmill, sans the side rails. Two wheels at the front end allow you to easily roll the folded WalkingPad to and from under your sofa or bed, and setting up the treadmill is as easy as unfolding it open with a single lifting action. Once unfolded, the belt immediately tightens around the treadmill, and on switching it on, a display at the front of the product comes to life. The WalkingPad can be used in two modes. A manual mode allows you to set a pre-determined speed that your feet follow, while an automatic mode allows you to walk fast or slow, while the traction belt below your feet adjusts its speed to your gait. You’ve even got the additional handheld remote that you can use to work the WalkingPad, while a mobile app allows you to keep track of your walk and subsequently your workout… and when you’re done, just fold the WalkingPad and slide it conveniently under your couch! Having a proper, functional home-gym was never this convenient.
