I would say my favorite piece of exercise equipment are the cables. I really love how versatile they are and just how many exercises I can do with it while still getting a really good workout in and just the variety it gives is really awesome.
I would 10 out of 10 recommend a foam roller, which I guess is more recovery than fitness itself, but it's definitely an important aspect of training. It's just so nice to have to like roll out your muscles after a long day at the gym so you don't get sore the next day and prevent injury. Sometimes that hurts, but honestly it's worth it. So invest in a foam roller.
I think my new favorite piece of equipment is just a simple like elastic band to go between your knees. I apparently have been squatting wrong like all my life and using elastic band to kind of pull your knees apart doing a squat really kind of wakes up the muscles you're actually I guess supposed to use for a squat. So if you feel like you're not squatting right or you have what's called a butt wink when you squat I strongly recommend using a using a like a band to kind of wrap between your like you you put both your knees inside of it.
Currently, it's the walking pad that I have. It's about like $80 on Amazon or something. And the one that I have, you can get up to like a light jog, but I love going on walks and just like, not as my main workout, but if I have extra time, I love just going outside and being on a walk, but because it's freezing and I'm not used to the cold or the snow or the ice, I have missed it. So I will put up my laptop and watch Netflix when I'm bored and then I'll just walk on my walking pad. And that has been like my favorite thing right now to kind of get my body moving. Not necessarily my daily exercise, but something that I like to do sporadically throughout the day.
My favorite exercise equipment is med balls. I feel like you can do a lot with that. You can do squats with a med ball. You can do throws with a med ball. You can do slams with a med ball. I feel like it's a great overall useful tool that you can use for a lot of different things. You can use it with push-ups and stuff too. I've done where you have to balance on it and then you put one hand over and do a push-up and then you switch hands. So it's a good core exercise too. You can use it for abs, like ab workouts too, just to weigh anything. And one of my other favorite pieces of equipment is a stretch cord, which maybe some of you guys don't know, but I feel like that's also a great upper body use. You can do tricep extensions. You can do full body lap pull-downs. Those are both, I feel like, relatively inexpensive pieces of equipment and you can do a lot with them.
This may seem kind of silly but I love jump roping and I think jump roping is something that is kind of an underrated form of exercise. It's super cheap to buy a jump rope but it kind of mixes up your routine and adds something interesting and it's a little more fun than most cardio so go out and buy yourself a jump rope.
So there's a lot of good things that you can use obviously for exercise equipment to really develop all of your body because you can do a lot of like free weight exercises without weights but I would say a pull-up bar I feel like is pretty foundational to adding to that. So if you're not big into going to the gym or using a lot of weights you're doing more body exercises you can use a pull-up bar and even when you're going to the gym lifting pull-ups I think are one of the best workouts you could do and I would get a pull-up bar or something that you could you could have like a freestanding one when you attach to your door the freestanding are better because the ones in your door usually ruin them so I recommend using a pull-up bar for exercise equipment that's probably my favorite.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think my favorite exercise equipment is my own body. Things like push-ups and pull-ups. For me, they're really satisfying because you can do more and more and you feel yourself getting stronger and stronger. And as you get stronger, they get harder because you get heavier. You know, we're blessed with a body that helps us. We can use that to work out. Learning to do push-ups and then slowly doing more and more. I think that's a really satisfying feeling.
One of my favorite at-home exercise equipment pieces has got to be the portable pull-up bar. I have one at my home. I've taken it basically everywhere, even on my mission. Just being able to do pull-ups consistently over time.
My very favorite workout equipment are dumbbells and resistant bands. I used to go to a gym and every day on the way home from work, I would stop off there and spend a good hour and a half. And I just realized I didn't want to spend, once I was a mom, any extra time away from my family. So now I just wake up, oh, dark 30 in the morning and I have the basic equipment here. And I realized over the years that good dumbbells and resistance bands are the best. It's really all you need. Maybe a pull-up bar if you want to get a little fancy, but dumbbells are the best, I believe, fitness equipment that you can use to keep building that muscle, burning fat and keeping in good shape.
I don't currently have like a gym pass or anything like that, so exercise looks a little differently, but if I do have a gym, my favorite piece of equipment is the StairMaster, because it just like burns in like the best way possible. I also like have always really liked hiking growing up and it's kind of a similar vibe where you just have to like, it's it's a slow movement, but it's like intense and you have to increase intensity and so yeah, I like the StairMaster.
My favorite gym exercise equipment is my adjustable dumbbells.
My favorite way to exercise, my favorite equipment is just everything at the climbing gym. Going to the climbing gym is my preferred way to work out. I don't like normal gyms for some reason. I'm not much of a weightlifter but there's something really fun and engaging and there's a mental aspect of climbing that is really enjoyable to me and also I feel a lot better afterwards and it just keeps me strong and in shape and I really like going to the climbing gym.
If I could only have two pieces of exercise equipment, it would be an incline adjustable bench. So an adjustable bench press and a set of adjustable dumbbells. Honestly, there are so many dumbbell variation movements and ways that you could prop up your legs, prop up your back and things like that with a with an adjustable bench. That's like all you would need for the rest of your life. A set of adjustable dumbbells is probably 300 bucks, which is like a lot. But again, once in a lifetime purchase and an adjustable bench is probably 150, half a grand probably with tax for all the equipment you'll need for the rest of your life.
My favorite exercise equipment is a squat rack with like a like a crash pad on the ground. If you have that and a like a bench to lay on, you basically have everything you'd need for, I mean obviously that and you know your weights and whatever, you can basically have everything you'd need for most like fundamental lifts like your squat, your deadlift, your bench press, your overhead press, your rows, you know you probably do pull-ups on that thing. If you're looking for like a home gym, I would strongly recommend trying to find something like that used if you could.
There's a machine, I don't know what it's called, but basically there's like a rope and then there's this little like almost boomerang shaped handle that you grab and then you work out like your triceps. You just pull down the string or pull down the handle all the way. Super good workout.
I love the elliptical and I know that's kind of an older person thing um but I love it. It's a great way to get cardio uh to get your cardio in and some days I will burn more calories on the elliptical than I do on the treadmill if I go for a walk so I really like the elliptical. I have a foot injury right now and so it's hard for me to constantly be walking and putting weight on it but the elliptical is super safe and like doesn't hurt your joints but it feels really good and yeah you can burn a lot of calories. I personally will put my kindle or my phone on the little screen and just go on there for like 45 minutes to an hour and it's quick. I always feel good and I get a good workout in but it's also still safe and I'm not putting like a bunch of pressure on my body so yeah I know it's kind of underrated but I love it. you