In the past, it was difficult to purchase multi-station home gym equipment that would truly resemble lifting with free weights in a health club. These days, there are over a dozen “home gyms” that provide users with the same smooth bio-mechanical movements and heavy-duty structural integrity that premium quality, health club caliber home gyms offer. Complaints used to mount by the thousands by consumers over the fact that there were no gym quality home gyms on the market. Traditionally, home gyms light-weight and flimsy, therefore they could not withstand heavy usage by professional weight lifters. The fitness equipment market today is much different. There are plenty of heavy duty, multi-station home gyms in today’s fitness equipment industry, that can maintain their structural integrity, even after intense, hi-impact, body-buildingesque workouts. For example, the BodyCraft X4 Gym has 4 weight stacks of 200 pounds each. Additionally, the cable/pulley system on the BodyCraft X4 has the ability to double the 200 pound resistance to 400 pounds. So here we have a home gym with 800 pounds in weight plates and has the option of lifting up to 400 pounds at once!

Top 10 Home Gyms:
1.) Body-Solid EXM 1500s
2.) BodyCraft X2 Family Express
3.) BodyCraft Galena Pro
4.) Life Fitness G7
5.) Precor S3.23
6.) Body-Solid EXM 3000 LPS
7.) Free Motion EXT Smith Home Gym
8.) Body-Craft 4 Stack X4 Commercial
9.) Weider 2980
10.) Nordic Track Functional Trainer

It is hard to go wrong with a multi-station home gym. Stations on the home gym are not the only variable to consider, others include the durability of the gym and the warranty that comes with it. Along with durability, stations, warranty and mechanical specs, one must take into consideration the amount of weight stacks that are on the gym. The number of weight stakes directly correlates with how many users can workout out on the gym at once. Make sure you understand these basic concepts before purchasing a home gym.

Body-Solid fitness equipment is extremely well known for its comprehensive warranty policy. Most fitness equipment companies, especially companies that manufacture home fitness equipment, do not provide their customer base with the extensive warranty coverage that Body-Solid offers. They claim, “Nobody beats our warranty. Absolutely nobody.” In support of their claim, Body-Solid provides their customers with in-home, lifetime warranties, on every piece and part of home gym equipment. Pads, pulleys, frame, any part one could think of on a home gym, is covered by Body-Solid, under their exclusive, in-home, lifetime warranty.

Home gyms are great because in most cases, they have multiple workout stations, which makes it easy to work all of the different muscles on your body. When looking into buying a home gym, one should always take into consideration several factors. First of all, make sure that the home gym equipment that you are looking at is sturdy and not prone to breaking down. Clearly, there is very little that can be accomplished on a home gym that is out of order. Secondly, check out the weight stack on the home gym you are looking at. For example, the Body-Solid 1500s gym has a weight stack of 160 pounds. While that is perfect for many people, some athletes that like to life a lot of weight would prefer maybe a 200lb. weight stack like the BodyCraft Xpress Pro has, or a weight stack that provides up to 400 pounds of resistance, such as the BodyCraft X4. Other features to look for when purchasing strength equipment or home gym equipment is whether or not the home gym is a single, double, triple, or quardruple  weight stack. For instance, if there were 20 plates of 10 pund weights on a home gym machine, that would represent a single, 200 pound weight stack. If the home gym is for only one person, then a single stack will be great. On the other hand, if you have a single weight stack gym, then only one person can use it at a time. If you have a workout partner, and the two of you like working out at the same time, you will need a double weight stack gym, and so aon and so forth. Gyms with four weight stacks are typically commercially rated for health club usage, as they normally have thicker and heavier gauge steel framing than weight machines with one or two weight stacks.

I like your idea of a community blog about getting healthier. So here’s my story. For the past few years I’ve gained about a pound a month. Getting older, this happens–but the math doesn’t look too good. A pound a month for the next 20-30 years? No, really bad idea. So I did two things. Cut white carbs, all of them. White bread, donuts, white potatoes, rice, pasta. I found good substitutes. Yams! Carrots. Quinoa. (A different kind of grain.) And dark chocolot is fine to eat, and now they say it’s good for you. So I’m not missing much. And I used my rower for a half hour every morning. Just one half hour, rowing steady while watching the news. I now lose 2 pounds a month, maybe mostly because of my diet, but I need to keep my skin tight, not flabby, so I add muscles, which weight less. So that’s my story. I swear it will work. Twenty-four pounds a year. Pounds that will stay off.