7 Best Equipment For Your CrossFit Home Gym

You’ve taken the plunge and are ready to set up your own crossfit gym from your own home. 

You’re annoyed at the high fees at your local crossfit gym, the lack of access to equipment when you need it, the big crowds, and the travel time to the gym, among others.

Or maybe you’re the exact opposite–you live and breathe crossfit, and when you’re not at your crossfit gym, you want to train from the comfort of your own home.

Either way, you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for in this article–quality crossfit equipment at an affordable price. 

In this article I’m going to look at the best CrossFit equipment for your home gym. I’m aiming to provide you with versatility, quality and value, making your dollars go further and ensuring your home gym is stocked with excellent equipment.

And I promise, that after you finish reading this post, you will know exactly what equipment to purchase–all while keeping your bank account (and your significant other) happy. 

So let’s get started.

What A Home Crossfit Gym Actually Needs

Before we dive in to the specific equipment I recommend, I think it’s important to start with what a solid, all-around crossfit gym even needs in the first place. 

In my opinion and experience, a great home CrossFit gym needs 5 things: resistance training equipment, a cardio option, a rack, a bench and accessories for the bodyweight element of your workouts. 

And while it’d be nice to have a whole set up, the reality is that most people aren’t going to have $100,000 and 5,000 square feet of space. 

You don’t and neither do I.

With this in mind, we have to boil down the equipment to include the following:

1. Barbell – it has to be multifunctional. Whippy enough for weightlifting, but stiff enough for pure strength work
2. Plates – bumpers are the only game in town here. What type though?
3. Bench – it has to be strong enough to cope with heavy work, offer plenty of variety and be easy to move out of the way
4. A rack – unless you’ve got a lot of space, your rack needs to double up as both a rack and a place for bench work, pull ups and perhaps hanging a TRX off
5. Kettlebells – a whole rack is expensive and takes up space. How do you get around that problem?
6. Cardio – you need a cardio option, but what to pick? 
7. Accessories – suitable for a wide variety of uses

I’ll make a suggestion for each one of these, my justification for it and if there’s room, I’ll add in a couple of extras!

1. The CrossFit Home Gym Barbell

Our Pick – The Rogue 2.0 Barbell – The official CrossFit Games Barbell

I’ve gone into depth about barbells in the past, so I’m not going to re-go over the same old ground. 

If you want a deep in-depth review of the best barbells, check out this nifty guide here. 

What I will say though is that with CrossFit, you’ll be incorporating a mixture of heavy weightlifting and high rep work, so the bar has to be able to cope with everything. 

It needs to be whippy enough and have fast spinning sleeves to work as a weightlifting bar, and be tough enough to cope with whatever is going to be thrown at it.

The Rogue 2.0 Bar is the only game in town. It’s reasonably priced ($290) and designed with CrossFit in mind.

It’s the bar used at the games; you can’t get a better endorsement than that.

Read the Barbell Buying Guide here. 

Looking for Crossfit grips to protect your hands? Read the Crossfit Grip Buying Guide here.

2. CrossFit Home Gym Plates

Our pick – Rogue HG 2.0 Bumpers – Perfect for home gyms

When I reviewed plates before, I went for the Rogue Color Echo plates. I still think they’re fantastic, but there’s a couple of reasons why I’ve suggested something different for this post.

1. The Color Echo Range has increased in price to $840 for 320lbs, making it slightly worse value
2. For a home CrossFit gym where colored plates aren’t a big deal, you can save the money and pick up these excellent black plates instead

The HG 2.0 bumpers are made from virgin rubber and built to last. They’re black, not colored, and as a result, you’re saving over 100 bucks on the equivalent colored set. 

They’ll take anything you can throw at them and with 350lbs to play with, you’ve got plenty of weight to make progress with.

Read the Bumper Plates Guide Here

3. CrossFit Home Gym Bench

Our Pick – REP AB-3000 – The most versatile and best value bench on the market

Any gym worth its salt needs a solid bench option. 

There’s a huge range out there, but in a home gym you need excellent build quality and lots of versatility, which is why I’ve picked the Rep AB-300 as the one I’d suggest.

It’s a solid bench and has a lot of variety in terms of its position options. With 3 different seat options and 7 back pad positions, you have 21 potential positions to train in. There’s also the leg anchors so you can use the bench for abdominal training as well.

I’ve reviewed this bench in more detail before, so I’m not going to go into extreme depth with this one, but I’ll say, if you’re looking for a general purpose home bench, this is the one for you. It’s unrivalled in terms of quality and features at the price point.

Read the Workout Bench Buying Guide Here

4. CrossFit Home Gym Rack

Our pick – Rep Fitness PR-1100 – Versatility and Quality

I’ve recommended this rack before and I see no reason to change my mind.

For the value and quality, it’s unbelievable.  

It’s well made, keeps a tight (but large enough) footprint, is load tested to 700lbs and is a fraction of the price of much of the competition. 

The pin bars are adjustable to give you plenty of workout variety and the pull up bars offer plenty of grip options.

Another great feature is the fact that you can buy additional attachments, such as dip bars and the like, so if you’ve got the cash, you can expand on an already great bit of kit. 

In my opinion, it’s perfect for the home CrossFit gym owner.

Read the Budget Power Rack Guide Here

5. CrossFit Home Gym Kettlebells

Our pick – Titan Fitness Adjustable Competition Style Kettlebell – Cost saving, versatility and easy to store

There’s a problem when it comes to kettlebells in a home gym.

They’re incredibly useful, but they’re expensive and they take up a lot of room. That’s what makes the Titan adjustable kettlebell perfect in this situation. 

With a range of 12kg-32kg, you’ve got a lot of weight variety and will save thousands by not needing to buy all the bells in between, plus a rack. 

It’s quick and easy to adjust and very well made.

I’ve reviewed the Titan adjustable kettlebell in this post and think unless you’ve got money to burn on a whole set, this adjustable bell is an absolute no-brainer. It’s the only choice in my opinion.

Read the Adjustable Kettlebell Guide Here

6. CrossFit Home Gym Cardio Option

Our pick – Rogue Echo Bike – The CrossFit go-to

When it comes to cardio, there are three great options for a CrossFit home gym

1. An air bike
2. A rower
3. A ski-erg

You can make a very strong case for all three, but in my opinion the best option is the air bike.

And the best in class is the Rogue Echo. 

It’s a rock-solid bike, it’s tough and built to cope with a huge volume of work. It’s the go-to CrossFit option for a reason and a firm favorite of Mat Fraser, the recently-retired 5 times CrossFit Games champion.

So why the bike over the rower or ski-erg?

For me it comes down to a combination versatility, footprint and price. The bike is over $100 cheaper than the rower and the money you save can be put towards an extra kit. 

In terms of footprint, there’s not a huge amount in any of the options, (rower long and thin, bike short and wide) so space isn’t a primary concern.

The ski-erg is great, but it’s primarily upper body and lacks the leg involvement of the bike or rower. Whilst it’s the cheapest of the 3 options, its lack of versatility costs it here.

The bike and rower are both full-body workouts, but the higher wattage output you’ll likely generate on the bike sways it for me. 

Of course, if you have the space and budget, go for all of them–but I think you’re more than okay choosing just the air bike. 

I did an in-depth review of the bike options here, so take a look.

Assuming you do have the space (and budget), the only rower game in town as far as I’m concerned is the Concept2 Model D PM5. I wrote in-depth review about it here.

It’ll set you back $900, but it’s a fantastic machine and would be at home in any CrossFit gym. There’s a reason it’s used at the CrossFit games and is the certified rowing machine for the indoor world championships. 

It’s strong, accurate, easy to use and easy to store when not in use, since it can be broken in two or stood on its end.

Read the In-Depth Air Bike Buying Guide Here.

If you have an air bike already and are looking for some workout ideas, here are 3 great ones.

7. Peripheral Kit Options

The list above covers the essentials (which is really all you need), but the best home CrossFit gyms go beyond that. 

What you’re looking for here are the peripheral bits of kit that provide you with a lot of extra workout variety without breaking the bank or creating a storage problem for you. 

The items in this list have been picked to provide disproportionate value, so for not much money they give you a lot of training options, they won’t be difficult to store and they’re usable without any coaching. 

These are the added extras that take a home gym from ‘very good’ to ‘excellent.’

CrossFit OnRamp Package – Versatility in kit

The CrossFit OnRamp package is specifically designed for home CrossFit workouts. It’s also a cost effective way of adding variety into your home gym, with the package including a plyo box, dumbbells (or fitness sandbag), a jump rope and a PVC pipe for practicing lifting positions.

The package is customisable (hence the price variety listed above), so you can pick the package that best suits your needs. 

The great thing is the whole ensemble is relatively cheap, can be stored without needing much additional space and is the foundation of a lot of the workouts you’ll be seeing from the CrossFit main site. 

The combination of items in the package can be included in so many other workouts as well, so it’s true versatility.

Titan Fitness Weight Vest – Take bodyweight work to the next level

If you’re pushing your fitness to new heights and are looking for a suitable option for increasing the intensity of bodyweight work, a weighted vest is the perfect option. In the CrossFit games, the competitors use a Rogue plate carrier, but they’re very expensive and I believe the Titan Fitness Weight Vest offers much better value.

The weight vest comes in a variety of weights, but I’d suggest you go for the heaviest (60lbs). The reason for this is because the vests are adjustable, so you don’t need to load it up fully if you can’t cope with that much weight. 

What it allows you to do, though, is progress for longer.

The vest itself is made from tough, durable material and the shoulders are padded for extra user comfort. It’s also adjustable to suit a variety of body shapes and sizes.

For workouts like ‘Murph’, the weight vest has become an integral part of the kit. It’s also a way to make any bodyweight exercise much, much harder. 

Finally, a weight vest is super easy to store, so won’t be an issue in any home gym.

REP Pull-Up Bands – Accessory and injury prevention taken care of

Your body, just like your car, needs regular servicing, care and attention to prevent it from breaking down. As tempting as it is to go all-out with your intensity, the reality is we need to take our foot off the gas every now and then and perform the essential maintenance work. One of the best ways to do this is with resistance bands.

The rep pull up bands are great value. 

They’re sold either individually or in bundles, so you can take your pick. 

In general I’d suggest you buy a bundle, but with bands you only really need the medium to heavy ones, so I’d only buy the ones you need rather than the bundle.

You can use resistance bands and tubes for more progressive strength training too, so it’s not merely an accessory to prehab exercises–it’s a legitimate strength training tool. 

With bands being so cheap and easy to store, I think it’s a quick win when it comes to improving your home CrossFit Gym.

How much a home CrossFit gym will cost?

If you were to buy everything on this list you’d have to budget around $2200, but for that money you are kitting yourself out with an excellent workout space with a lot of training variety. 

I haven’t included flooring in this price, because the reality is that will vary depending on the size of your space and whatever else you intend to do in there, but let’s say you add another $300 to upgrade your flooring to rubber mats underneath your lifting area, you’re still putting together an incredible training space for a relatively small amount of money.

When you consider that the average unlimited CrossFit membership is around the $200 per month mark, you’ll have earned back on your investment in just over a year. 

Unlimited, round-the-clock access to your own personal gym. You can wear what you want, listen to what you want and do what you want in there.

It’s a compelling case to build one, if you ask me!

Final home CrossFit gym considerations

It’s easy when looking at an article like this to get carried away with your imaginary shopping list, but before you get your credit card out, take some time to think about the following so you don’t make a mistake you’ll struggle to rectify later

• Space – How much room have you got for your gym? Before purchasing anything, check to make sure everything you want to buy will fit–and if you need to, think about buying specialist storage equipment. I have found this to be a lifesaver for my own home gym. 
• Flooring – You’ll have to check what the floor made from. Ideally you want a level concrete base–you can’t go dropping a heavy clean and jerk onto a suspended wooden floor! 
• Budget – There are ways to make your budget go further (flexible finance options and the like), but don’t be silly and spend money you can’t afford. Look at what you have available and make a judgement call.
• Expansion – It’s a good idea to save room for expansion! As your fitness progresses, you may want to look at new kit options, so save a little space for additional dumbbells, kettlebells and other items you may want in the future.
• Users – Will you be using it alone or will family and friends be using it too? You may need to cater for others, so if both sexes are using the gym, you’ll need a male and female bar, for example. Not a huge issue, but something to consider.

Wrapping It Up 

The case for building a home gym is strong. 

If you’ve got the money and the space, it’s a great investment. It stacks up financially, because you’ll end up saving money on membership fees within a year or so.

And one thing that isn’t talked about much and is probably the #1 reason I love home gyms: the freedom. 

There’s a freedom you simply can’t replicate with your own home CrossFit gym, so if you’ve decided to take the plunge and build one, take the advice I’ve provided above and you’ll be well on your way to creating your own home CrossFit gym masterpiece! 

Still Unsure Which Option Is Best For You? Here’s The Recap, Based On Our Testing & Research

• Rogue 2.0 Barbell: The Rogue 2.0 Barbell is recommended as it is the official CrossFit Games Barbell. It is multifunctional, whippy enough for weightlifting, but stiff enough for pure strength work. 
• Rogue HG 2.0 Bumpers: Rogue HG 2.0 Bumpers are recommended as they are perfect for home gyms. These plates are made of high-quality materials and are designed to withstand the rigors of intense CrossFit workouts. 
• REP AB-3000 : A bench is needed that is strong enough to cope with heavy work, offers plenty of variety and is easy to move out of the way. A good bench will allow you to perform a wide range of exercises and will be an essential piece of equipment in any home CrossFit gym.