According to just about all prison movies, there’s no better time to channel your pent-up energy into getting into the shape of your life, than when you’re facing confinement. Now that we’re all living in a mild form of isolation, if you’re thinking of seizing the day to get 5,000-press-ups-a-day ripped, but you lack the essential kit, we’ve got you covered.
Whether you want to attempt to get prison-cell stacked, or you just need some space-saving training tools to keep you off the couch, this is the gear you can buy right now to build an effective home workout set-up. Here’s everything you need to get a daily sweat on, work off some stress and release the endorphins, all without having to open the front door.
Fiit Chest Strap & Workouts
Weight: 8.5g | Battery life: 12 months | Water resistance: IPX7
If you only have the space – or the budget – to invest in one piece of fitness tech during quarantine, the Fiit chest strap is a fantastic all-rounder for keeping a healthy body. And for feeling like you’re not working out alone. Strap on the tracker, fire up the app on your screen of choice and you’re instantly plugged into a world of fully-coached, on-demand, studio-style workouts. There are hundreds of sessions covering HIIT, core, strength as well as pilates, yoga and flexibility. The heart rate monitor tracks your reps and your real-time effort, so you can train at the right intensity, monitor your progress and maintain motivation. If you like the idea of leaving lockdown having hit a more ambitious fitness goal (though it’s also OK to just watch Netflix and drink gin), there are ready-made, two to ten week training plans, or you can easily stitch together different sessions to create your own.
Fancy a bit more competition? Check out the MyZone MZ-3 chest strap (£130) which converts effort into points, rewarding endeavour rather than fitness. Friends and family can compete, regardless of the workout they do or their starting point and you get to see who’s working hardest in an app-based lockdown league table.
Price: £45 per month/ £120 per year (includes Fiit HR belt) | Fiit
TRX Home2 System Strap
Weight: 1.3kg | Load: 158kg | Adjustable: Yes
The gold standard in suspension training systems, TRX is essentially a portable home gym. The Home2 (£170) system is designed specifically for home workouts, letting you tap into the world of gravity-based resistance training to get you ripped. Its toughened, adjustable nylon straps can hold 158kg and it comes with a door anchor that’s quick and easy to install over most doors. Though you can in fact use it anywhere you’ve got a space that’s eight feet long and six feet wide, with a place to anchor the bands, making it perfect for outdoor workouts too.
Once rigged up, you can do just seven simple moves for a full body workout, or you can be as inventive as you like. Minor movements change the effort levels and you control the difficulty. The price includes a year’s free access to the TRX Trainer app which includes video tutorials to help you learn the best drills. You can also link an external tracker to the app, to monitor how hard you’re working while hanging upside down from your bedroom door.
Price: £170 | TRX | Crucial Fitness | Fitdist
Hyfit Gear 1 System
Weight: 1.5kg | Load: 10kg | Adjustable: Yes
Hyfit’s resistance training system uses similar fitness principles to the TRX but the beauty of the Gear 1 ($139) is that you can use it without any installation. Each set comprises two 1 metre adjustable resistance bands that can be attached to a door frame, or to your ankles and wrists, for full body home workouts. They also come with extra Bluetooth-enabled tracking smarts.
The anti-snap bands have a resistance range from 10-20kg, so you can control the difficulty of each exercise without swapping bands as you would with traditional resistance loops. But it’s the wrist-based heart rate monitor and sensors built into the cuffs that bring the real smarts. They automatically track your intensity, reps, resistance, force and calories burned. All the data is fired in real-time to a simple partner app which also features a range of easy-to-follow video drills, full training plans and a quick overview of your past workouts and overall activity.
Price: $139 | Hyfit
Theragun G3 Pro
Battery life: 2.5 hours | Weight: 1.4kg | Oscillation: 2,400 RPM
Whether you’re smashing a virtual home workout, or just suffering the aches and strains of a dodgy home working set-up, this percussive therapy gun offers a brilliant DIY antidote to grumbling muscles. Like a power tool for rehab and recovery, the massage magic of the Theragun G3 Pro (£414) comes from a two-speed pummeling head that oscillates at 2,400 rotations per minute with the ability to withstand 60lbs of pressure. It includes two swappable batteries for 150-minute total battery life and there’s no knot in the world that won’t succumb to a few minutes of Theragunning with one of the six different attachments, designed to treat the whole body. A rotating arm means you can even reach the parts other massagers miss and do a full body blitz in just 15 minutes. So even when you’re allowed back out, you may never go return to those £50-a-pop sports massages again.
Price: £414 | Theragun
Polar Ignite
Battery life: 17 hours (training mode) | Weight: 35g | Water resistance: 30m
If you’re not sure how to make the most of that precious hour of outdoor exercise – while you’re still allowed it – the lightweight is a lower-priced fitness watch with workout inspiration baked in. Like most multi-sport watches it features GPS, built-in and optical heart rate and tracks all the usual stuff like steps, calories and continuous heart rate. But a FitSpark workout recommendation feature really sets it apart. The watch reads your current vitals and suggests a daily selection of workouts based on how well you slept, your stress and recovery. You can choose between cardio, core or mobility sessions, making it easier to keep things fresh. Each workout comes with basic but simple-to-follow guidance and you can follow each drill on the watch without having to fire up a second screen.
Post-workout, the Ignite’s Nightly Recharge feature uses the built-in optical heart rate sensor to monitor your heart rate variability and your autonomic nervous system overnight, so you can see how well your body bounces back from the previous day’s exertions, be that a 45-minute HIIT sufferfest or a day being Head Teacher at Home School.
Alternatively, if you’re still making the most of that hour to get outside for a serious run, ride or swim, the Garmin Forerunner 945 (£520) is the best serious sports tracker you can buy right now with excellent battery life and an unrivalled suite of sports and stats tracked. Meanwhile, for some simple but powerful motivation, the , with its addictive daily challenge to close your activity rings is excellent for ensuring you stand and move enough, even though you’re housebound.
Price: £166 | | Polar | Wiggle
Jaybird Tarah Pro
Weight: 20g | Water resistance: IPX7 | Drivers: 6mm
While the trend right now is for true wireless headphones, the versatile Bluetooth 5.0 are packed full of tricks that offer a versatility you won’t get with the earbuds-only build. That includes unique twisting buds that allow you to wear them two ways: over the ear for a virtually true wireless feel or under for a more standard fit. The magnetic buds clip together for easy stowage around your neck and auto pause the music while they’re at it. One-piece gels and wingtips provide a lock-tight fit that copes with even the most vigorous of HIIT workouts. You get 14 hours of workout time on a single charge plus a handy rapid-charge that delivers two hours from just five minutes on the plug.
There’s no noise cancellation or transparency mode but the sound is rich and full bodied enough to boost any workout. EQ is also fully customisable in the partner app with the ability to create and store multiple sound profiles. However, if your lockdown set-up leaves you desperate to shut out the world during your workouts, it’s worth looking at the which pack excellent noise cancellation. If you want 100 per cent stay put certainty, the new ear hook design and 15 hour battery life are also worth consideration.
Price: £140 | John Lewis | Jaybird | Currys
UrbnFit Pulse Foam Roller
Weight: 1.36kg | Battery life: 6 hours | Size: 33.0 x 13.97 cm
Spending time on the foam roller after a workout – or a day stuck at a makeshift workstation – can help increase flexibility, mobility, pliability, circulation, not to mention reduce muscle soreness. And adding some good vibrations into the mix can increase the positive effects of your roller sessions.
The UrbnFit features five vibration levels from 900-3600 RPM up to so you can tweak the intensity to match your muscular needs. There’s a switching mode too that varies the vibrations every three seconds and the soft, smooth cushioned EVS foam is also split into with different firmness so you can work areas harder where necessary. The Pulse is built to support just short of 150kg with the vital digital innars well-protected in an interior plastic casing for good durability. You get up to 6 hours roll time with the vibes whacked up to full, it’s USB rechargeable and takes 3 hours to fully reload.
Price: $79 | Urbnfit
Zwift RunPod Sensors
Weight: 13g | Battery life: 6 months
Zwift started life as a virtual training community for cyclists but now runners pound the pixel tarmac in Zwift’s virtual world of Wattopia too. To join Zwift you need a treadmill, a screen and a footpod. You can use third party trackers like the Stryd Running pod to track your runs but the cheapest way to get into the game is Zwift’s own Bluetooth RunPod (£38). It attaches to your shoes and measures and broadcasts speed, cadence and distance. Calibration can be done quickly and easily and once you’re up and running you can access structured goal-based workouts from elite coaches. Stick on a pair of Bluetooth headphones and you can also tap into a thriving community for mid-session support and a bit of social interaction from outside of self isolation.
Price: £38 | | Zwift
Lifespan TR5500i Folding Treadmill
Treadmills take up a lot of floor space but this all-steel folding-frame running machine takes up less than most. With the TR5500i (£1,699) you get a 22-inch by 60-inch running surface with a fold-away footprint at 40.5-inch (L) x 34.5-inch (W) x 65.5 (H). There’s a built-in 10-inch colour touchscreen display, physical controls for speed and incline, and a top speed of 13.5 mph – that’s 4.5 minutes per mile, quick enough for Eliud Kipchoge to break the sub-2-hour marathon. There are 13 levels of incline and two levels of decline and more than 50 different pre-programmed workouts, including races and fitness tests. You can also create and save your own sessions plus it’s Bluetooth compatible so you can add a heart rate monitor for improved tracking accuracy.
Price: £1,699 | Lifespan
Tangram Factory Smart Rope Rookie
Battery life: 6 months | Weight: 160g | Rope length: 3 metres
If you find yourself craving a decent cardio workout but you can’t get out and run or ride, skipping is a great alternative. Research shows that just 10 minutes jumping rope is as effective as half an hour’s running. Skipping comes with extra benefits too, fast-foot rope sessions are lower impact and improve coordination and balance. This bluetooth-enabled smartrope, the Smart Rope Rookie (£50), adds a little extra motivation, using magnetic sensors in the handles to track your jump count five times per second, calories and records in real time. The rope length is adjustable and you can set skip or duration targets and follow guided interval workouts.
Sonos Move
Weight: 3kg | Battery life: 10 hours | Water resistance: IP56 rating
There’s plenty of research that tells us working out with music not only boosts motivation, it also improves our ability to push through fatigue. And if working out during lockdown involves switching from room to room to avoid the family circus, then you want a speaker you can take with you. The portable is built exactly for that task, with Trueplay tuning, which adapts to the music you’re listening to and wherever you’re playing your tunes.
It’s weatherproof, perfect if you decide to take your boot camp session into the garden. It also has a drop-proof shock resistant case which is handy if your overzealous burpees make it accidentally jump off the sideboard. There’s voice control so you can shout out your power song requests without breaking your wall squat position and you can stream via Bluetooth and wifi, ideal if your lockdown companions are squeezing the bandwidth while you’re trying to make Joe Wicks proud.
Price: £379 | | John Lewis | Argos
Stealth Plankster
Weight: 4.5kg | Load: 113kg
There’s a reason trainers love the plank, it’s uncomplicated, versatile and ideal for cultivating better core strength, improving balance and posture. But let’s be honest, most of us aren’t big fans of staring at the floor while our midriff burns during this dullest of exercises. Stealth offers a way out of the boredom, if not the suffering. Essentially a balance board that you can slot any smartphone into, the works with a partner app to unlock a range of ab-scorching games that bring an old-school arcade vibe to otherwise boring holds. You use minor core movements – picked up by your phone’s motion sensors – to do things like fly gliders around obstacles, shoot down asteroids and navigate labyrinths. While you’re trying to beat your High Score you’re also working up to 29 different muscles. The light – and relatively compact – board can support anyone up to 20 stone and has soft, easy-clean pads so at least your elbows won’t hurt.
Price: £89 | | Stealth
JaxJox KettleBell Connect
Weight: 19kg | Size: 43 x 65 x 43cm | Battery life: 14 hours
If you know what to do with it, the kettlebell can be an incredibly versatile piece of gym kit but not many people have the space to store a full rack of weights. This adjustable smart kettlebell solves that problem by packing six selectable weights – 12-42lb – in one. A digital display on the Kettlebell Connect (£229) makes it easy to see the weight you’re working with, while the partner app also offers a range of guided drills that you can string together into your own full body workouts. There’s streamed video for train-along-style sessions and JaxJox’s built-in sensors record your reps, sets and power while you’re shifting metal. You can connect a heart rate chest strap for added insights and you get 14 hours workout time on a single charge.
Price: £229 | Argos | Apple | JaxJox
Bowflex SelectTech 560 Dumbbells
Size: 40.1 x 23.6 x 21.9 cm | Bluetooth: Yes
If the dumbbell is your free-weight weapon of choice for body sculpting, the Bowflex SelectTech (£599) is probably the world’s smartest option. Just like the JaxJox, this award-winning Bluetooth-powered weights set uses built in motion sensors to automatically count every rep, set and rest period. It also saves space with a full range of sixteen selectable weights from 5lbs to 60lbs in one compact piece of kit. No need for a full rack taking up an entire room and dramatically cutting any potential toe stubbing to a minimum.
Price: £599 | | Bowflex | Fitness Superstore
On Cloud X
Weight: 229g | Drop: 6mm
The is a training shoe designed with versatility in mind. At 229g this lightweight, fully-cushioned all-rounder performs well on the roads as a running shoe and is firm enough under foot to function equally well as a cross training shoe. It features On’s signature CloudTech – those interesting looking half bubbles on the outsole – along with a so-called zero-gravity midsole foam that flexes to support the quick changes of direction you encounter during floor drills. There’s good stability, decent support in the heel and the breathable engineered mesh upper leaves you plenty of freedom to make small adjustments to your foot and toe position when you’re trying to hit perfect form.
Price: £130 | | On Running | Sigma Sports
Kieran Alger is a fitness tech expert; his YouTube channel is The Run Testers.
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