I built my first home gym around a single piece of equipment: a beat-up wooden box I borrowed from a buddy. After two years of box jumps, step-ups, and Bulgarian split squats in my garage, I can tell you the right plyo box changes your workouts. A flimsy one slides across the floor mid-set. A … Read more
When our team set out to find the best slam balls for conditioning, we wanted answers, not hype. Slam balls look simple, but the wrong shell cracks in weeks, the wrong weight wrecks your form, and the wrong texture turns sweaty palms into a slip hazard. We spent six weeks slamming, twisting, throwing, and chasing … Read more
If you have ever dropped a heavy dumbbell on bare concrete or watched a treadmill walk itself across a hardwood floor, you already understand why the best gym flooring mats for home gyms are non-negotiable. Our team spent the last 90 days laying out, sweating on, and dropping plates onto ten of the most popular … Read more
I lost eight inches of basement carpet in a single storm because my primary sump pump tripped a breaker at 2 a.m. That is the night I started testing every battery backup sump pump I could get my hands on, and the products below are the ones that kept water out of the basement during … Read more
Finding the best compact massage chairs for small spaces used to mean settling for a flat cushion on your sofa. I tested eight of the most popular compact and wall-friendly massage chairs for to find which ones actually fit a studio apartment, a small bedroom, or a tight home office without dominating the room. A … Read more
I’ve been testing massage chairs for a living for over three years now, and the difference between a regular recliner and a true zero-gravity massage chair is the kind of thing you feel in the first 60 seconds of sitting down. Your knees drop below your heart, the chair takes your full weight, and suddenly … Read more
After 90 days of swings, snatches, and Turkish get-ups in my garage gym, I can tell you the best kettlebell sets for home workouts are the difference between a piece of equipment you actually use and one that ends up collecting dust in the corner. Kettlebells punch way above their weight class for building full-body … Read more
Three years ago I cancelled my commercial gym membership and started testing every all-in-one home gym system I could get my hands on. What followed was six months of sore thumbs from assembling 200-pound machines in my garage, two cables that snapped mid-rep, and one truly awful pulley system that felt like pulling a rope … Read more
Building serious legs at home used to mean cramming a full commercial leg press into a corner that barely fit your car. After testing eight machines in our garage over the past four months, I can tell you the best leg press machines for home gyms in are a totally different breed than what our … Read more
Building a garage gym used to mean either squeezing a full power rack into a tight space or settling for flimsy squat stands that wobbled under heavy loads. After testing dozens of setups over the past three years, I’ve found that the best half racks for garage gyms deliver the safety of a full cage … Read more