Fitness Awards 2026: Home Gym Equipment
Kit Out Your Home Gym With the Year's Best Treadmills, Racks, Weight Plates & More
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Our annual AskMen Fitness Awards are back for 2026, and we’ve spent months testing and comparing the best home gym equipment, fitness tech, supplements and gear to separate the best from the rest and declare our winners.
In our most competitive categories, more than a dozen products vied for the top spot, while our panel of judges, encompassing current and former college athletes, weekend warriors and personal trainers, worked overtime to generate feedback and vote on winners.
Before we get to business, we’d like to thank not only our hard-working judges for their efforts but also all of the brand reps who battled bad weather, delays and postal worker strikes to ensure our judges got their hands-on testing experience.
Finally, here are our favorite products of 2026 in the category of Best Home Gym Equipment:
Best Home Gym Equipment
Best Walking Pad
GOYOUTH Walking Pad
Reliable, quiet and deceptively powerful despite its easy-to-store design, this walking pad from GOYOUTH checks all the boxes, allowing you to get your steps in while you work, watch TV or surf the net. A built-in LED display gives key metrics like pace, time, distance and step count, while superior shock absorption together with a 300-pound maximum weight capacity ensures comfort, even at higher speeds. The included remote control also makes it easy to ramp up the intensity, from 0.5 km/h up to 6 km/h with the press of a button.
Best Treadmill
NordicTrack T Series
With an unlimited budget, you can go pretty wild kitting out an expensive, top-of-the-line treadmill, but if you’re working with limited funds and limited space but still want a versatile, durable and feature-rich option you can use every day of your life, the T Series from NordicTrack deserves your attention. Our testers especially loved the tilting 10” touchscreen, 0-12% incline and foldable design of the T Series 9, as well as the fact that, even during faster runs, it operated at reasonably low volume, which is a pretty significant upside for people who don’t want to wake up their kids or spouse.
Best Rowing Machine
Hydrow Origin Rowing Machine
For their low profile and small footprint and the minimal strain they place on your joints, rowing machines have become a home gym staple, so competition for the top spot in the market is fiercer than ever. The Hydrow Origin was our standout rowing machine thanks to its slick, sturdy and foldable design, highly-detailed 22” rotating touchscreen display, and above all their proprietary electromagnetic drag technology, which does a much better job than most belt-based systems at mimicking the feel of rowing through actual water. If you’re an avid rower, it’s also well worth springing for the monthly membership, which will unlock more than 5,000 workouts as well as access to personalized instruction to help guide your progress.
Best Stationary Bike
Schwinn Fitness IC4
Simple, functional and amazingly well built, with a footprint small enough to fit in the most modest apartments, the Schwinn Fitness IC4 delivers exceptional performance, adjustable resistance, and a racing-style setup that will help avid cyclists translate their indoor work into road performance. Eschewing a built-in screen to cut down on costs, the IC4 nevertheless includes a built-in phone and tablet holder, allowing you to use your preferred workout app or just watch your favorite Netflix series as you get your sweat on.
Best Air Bike
Rogue Echo Bike V3.0
It’s tough to write about Rogue’s Echo Bike without repeating compliments. First, it’s nearly indestructible, giving the feeling of stability even when 250-pound men are pushing the pedal as hard as they can, as fast as they can. And even at high speeds, that heavy-duty fan and belt-drive system never make much noise, making it safe to use at all hours of the day or night. With the V3.0 release, Rogue added enhanced Bluetooth connectivity, allowing you to hook the Echo Bike up to the most popular cycling apps. If we had to name a downside, it’s probably weight: the bike weighs more than 120 pounds, but we promise you’ll be more focused on the killer workouts it delivers.
Best Elliptical
Bowflex Max Total 16
Ellipticals were slower to hit the home gym market than bikes, treadmills and rowing machines, but that extra delay just gave manufacturers more time to perfect the design for home use. Case in point: the Bowflex Max Total 16. Boasting 20 different resistance levels, a 16” HD touchscreen (with WiFi connectivity, naturally), and a compact footprint, it offers a near-perfect replica of the elliptical workout you can get at a commercial gym. And thanks to its magnetic disc resistance system, cleverly tucked away inside a fan casing, it does a fantastic job minimizing noise, allowing you to push the intensity level day or night.
Best Workout Hub
Tonal 2
Fully kitted out, the Tonal 2 workout hub is a compact, comprehensive solution to your home gym needs, offering you personalized training in the privacy of your living room. With the upgraded Tonal 2, you gain up to 250 pounds of cable resistance in the adjustable arms, as well as key accessories like a bar, rope and bench to unlock over 300 distinct movements. And thanks to that vibrant, extra-large display paired to a built-in camera and speakers, you can communicate directly with your personal trainer, receiving live feedback as you complete your personalized workout.
Best Cable Machine
Rogue CTM-1 Cable Tower
If you want to unlock cable movements but don’t have the space for a full functional trainer, Rogue has an elegant solution: their CTM-1 Cable Tower comfortably fits in the corner of any room, unlocking vertical rowing movements and a wide array of single-arm cable exercises, especially if you add some of their fantastic accessories. The 250-pound weight stack (upgradeable to 300 pounds) suffices for even the strongest fitness buffs, while Rogue’s cable pulley system functions with a buttery-smoothness that has to be experienced to be believed. And most importantly, while the pulley system uses a 2:1 ratio for the lower connection, it operates at a true 1:1 ratio for the lat pulldown, giving your larger muscles access to greater resistance.
Best Bench
Major Fitness Adjustable Bench
Major Fitness has made major strides in the home gym market, earning a reputation for ingenuity and affordability that helps to make it the sensible option for the average home gym owner, and their Adjustable Bench is no exception. At a fraction of the price of its higher-end competition, it offers a 1300-pound weight capacity, eight separate angles of incline and a decline option, as well as a clever wheel-and-handle system that makes moving it into place or storing it out of sight totally painless.
Best Squat Rack
Fringe Sport Garage Series Squat Cage
Ever since the great home gym explosion of the COVID era, squat racks have done nothing but shoot up in price, making it genuinely hard to find a bargain rack. Fringe Sport have answered the call with their Garage Series Squat Cage, cleverly designed to maximize value while cutting down on costs. Its 2x2-inch uprights and sturdy base allow for a maximum weight capacity of 600 pounds, far above even most strong lifters’ capacity, while the base price includes things that most other brands treat as optional extras, such as spotter arms and weight horns. This model even comes with two pull-up bars, one standard and one “fat.”
Best Squat Stand
Rogue SM-1 Monster Squat Stand 2.0
When size, space and budget are all limited, a squat stand is a great alternative to a full squat rack, offering most of the same functionality of a full rack at a fraction of the cost. Rogue’s SM-1 squat stand has basically been setting the industry standard since its release owing to its narrow width (just 50”) and shorter height (73”) that nonetheless boasts their ultra-sturdy 3x3, 11-gauge steel uprights and luxurious powder coat finishing. For something so compact, it’s remarkable how little it wobbles, even when you’re pushing seriously heavy weight.
Best Folding Squat Rack
Titan T-3 Series Folding Power Rack
Folding squat racks are probably the single best innovation in the home gym market, radically expanding the possibilities for the great majority of people working with serious space constraints, and Titan has absolutely hit it out of the park with their T3 series of folding racks. You can customize both the rack height (82” or 91”) and depth (21” or 41”), allowing you to keep a car parked in your garage, for example, when the rack isn’t in use, while the cleverly designed pin-and-hinge system allows for fast assembly/disassembly. Add to that the top-notch construction, centered around Titan’s 2x3-inch, 11-gauge steel uprights, and you have an extremely capable rack for a bargain price.
Best Functional Trainer
REP Ares Arcadia Max
It may have gone up in price recently, like almost all home gym equipment, but it’s still hard not to think of the Arcadia Max functional trainer from REP as a bargain. Build quality is absolutely top notch, with extremely smooth cable travel, expertly-constructed trolleys, and superior knurling on all the handles. The base weight stacks offer 220 pounds of resistance (270 pounds with an upgrade) in a 2:1 ratio, adjustable in ten-pound increments, though they’ve also included a five-pound drop-down weight for even more minute adjustments; and with 36 different cable positions and a dozen or so optional attachments, you can do an endless variety of exercises from this one machine.
Best Fixed Weight Barbell
Titan Fitness Rubber Fixed Barbells
The right fixed weight barbell adds convenience and flexibility to your home gym. We love both the straight and EZ curl options from Titan Fitness, available from 20 to 110 pounds of weight, or in a convenient, all-in-one set. The 30mm, medium-knurled grip holds true, even when you’re sweating profusely, while the rubber coating on the weights does a fantastic job protecting them from drops and impact, while the matte black coloring looks snazzy in any style of home gym.
Best Dumbbells
CAP Barbell Rubber Hex Dumbbells
CAP Barbell have cleverly positioned themselves in the home gym sweet spot, offering the maximum quality for the lowest cost, and their Rubber Hex Dumbbells are evidence of that. Available in as little as 10 pounds and as much as 120 pounds, these hexagonal dumbbells boast coated heads, to protect from drop damage, and contoured chrome handles that conform to your hand shape, making them easier to grip even when your hands are sweating.
Best Kettlebell
Yes4All Powder Coated Kettlebell
Kettlebells are incredible, versatile training tools, but as solid pieces of metal, they don’t need to be super expensive to be effective. We fell in love with Yes4All’s range of power-coated, non-slip kettlebells built around a dense iron core. The flat base ensures they never wobble, while the thick handle allows easy maneuverability whether you’re gripping them with one or two hands.
Best Weight Plates
Rogue 6-Shooter Urethane Plates
You don’t need to spend extra money on fancy weight plates; after all, 45 pounds is 45 pounds. But if you care about aesthetics in your home gym, or just want plates that look and feel great and are easy to handle, the 6-Shooter Urethane Plates from Rogue are obvious standouts. The precision-cut holes and raised-lip edges make them easy to hold and handle, while the 5MM-thick PU coating ensures they’re going to last for the long haul.
Best Bumper Plates
Bells of Steel Dead Bounce Conflict Bumper Plates
Affordable, durable and dense enough to minimize bounce (hence “dead bounce”), these bumper plates from Bells of Steel are all upside. Build quality deserves a mention, as Bells of Steel strictly source virgin rubber and guarantee weight accuracy to +/-1% of claimed weight, while an extra-thick stainless steel insert ring with three distinct anchor points prevents the donut hole from collapsing over time, a common problem among budget bumper plate brands.
From $429.99 at BellsOfSteel.us
Best Barbell Collar
Rogue HG 3.0 Collar
Too many people sleep on barbell collars, but they’re the one gym accessory you likely use every time you work out. The newly-released HG 3.0 collars from Rogue boast a spring-loaded collar lock and rubberized interior to protect your precious barbell even as it clamps to it, as well as powerful N52 magnets, recessed within the collar frame to prevent metal-on-metal contact, that make it easy to store the collars on your rack when not in use.
Best Sandbag
REP Fitness Sandbag
Sandbags offer a fantastic alternative to larger, more costly traditional home gym equipment, so if you’re short on space or operating on a limited budget, check out REP’s Fitness Sandbag, available in two different sizes and weight capacities. Build quality is top-notch, as you would expect from REP, with a durable cross-stitched 1000D Cordura shell paired to extra-soft handles reinforced with seven rivets. Be advised, though: to cut down on shipping costs, these do not ship with sand included; you will have to provide your own.
Best Battle Ropes
Amazon Basics Battle Rope
The most overlooked and underrated piece of cardio equipment is both cheap, versatile and portable. We’re speaking, of course, of battle ropes. And while there are some very high-end options out there, we’re really enthusiastic about this ultra-affordable model from Amazon Basics, available in 1.5” and 2” diameters, with a 600D waterproof sleeve and heat-shrunk end caps to maximize durability and extend the rope’s lifespan.
Best Olympic Bar
Eleiko Hybrid Bar
Eleiko have been at the forefront of barbell technology for almost as long as people have been buying barbells; it is no exaggeration to say they are the standard-bearers in the category. In other words, it’s no surprise that their Hybrid Bar is the year’s most versatile Olympic barbell, equally at ease with standard barbell movements or explosive Olympic lifts. The 1.0 Standard, volcano-style knurling provides exactly the right amount of grip to help you feel secure without ripping skin off, while the graphite-infused bronze bushings and needle bearings offer incredible rotational performance. Best of all, Eleiko stands by their craftsmanship with a lifetime warranty, so if you take care of this barbell, it will take care of you.
Best Resistance Bands
LEEKEY Resistance Bands
Resistance bands are cheap, compact and incredibly versatile, which means they merit a spot in every home gym, from the most humble to the most expensive. We love these color-coordinated sets from LEEKEY, available in a wide variety of resistance levels. They’re perfect for stretching, flossing, and strength and mobility work, and while they’re durable enough to last, they’re also affordable enough to replace when the inevitable wear and tear shows up.
Best Foam Roller
TriggerPoint Grid 1.0 Foam Roller
Sometimes, simplicity is best. The Grid 1.0 foam roller from TriggerPoint is just 13” long and 6” wide, making it ultra-portable and easy to store, but its small size never prevents it from offering a versatile deep-tissue massage. The hollow core and EVA-wrapped exterior, combined with the contrasting patterns of the grid, offer a fantastic deep-tissue massage, promoting blood flow while helping you work out knots and sore spots. It’s just long enough to offer great relief to your larger muscle groups in your back and legs, while compact enough to accurately target smaller muscles like your calves, triceps and forearms.
Best Recovery Aid
WOD Nation Floss Bands
Despite more attention finally being paid to the importance of training recovery, flossing, as a technique, is still woefully neglected. With regular use, these Floss Bands from WOD Nation allow you to compress and release tense, sore muscle fibers, promote blood flow, and improve joint mobility and flexibility. The extra-long, extra-thick bands make it easy to apply, even in harder-to-reach areas, while the included carrying case ensures they never get damaged in your gym bag.
Best Yoga Mat
Lululemon The (Big) Mat
It stands to reason that Lululemon, a company built around yoga, would produce a great yoga mat, but their (Big) Mat really needs to be experienced to understand just how much it stands apart from its more generic competitors. The extra-grippy flat layers lend confidence to all your movements, even when you’re dripping in sweat, while an antimicrobial additive holds off mold, mildew and bad odors. The cushioning is also fantastic, protecting your more delicate joints and bones without compromising on support, so you can hit your next Warrior Pose with confidence.
Best Gym Fan
Vyper Turbo Fan
If you live closer to the equator, your home gym might feel more like a home sauna in the summer months, and while you can always go the ultra-luxe route and add air conditioning to your space, a powerful gym fan is a much more cost-effective alternative. Enter the Vyper Turbo Fan, boasting four 24” blades, a brushless DC motor and a sturdy aluminum base that keeps the fan steady through 70 degrees of oscillation. It even comes with a wall-mounting kit, if you prefer to save on floor space.
Best Home Gym Accessory Under $20
Gymreapers Wrist Wraps
Who knew you could stabilize your presses and protect your wrists with a single accessory under $20? If you’ve ever sprained or broken your wrist but still want to safely overhead press or bench heavy weight, you owe it to yourself to pick up this heavy-duty, IPF-approved pair of wraps. The simple hook-and-loop design makes it easy to put them on and secure them, while the 18” length provides maximum support.
Best Home Gym Accessory Under $50
Kensui Swissies
Like everyone who has been fortunate enough to discover Swissies, we’re totally blown away by them. These versatile, portable handles fit easily inside a gym bag or store easily out of sight, but they’re mighty enough to hold up to 800 pounds of weight, so whether you’re attaching them to a standard barbell or a weightlifting bar on a cable machine, you can dramatically alter your grip and thereby target entirely different muscles. You can even pair them with bands, pull-up bars and many machines.
Best Home Gym Accessory Under $100
REP x Kleva Built Genesis Jack 2.0
If you do a lot of barbell movements off the floor, then you know the hassle of having to constantly add and remove plates, especially as the weight total creeps up. The REP x Kleva Built Genesis Jack 2.0 takes the pain out of that process using its clever design to give you the needed leverage to raise a bar weighing up to 1,000 pounds. The handle is comfortable to use, while the foot of the device is designed to protect your gym flooring.
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