Review
Essentials
Strength Through Simplicity
By Patrick Leyland

Multistation resistance machines certainly have their place, but not in the space-conscious home gym. Rather, you can get all the strength training you need to complement your aerobic routine with a carefully chosen (and nicely compact) set of dumbbells, a good jump rope, and maybe even an exercise mat for crunches and leg raises. The best approach is to have a local sporting goods store create a custom set of professional-quality dumbbells. A full set of weights ranging from five pounds to 45 pounds would cost about $370 from most manufacturers. Since you pay by the pound, get only the increments you need. Never again will you have to hassle with swapping weights between sets. And you can safely forgo the dumbbell rack the guy at the shop will insist you need. Instead, stash the dumbbells in the closet and invest the extra cash in a leather weight belt (Gold's Gym, $26), a leather jump rope (Tunturi Leather Jump Rope, $17), and an exercise mat (Tunturi Bi-Fold Exercise Mat, $50).

Photograph by Clay Ellis

Copyright 1998, Outside magazine