If you are looking to build your own home gym in your garage or basement, chances are that you have been looking for functional trainers. These machines mainly just use cable exercises, take up less room, are cheaper than other home gym equipment, and will give you a great workout every time. Some people like these even better than going to a traditional gym (you can save money this way if you are serious about your exercise!).
Functional Trainers are often refereed to as cable crossover gyms or cable gyms for a good reason. Each unit will come with cables, and swivel pulleys. These allow you to work out many different body parts with different exercises. You can also change the height of each pulley and the handles rotate. Any exercise you want to be able to do, a functional gym will allow you to do it!
Depending on what unit you decide to purchase, you will have access to a lot of different positions to start in height. Each trainer will also have different weights and increments. The majority of them will go up to 100 to 250 pounds. Feel free to browse this section to find out some of the functional training gyms we have reviewed and you will notice that our favorite by far is made by Body Solid. Star Trac is also a great choice!
You can see the prices of the Body Solid functional gyms here.
What Makes These Gyms “Functional”?
Have you been lifting for a while, gaining strength, and challenged your dad to arm wrestle? Quickly you will find you lose every time (more than likely), and he doesn’t even workout! How can this be?
Well, all his life he has been using his strength for function, rather than just lifting weights without a purpose in the gym. With a functional gym, you take the traditional strength training, and combine it with training for a specific purpose (such as sports).
Lets look at an example. You may be a baseball player and want to work on your swing, but also want to gain strength and train them both at the same time. With a functional cable gym, you will be able to place the cable pulley in the middle of the rack. From here, you can twist the cable and turn your waist just like you are hitting a baseball. Not only are you working on your swing, but the muscles in your back, your abdominal, your arms, and your shoulders are also working! Doing this over and over again will give you a stronger physique while allowing you to create a muscle memory to help you in your game.
Everyone wants to work out multiple body parts and sometimes it is hard to do this without going to your local gym. Not anymore! A trainer like this will allow you to do 30-40 exercises and work many different groups of muscles in the body using cables and pulleys. Not bad for a one time investment in a functional trainer.
Why You Should Use A Trainer
Functional trainers have two basic designs. One of them has a single cable tower, and the other has two cable towers. One is designed to go into a corner of your room, while the other will fit against any wall you may have. What makes this design so great is that they are tall and do not take up much room at all. Without taking up much room, anyone can fit one of these into their house or apartment to make sure they get their exercise in!
One of the biggest problems in the gym is that when people are lifting free weights, they are not using a full range of motion. Remember that you need to fully extend at the bottom and fully contract at the top if you want to get the best pump. Functional gyms are based on exercises to use all muscle groups including your stabilizer muscles which will allow you to use a full range of motion in each and every exercise. Always get a full range of motion in your exercises no matter if you are lifting weights in the gym, or using any of the home workout equipment available.
See the best cheap functional trainers here
My favorite aspect of lifting at the gym is that when I use any of the cable machines, I can put the muscle under tension all the time. When you put your muscles under constant tension, you will burn more calories, get stronger, and get bigger! Any time you come out of constant tension, your muscle fibers are not getting worked. Many youtube videos will stress the importance of this and now you can get this same benefit in the comfort of your own home! Not only is constant tension good for training, but it also allows you to target specific muscles by doing slow exercises while focusing on your contraction. This is a major pro of owning a functional gym.
Any Negatives Of Functional Trainers?
Well, I would not really say it is a negative, but something you should keep in mind is that they are really not idea for training your lower body. They are amazing for curls, pull downs, rows, flies, and basically any upper body exercise you can think of but if you want to do your legs, think again. You would be better of getting a multi gym if you want to train legs.
Now wait a minute, this is not really a con because I believe you should be including all types of exercise in your workouts. For example, if you want to use your functional gym to train your lower body, you can still use the very lowest pulley to do weighted kickbacks. If you want to work out other body parts, try doing some cardio and going for a run. Just because you have a piece of equipment, you can still incorporate other exercises. Lunges, farmer walks, running, body weight squats, and many others are still amazing exercises to include.
Conclusion
Functional training gyms are for a specific set of people looking to create their own gym at home and have a bit of money to spend. They are easy to use, and are comfortable to use in your house. Some people will find going to the gym and using their machines are a bit easier for them, but these people are typically new to training.
If you know what you are looking for, have the money to spend, and want to get a great workout (full body, or specific body parts), then a cable gym will be one of the best investments you ever make in yourself. Check some out today and let me know which type you have in the comments below!
Leave a Reply