A Recipe for Success: Bodybuilding Equipment
Whether at the gym or in the home, bodybuilders need certain tools to perform. Just as football needs shoulder pads and baseball needs bases, bodybuilding equipment is essential to the success of the athletes. The idea of individual sports is confusing to some; when people think of sports, they think of team sports with some numerical goal. Sports like bodybuilding or even leisure sports such as bowling are rarely considered sports because the competition is individualized. But bodybuilding requires equal dedication, intensity and strategy. But none of this is possible without bodybuilding equipment.
The Essentials
While gyms are filled to the brim with free weights and weight machines, many of which are not even necessary to expert power lifters, home gyms are often more specialized. Bodybuilders must pick and choose their bodybuilding equipment carefully, both for reasons of cost and of space. Still, there are a few essential pieces of bodybuilding equipment that every gym should have, rather personal or public. Certain weights target multiple muscles at once, are versatile and can serve multiple functions, making them both cost-efficient and space-efficient.
Dumbbells and barbells are the standards in free weights. These pieces of bodybuilding equipment can be used to perform endless exercises, targeting muscles in the arms, shoulders, back, legs and core. Dumbbells, for instance, produce some of the greatest results of all free lifts simply because they use an impressive amount of muscle strength just to hold and stabilize. Barbells allow for heavy lifting, the kind necessary for elite bodybuilders, but they can still be useful for beginners as well as they are at the core of some of the most simple, traditional exercises.
An adjustable bench is another piece of essential bodybuilding equipment. The bench provides the bodybuilder with the ability to challenge his or her body in new ways; barbells and dumbbells can be used for all kinds of new exercises when the bench is brought into play. The bench can be moved on an incline, and when coupled with a leg attachment, it takes on the role of an entire gym in one piece of bodybuilding equipment.
For more advanced bodybuilders, squat racks, dip stations and calf machines are good investments as well. While beginning lifters have no need for this bodybuilding equipment, and while huge results can be attained without them, anyone who is serious enough to aspire to compete in championships will benefit highly from the investment. These machines target very specific muscle groups, such as the triceps, chest, hamstrings, calves and quadriceps, where cannot be isolated with barbells and dumbbells alone. Finally, every bodybuilder must remember his or her core; abdominal muscles are crucial for any sport, any activity and any other weight training exercise. Bodybuilding equipment aimed at the core should be included in any home gym as well, and as an added bonus, these pieces are rarely expensive or big.
