Kettlebells Or Dumbbells For Your Home Gym – How To Choose
Building your home gym is hard. In a dream world, you would go out and purchase all your favorite equipment at the gym and bring it into your home. Unfortunately, that doesn’t account for the high cost of premium fitness equipment and the space you have available.
Most home gyms are multi-purpose rooms - gym/office, gym/art studio, gym/doggy area gym/spare bedroom. So space becomes a major concern when it comes to building your home gym. Are you going to have a weight room? Or a treadmill with some space next to it? How much are you planning on investing $100 or $10,000 (believe me, you can spend the latter)?
When it comes to strength training, where will you invest your space and money? Which is better for your home gym, kettlebells or dumbbells. Both can help you get strong quickly, but which is the most bang for your buck? Let’s see which costs the least and takes up the least space:
Cost
Weights aren’t cheap. High-quality weights range from $1-$4 per pound(without shipping!) and can go up when you purchase accessories like a bench or a rack. When starting off weight training, you can buy a few select weights instead of a whole set. There are also some adjustable dumbbells and kettlebells, but we’ll cover that shortly.
Dumbbell Cost
In general, dumbbells are cheaper than kettlebells, which should give it the edge to win out the cost category except for one crucial factor. You can rarely purchase a single dumbbell. When you purchase a dumbbell, you almost always have to purchase the set. Let’s take Rogue (popular fitness equipment supplier) for example:
A set of two 17.5 pound dumbbells cost $43 on their website. Yet one 18 pound kettlebell costs $36. It seems like a bargain to get double the weight for the seven extra dollars, but you have to consider space and usage. You need a few sets of dumbbells when you start to have the necessary weight for different exercises.
Adjustable Dumbbells
Adjustable dumbbells are never as good as individual ones, but it is an excellent way to get a full dumbbell set for $300 instead of $500-$1000. Do your due diligence before purchasing an adjustable dumbbells set. The vast majority of them are not worth it. You’d rather have a few nice dumbbells than cheap adjustable ones. The best adjustable dumbbells I’ve come across in a decade of personal training are made by Sorinex(Link). They still aren’t as good as regular dumbbells, but they are very easy to adjust and are shaped more normally than other adjustable sets.
Kettlebell Cost
Kettlebells are expensive, and competition kettlebells are even more so. The former is generally made from iron ore and forged into a single bell (for nice kettlebells). The latter are more expensive because they have uniform sizing and often have steel handles. It is hard to justify the added cost, though. A competition bell can easily be $100 more than its regular kettlebell counterpart.
* What makes competition bells so great is that no matter what weight you are using, the bell size is exactly the same. Meaning your timing and form transfer perfectly from the 8kg bell to the 28kg bell. It sounds like a small thing, but it is an excellent feature.
Starting out, the average person only needs two or three kettlebells. A heavy one for swings, deadlifts, and goblet squats. And a lighter one for shoulder presses and snatches. And maybe one in between for rows, floor presses, and cleans. Three (non-competition) bells will run you about $2 per pound, so a beginner can grab an initial set for under $250.
Adjustable Kettlebells
You may be tempted by an adjustable kettlebell. It is one piece of equipment that can replace a whole gym, right? Wrong. While this author has only tried two adjustable kettlebells, I can tell you from extensive research that a good one doesn’t exist. Save your money. Don’t even bother with this rabbit hole.
Space
When purchasing equipment for your home gym, space is often the primary concern. Most people don’t have the luxury of having enough room for a full home gym, so they must choose their equipment wisely. Initially, neither dumbbells nor kettlebells will be too cumbersome, but as your collection grows, some accommodations must be made.
Dumbbells and Space
If you only have a few sets of dumbbells, you can easily get away with just lining them up on the floor of your home gym. However, once you get past six sets of dumbbells, it will likely be time to invest in a rack of some kind. A floor full of dumbbells will quickly begin to eat up the space of your precious home gym. Space that you could otherwise use for a bench and maybe an exercise ball. When it comes to a home gym, nothing beats the adjustable dumbbells in terms of space-saving.
Kettlebells and Space
As opposed to dumbbells, you can get away with keeping kettlebells on the floor for much longer. The reason being is that you usually only purchase one kettlebell at a time. That means that you can get about eight of them before they take over the floor of your home gym. And you likely will never need more than eight kettlebells. If you decided to go with competition bells, you would probably fit a few less, but it shouldn’t make too much of a difference.
The Verdict?
So what is better for your home gym? Kettlebells or dumbbells? Well, in part, it is a personal preference. You can do 95% of the same exercises with either. Starting out, kettlebells are cheaper and take up less space. So I have to give kettlebells the win on this one.
Honorable mention: those adjustable dumbbells from Sorinex do take the least amount of space and, at $300, are competitively priced for your home gym.
No matter what you choose, I hope this helped you make a decision. Remember, you don’t need any fancy equipment to get a good workout. Gymnasts have amazing bodies purely from calisthenics. Lifting weights will improve your overall quality of life, regardless of if you are picking up dumbbells or kettlebells.
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