The Essential CrossFit Gear

An increasingly popular exercise pull up bar program in recent years, CrossFit has become a favorite of a number of athletes as well as beginners to physical fitness. Fortunately, you do not need a gym membership to do the program--most of the CrossFit gear that you will require can be purchased and used at home.

Before getting into the specifics of what you need to obtain, here is how the program itself is structured: all official workouts are posted on the main site and follow a rotation of three days of exercises then one day of rest. For each of the active days, there will be a Workout of the Day (WOD) that targets specific goals. The three-day cycles usually follow a theme of some sort, such as building stamina, focusing on increasing strength, etc.

The workouts cover a wide variety of exercises, and some of them require specialized equipment to do properly. At the same time, there is a core set of CrossFit gear that covers the majority of workouts, and the other exercises out there can be worked around using substitutions.

The first required piece of equipment is a pull-up bar of some sort. Pull-ups are an excellent upper body workout that cover a wide variety of muscle groups, and are featured prominently in CrossFit to the point where you need a bar to get the expected benefits of the program.

While the best setup is a free-standing pull up bar, there are a number of doorway-mounted models available for home use. These work by being hooked around the mantling at the top of a doorway, and are secured with a small metal piece that slides behind the frame. I have used one in both bathroom and bedroom frames in my house and other places when traveling, and have had always been able to find a good place to mount the bar. These are rated to handle up to 300 pounds, and should work for most people.

The next requirement is an Olympic bar and at least some weight. Olympic lifting exercises such as squats and dead lifts are the most efficient strength training techniques available, and CrossFit regularly cycles these into the WODs. Skipping these would take away much of the strength training focus of the program.

To start with, most people will not need that much weight. Acquiring a standard Olympic bar weighed at 45 pounds is enough to at least start practicing the proper technique for the lifts. For many WODs, CrossFit uses high-repetition sets of lifts using between 95 to 135 pounds of weight, so enough weight to cover that is plenty until one gets strong enough to deadlift greater loads.

The last piece of essential home equipment is some kind of dumbbell set. Though CrossFit favors using Olympic bars, there are days where you are instructed to use dumbbells instead for a different feel to the workout. Also, dumbbells can be substituted for kettle bell swings, which are used often enough that having a means to do them should be attained.

An adjustable dumbbell set is the most cost and space effective option, and scales easily as you can purchase more weight over time. For a beginner, you should have enough weight to cover 45 pounds in each hand, and up to 70 pounds on a single dumbbell for substituting kettle bell swings.

Those three pieces--a pull up bar, an Olympic bar, and a dumbbell set--cover the essentials of CrossFit gear. Beyond that, there are many other options to get more mileage out of the program, including gymnastic rings, kettle bells, weighted medicine balls, and others. Once you have covered those basics, however, you are free to get started with the program and get the optional equipment over time.

Cody Everette spent his days of formal education as the skinny lanky guy, then decided that post-college it was time to get fit. He's tried a number of different approaches, including MMA and various lifting programs. CrossFit is his go-to exercise method of choice.