The Complete Home Gym
Everything You Need, Nothing You Don't.

All you need is Balls, Bands and Bells.

Here you'll find the exact equipment I use in a clinical setting to help people who have already tried everything overcome recurring pain, injuries, pelvic floor dysfunction, hypermobility, and a range of other biomechanical health issues - and it's the exact same equipment I used personally to recover from a serious car accident several years ago.

These are highly underestimated, functional, and versatile tools, whether you're struggling to get out of bed in the morning, in constant pain, or just trying to build strength, longevity, or peak performance. If you're looking to develop optimal function, you should consider these staples in your home.

In this guide, you will find not only the right equipment to get, but also:

• the specific features you should prioritize
• how to avoid buying the wrong kind
• why use these tools, and what they're for
• tested household alternatives you can use any time

None of these items are sponsored. If I recommend a brand, it's because that's what I use and trust!

Note: It's always safest to consult with your primary care provider before beginning exercise.

01 Part One

Tissue care is non-negotiable

If you're hoping to fix and ideally prevent injuries, or begin self-care, you will need a regular practice of self-massage. This can be done through a variety of tools, including even your hands.

Smooth massage balls Essential

Simple, high-quality silicone massage balls are incredible tools for daily tissue care. Keep them under your desk, by your bed, take them with you, use them often.

What kind to get

You will want a wide collection of smooth balls in different sizes, shapes, and densities to match what feels best on your body.

There are countless kinds of balls you can get, but I recommend you look for 100% smooth silicone. I usually tell my clients to avoid foam balls (like those from Alpha or Yoga Tune Up), as I've found they can off-gas strange chemical smells for years. Silicone maintains its shape and density forever, and it's really easy to keep clean.

The brand I most recommend

"Rad" are my personal favorite. I've used their collection for maybe 10 years and they still look brand new. They have a wide variety of types of tools and sizes of balls. Their peanut-shaped roller is also great for rolling out the muscles along your spine.

Coregeous Ball

You will also want at least one soft, squishy ball (about the size of a small melon). The Coregeous style is usually an air-filled ball with a soft, grippy skin designed specifically to safely massage delicate areas like the abdomen, soft low back, and ribcage.

Household alternatives

You don't have to buy official fitness brands to get good results. If you have clean, dense, silicone dog toys lying around, they make fantastic massage tools! You can be incredibly creative with what you use. Just make sure it's dense enough to apply a good amount of pressure. Tennis balls tend to collapse under pressure.

Similarly, if you want the effect of a rolling pin-massager, just grab a wooden pastry or bread roller right out of your kitchen. Glass bottles like soda/wine/beer also work great.

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Vibrating massage tools Optional (but helpful!)

When something's tender to touch, it's asking for massage. But sometimes it might feel like it's so sensitive it doesn't even want to be touched... for those times, a massager can be a perfect way to make self-massage easier and more tolerable. If you don't have areas that feel that sensitive, you can skip this.

What kind to get

Go for the two-headed, side-to-side massagers. The in-and-out motion of a single-hand gun style massager shoots a lot of destabilizing force back into your own hand and wrist while you hold it. The side-to-side motion of a double-headed massager can minimize that wrist strain.

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Skin and scar tissue tools Optional

While these are commonly used for aesthetics, skin texture, and working with scar tissues, they can also be used for old injuries.

What to look out for

Gua Sha tools are great for this. But all you really need is something with a tight, smooth edge (even a ceramic soup spoon) that you can use to apply direct pressure and get into smaller areas.

The brand or purpose of what you use doesn't matter at all (I'm currently using the handle side of a small brush!). If you have something in a similar shape around the house, it will work perfectly.

02 Part Two

Resistance BandsEssential

After massage tools, the next thing you'll need for a complete home gym is a collection of resistance bands.

Resistance bands give you total, immediate control over the difficulty of your workouts. If an exercise is too hard, you simply step closer to the anchor point to shorten the band and instantly reduce the resistance. Band work allows you to use the body's long chain communication pathways, providing deep core stability, and the best overall function - for building and maintaining the dynamic strength you need for real life.

What kind to get

You want to get bands with a handle on one side and a hook/anchor on the other, not the ones with a handle on both sides. You can fasten the hook to a doorway anchor, or for a more permanent, heavy-duty setup, you can screw a wooden strip with hooks/anchors directly into a wall beam.

Cheap vs expensive bands

If you're only doing light, relatively low-resistance workouts, which is often the case (especially when starting out), the brand does not matter at all. You can easily find cheap $5 to $10 packs that work perfectly well. But if you're looking to push higher resistance, you should look at buying name-brand or commercial-gym quality bands. Because if you use cheap bands at a high resistance, the plastic components could snap, and you don't want to get slapped with one of these bands!

03 Part Three

KettlebellsMust-have

Once you're familiar with resistance in your workouts and are ready to level things up, kettlebells are where it's at. This type of weight perfectly mimics picking up heavy objects in everyday life, providing all the functional workout positions you will ever need.

These will last you a lifetime! But be careful not to chip the paint as they can rust in those areas.

What kind to get

Competition-style kettlebells. Unlike more common kettlebells that get bigger and thicker as they get heavier, competition kettlebells have a uniform size and shape regardless of the weight inside. Their handles are amazingly ergonomic and significantly easier to work with - most other commonly found kettlebells are not.

How many do I need?

I suggest building up to owning three - starting with lightweight, then mid-weight, and finally heavy weight. They come color-coded in increments of 2kg, from 4kg (9lbs) all the way up to 48kg (106lbs). Over the years I ended up with pink (10kg), blue (12kg), yellow (16kg), and purple (20kg).

What to avoid

Standard cast-iron and rubber-coated kettlebells have inconsistent handle sizes and uncomfortable grips. Stick with competition-style.

04 Part Four

What about heavy machinery?

I generally tell my clients to avoid almost all machines, especially the isolated movement/fixed path kind (often called circuit machines). These lock your body into rigid, unnatural paths of motion. Overusing them can often make things worse, and they don't provide the dynamic, real-world strength you get from functional exercise with bands and kettlebells.

What is actually worth using

If you are deeply committed to a heavy-duty home setup, or if you're assessing a gym membership, one of the only machines truly worth your time is a Functional Cable Trainer. These operate very similarly to resistance bands, allowing for free, natural movement in multiple directions and can safely hold a massive amount of weight.

05 Part Five

Understand how your feet are foundational

And how your footwear could be undermining your entire foundation in ways that can take years to undo.

The effects of restrictive footwear (and poor foot care) can travel up into your knees, hips, core, and beyond.

Most of my clients are surprised when I tell them what to actually look for when buying shoes. So I put together a Complete Guide to Freeing Your Feet, that covers everything - warning signs your current footwear might be hurting you, how to assess the shoes you're wearing or shopping for, the specific features to look for (and avoid), trusted brands, and why this is especially critical for kids.

I HIGHLY recommend that everyone reads this guide carefully. Share it with friends and family. It's really that important!

06 Part Six

What if relief keeps fading?

What lasting change usually takes.

If you've been dealing with pain, tension, weakness, pelvic floor issues, or a body that just doesn't feel like it's working right anymore, you've probably already tried a lot. You've probably already been through the physio, the chiro, other specialists, and got some temporary relief, a list of exercises, maybe a few sessions that felt like they helped... until they didn't. And then you're back to square one.

That's exactly where I was before I started down this line of work. And that's when I realized that it wasn't because I was lazy, broken, or doing it wrong. It's because the traditional approaches treat the spot that hurts, not the deeper patterns that put you there in the first place. Your body is a deeply interconnected system, and when something's been building for years, you've probably realized a handful of isolated appointments is not going to undo it.

The reality is that lasting change usually means rebuilding your foundation - how you move, how you stand, how your feet, core, pelvis, and nervous system are all working together (or not). That takes more than just another appointment. It takes a real plan.

You don't need to figure all of that out today. But here's what I would recommend to you right now: