What are the top 5 pieces of gym equipment to build bigger muscles? Walk into any gym today, and you’re bound to come across many types of equipment. And, no matter your experience with gym equipment, you’re probably wondering: “What are the best types of equipment I can use to build bigger muscles? Today, we’ll go over five fantastic gym equipment options you should base your entire training:
Squat Rack –
The squat rack is a fantastic and incredibly versatile piece of gym equipment you should take advantage of on your journey to building bigger muscles. Also, this is because the squat rack offers you the ability to do numerous proven exercises for muscle growth, including:
- Barbell back and front squats
- Overhead shoulder presses
- Barbell rows
- Rack pull deadlifts
- Barbell lunges
Dumbbells –
Dumbbells are another great piece of equipment you should use within your workouts. They work particularly well because of three reasons:
- You get to prioritize specific muscle groups. For example, you can isolate your biceps, triceps, delts, forearms, chest, etc.
- You can train one side at a time with unilateral exercises. Also, this is great for preventing side-to-side imbalances and helping you form a better mind-muscle connection with the area you’re trying to train.
- The overload potential is excellent, and you can use heavy and light dumbbells alike. For example, grab a pair of 70-pound dumbbells for your overhead presses, then use the 20-pound ones for lateral raises.
Cables and Pulleys –
Cables and pulley stations are another great tool you should add to your muscle-building toolbox because they offer a consistent resistance level throughout the entire range of motion.
For example, do a lateral raise with a dumbbell. You won’t experience any resistance at the bottom, and in the first part of each repetition – it only becomes difficult once your arm becomes near parallel to the floor. But, if you do the exercise with a low cable pulley, you’ll put your delts under consistent tension from the bottom to the top.
Arguably, this would cause better overall growth.
Pull-Up Bar –
The great thing about pull-up bars is that you can get one for your home, and, even if you prefer to use one at the gym, you won’t typically have to work in with many people or wait around for others to finish using it.
The next significant benefit of this gym equipment is that it allows you to do the tried-and-true back and bicep exercises–pull-ups and chin-ups. You can also do other movements on it, such as active dead hangs, hanging leg raises, and more.
Machines –
Most people scoff at using gym machines for muscle growth, but they are pretty helpful for that goal. Gym machines are easy to use, and they allow you to focus on the muscle you’re trying to train.
For example, if you want to train your quads effectively with the barbell back squat, your technique must be consistent and correct. But, almost everyone can hop on the leg press and, within a couple of sessions, learn how to use the machine incredibly well and make their quads scream.
Some other fantastic machines you can use for muscle growth include:
- The hammer strength press
- Leg curl and leg extension machines
- Chest fly/pec deck
- Lat pulldown and special Lat pullover machines
- Calf raise
- Glute kickbacks
