Alternative Home Gym Exercises: Ditching the Machines for Effective At Home Workouts

When it comes to fitness and exercise, many of us find ourselves relying on commercial gyms with their extensive range of machines such as the popular leg extension or the lat pull-down. While these single use machines can be effective, they’re often expensive and impractical for home gym setups. Fortunately, there are plenty of alternative home gym exercises and home gym friendly pieces of equipment that can deliver similar benefits without the need for these bulky and expensive machines.

Here are some effective home gym friendly alternatives to common machine-based exercises. Obviously there are a whole range of extra alternative exercises you could do but to keep it simple for home gym beginners here is a great selection of commonly used alternatives.

Common Commercial Gym Machines:

Leg Extension
Leg Curl
Lat Pulldown
Chest Press
Shoulder Press
Pec Deck
Seated Cable Row
Cable Tricep Pushdown

1. Leg Extensions

A commercial gym leg extension machine can be replaced by a home gym weights bench with a leg conditioner. You can stack weight plates on it and perform your leg extensions. This is actually a pretty good alternative that generally feels pretty close to the real thing. The main difference being you don’t have handles to grip, but you can grip your bench underneath you.

If your weights bench does not have a leg conditioner you can instead perform the following exercises that are also a great substitute to this popular exercise.

Leg Extensions primarily target the quadriceps, but you can achieve similar results with these two exercises:

→ Squats: As well as targeting the quadriceps they also target the glutes, hamstrings and core, providing a more comprehensive workout. Front squats will target the quads even more than back squats so are an even greater alternative to include.

→ Bulgarian Split Squats: The Bulgarian split squat places significant emphasis on the quadriceps, especially when you keep your torso upright and focus on pushing through the front heel.

2. Leg Curls

The Leg Curl machine isolates the hamstrings and once again this machine can be replaced by a weights bench with leg conditioner and loading on weight plates.

Otherwise if you don’t have a leg conditioner on your weights bench you can engage the hamstrings effectively with the following exercises:

→ Deadlifts: Although they might not isolate the hamstrings like a leg curl machine would you can still build strong hamstrings using deadlifts as well as strengthening your glutes and lower back at the same time.

→ Good Mornings: The movement involves bending at the hips while keeping the back straight which effectively engages the hamstrings, as they are responsible for hip extension. As you lower your torso, the hamstrings lengthen and then contract to help return to the standing position. This eccentric and concentric action helps strengthen and tone the hamstrings.

3. Lat Pulldowns

The Lat Pulldown machine is great for building back strength, but pull-ups or resistance bands can provide a similar workout.

→ Pull-Ups: If you have a pull-up bar, these are fantastic for upper body strength. If you can’t do a full pull-up yet, use a resistance band for assistance or perform negative pull-ups or seated pull-ups to build the upper body strength required to start doing full pull-ups.

→ Resistance Band Pull-Downs: These are great for mimicking the lat pulldown movement. Anchor a resistance band above you and pull down towards your chest just like you would on the lat machine.

4. Chest Press

The Chest Press machine helps build upper body strength, but there are more versatile options:

→ Bench press: With either a barbell or dumbbells, easily the most popular exercise for building chest strength and size, with a FID bench you can change the incline to also specifically target the upper chest.

→ Push-Ups: A classic exercise that works the chest, shoulders, and triceps. Modify by doing them on your knees or elevating your hands if necessary to make them easier. To increase difficulty consider diamond pushups, elevating your feet, push-up claps etc.

5. Shoulder Press

The Shoulder Press machine is often used for building shoulder strength, but it can once again be easily replaced with dumbbells for a dumbbell shoulder press or using a barbell for the common barbell shoulder press.

→ Dumbbell Shoulder Press: Using dumbbells for the shoulder press allows for a greater range of motion which can lead to better muscle activation and development.

→ Barbell Shoulder Press: Using the barbell adds more stability, somewhat similar to a shoulder press machine thus in turn enabling you to lift heavier weight however as you are in a fixed position in the shoulder press machine similar to a smith machine it can lower the risk of injury, so it is good to start light and carefully progressively increase the weight as you get stronger.

→ Pike Push-Ups: Pike push-ups are a great bodyweight alternative exercise similar to push-ups but that challenges your shoulders effectively.

→ Hand Stand push-ups: A progression exercise for a lot of people but also effective at working the shoulders but make sure you have built up the strength to perform them.

6. Pec Deck Flys & Reverse Flys

The Peck Deck machine has been a favorite and staple in commercial gyms for decades for strength training for the chest. Every old school warehouse gym has an old style pec machine. Most modern gyms have variants of this classic machine. The pec deck can be easily replaced by a bench and pair of dumbbells or using resistance bands.

→ Dumbbell Flys: Great exercise to really activate the chest. As the pec deck machine guides the movement it is important with dumbbells to maintain proper form as you do the exercise. But as you have to stabilize the dumbbells during the flys you can enhance more overall strength and conditioning.

→ Reverse Dumbbell Flys: dumbbell reverse flys typically require more control making it more challenging than what the pec deck machine offers however as stated above this can lead to more overall strength and conditioning by activating stabilizing muscles.

→ Resistance Band Flys: Using a Resistance band gives you the option of being able to do the flys at different angles as well as providing a different tension curve throughout the movement, which can enhance muscle engagement.

→ Reverse Resistance Band Flys: Same with normal flys you can use different angles and you get a smooth resistance.

7. Seated cable rows

Cable machines with weight stacks are very popular in commercial gyms and many gym users often use cable machines as a staple for many of their workouts. They are great for isolating and targeting specific muscle groups as well as providing an effective smooth resistance for compound movements. They are easy to use and quick to adjust weight.

Seated Rows are a great cable exercise offering constant tension and encouraging good posture and are great for strengthening and building a strong back. However they can be easily replaced with these alternative home gym exercises such as the bent-over row, pendlay row, dumbbell or landmine rows.

→ Bent Over Row: Bent over rows are one of the most popular compound exercises and can be easily done with either a barbell which is great for building overall strength and mass or dumbbells or kettlebells which offer a greater range of motion which is good for correcting imbalances and core stability.

→ Landmine Rows: Using a barbell and either double hand grip or using a landmine handle gives you multiple options like close grip handle, wide handle, Viking handles etc to perform your landmine rows. Landmine rows provide stability and reduce lower back strain compared with seated with adjustable angles for targeting.

→ Dumbbell Rows: Effectively target the same muscle groups as seated cable rows, including the latissimus dorsi, rhomboids, and trapezius. They also engage the core for stability, promoting overall muscle activation.

8. Cable Tricep Pushdowns

Cable tricep pushdowns using a cable machine and rope are one of the most popular and best exercises you can do for isolating and targeting the triceps. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger largely contributed this exercise to his enormous tricep muscles. Of course you can mimic this exercise using resistance bands but there are also a lot of other alternative home gym exercises you can easily do.

Here are 3 popular and effective alternative home gym exercises specific to the triceps.

→ Overhead Tricep Extensions: Either using a dumbbell, kettlebell or weight plate. OTE’s are a simple but effective way for targeting your triceps as well as providing a greater range of motion which can enhance muscle activation. Variations like the seated or standing dumbbell version also engage the lateral and medial heads.

→ Dips: You can get Olympic rings, dip bars or use something simple like a bench to perform tricep dips as a great alternative to the traditional cable tricep pushdowns.

→ Lying Tricep Extensions: With either a barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell or weight plate are also great tricep alternative home gym exercises as well as being an all-round effective tricep exercise.

Resistance Bands

A lot of these alternative home gym exercises and commercial gym equipment exercises can also be performed with resistance bands. Resistance bands are a great way to mimic the exercises and movement that cable machines and weighted commercial machines provide. As well as being fairly inexpensive in comparison they are a great addition to any home gym. As well as being portable they are low impact and You can easily change the resistance level by using bands of different thickness or adjusting how much of the band you’re using like standing further away from the anchor point.

Conclusion

Transitioning from using commercial gym machines to free weight or bodyweight exercises in your home gym can be both practical and effective. Not only do these alternative home gym exercises and options save space and money, but they also provide functional strength benefits that machine exercises may not offer. By incorporating these alternative home gym exercises into your routine, you can achieve a well-rounded workout that targets all major muscle groups, keeps your fitness journey engaging, and enhances your overall strength and stability. Happy training!