If you try to train for motocross on top of everything else you have going on in your life — a full-time job, maybe a family or side hustle — something is going to give in. For me, that’s why I started doing my motocross workouts at home.
Why Motocross Workouts at Home?
I live less than a mile from my local Planet Fitness.
A lot of people hate that gym, I know. It is what it is. It’s not my favorite, but it’s my local gym, it gets the job done, and it’s cheap.
Anyway, I live less than a mile from there and it still was hard for me to make time to go to get my motocross workouts in on top of everything else I have going on in life (work, building this website, relationships, etc).
By the time I packed a bag, drove to the gym, changed in the locker room, and locked up my stuff, I’ve at least doubled my total workout time.
Because of that, I decided to build a very small home gym in my basement, specifically for motocross workouts and training. One of the keys was to do this without breaking the bank.
Sure, you can build an awesome home gym for thousands of dollars, but that’s not what I wanted to do.
I wanted a simple, affordable home gym that would allow me to get my workouts done on a lunch break or at any point in the day when I had enough time to work out, but not enough time to go to the full gym.
If I needed something more serious for equipment, I would just go to the local gym.
Plus, most local gyms are somewhere around $10-$50 per month. If you spend thousands of dollars on a home gym, that’s a lot of months of a gym membership that you could’ve paid for.
Of course, there are benefits to a home gym beyond just the money component, but I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on building a home gym if my local gym is only $25 per month.
Motocross Workout Equipment
Before I bought the equipment I needed for my motocross workouts at home, I thought about the most important areas of my training that I needed to focus on. I thought about where I was lacking the most on the bike and chose to only buy equipment that would focus on those areas.
For me, I need to improve my cardio, back, legs, and shoulders.
Cardio Equipment
One of my best friends bought a house last year that came with a massive home gym in the basement. I’m talking about a gym the size of Planet Fitness, with all that kind of equipment. All the machines you see in a real gym, this house came with. It was awesome.
That said, with the house coming with so much equipment, there was some he just didn’t want or need. That’s where I came in.
He gifted me a stationary bike for free. It’s been sitting in my basement mainly collecting dust for the past year, but now it is a cornerstone piece to my home gym. So, that box was checked. I didn’t need a stationary bike.
The stationary bike is certainly a piece of equipment I’m glad to have, but it’s not the only piece of cardio equipment I wanted. After connecting with a few motocross trainers, I learned that a rowing machine is integral to motocross workouts. It not only helps your cardio, but also works your back significantly, your legs, and your core.
You can spend thousands of dollars alone on a rowing machine, but I found one on Amazon that has over 17,000 ratings, nearly 5 stars, and costs just over $200. It’s the Sunny Health & Fitness Magnetic Rowing Machine with Optional Exclusive SunnyFit™ App and Smart Bluetooth Connectivity. I purchased this back in July of 2021 and have been very happy with it since.
It’s not fancy and doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, but it gets the job done, and it can kick my a$$.
With the stationary bike and the rowing machine, I was pretty much good-to-go from a cardio perspective. Keep in mind the rower also helps with back and legs, too.
Weights & Benches
Throughout the years, I somehow ended up with a small individual dumbbell that has removable weights on each end, like a barbell. I don’t even remember where I got it, but I have it. I have one 5-pound plate for it and two 10-pound plates. I can combine these any way I want on the dumbbell to make a certain weight I need. That’s the first piece of weight equipment I use for my motocross workouts at home.
The second thing I just recently bought was an adjustable dumbbell. I mistakenly bought one that only goes up to 25 pounds, but it should be enough to get the job done for now.
Similar to the rowing machine, you can spend a lot more money on a fancy set of adjustable dumbbells than I did. I found an affordable one with good reviews. The one I bought is from FLYBIRD, costs just under $100, and has over 3,500 good reviews on Amazon.
With the purchase of the weights, I also needed someone to use the weights on. Some sort of bench.
It’s tough to do your workouts with weights and dumbbells on the ground because you can’t get the full range of motion.
You’ve probably seen a constant theme throughout this article — I looked for an affordable product on Amazon with a lot of great reviews. I ended up with the Marcy Multi-Position Adjustable Utility Bench for just over $90. It has over 4,400 good reviews as well.
This bench and the other equipment I’ve purchased for my motocross workout at home are not the highest quality equipment I’ve ever used. But, it’s affordable and it’s good enough to get the job done. I’ve been happy with it all so far.
Other Items
There were a few other miscellaneous things I bought for this mini home gym to do my motocross workouts.
The first was foam flooring to put down on my basement floor. I did not want to workout directly on my basement concrete floor, so I purchased two packs of 1/2-inch interlocking puzzle exercise mats to put down. These are very similar to what you see in real gyms, just lower quality. Each pack I purchased cost about $50 on Amazon and covered 48 square feet.
What I do not like about this flooring is that it’s very slippery. Even with shoes on that have good traction on the bottom, I still slide around on the floor while working out or stretching. If I had known this prior to buying, I probably would not have bought this brand of flooring. I am going to try to make it not as slippery.
The second item was a pull-up bar for doorways. You can get them for $20-$30 on Amazon or at Walmart. I use this to help target my back, and even use it for pushups at times.
The last item is not necessarily a piece of equipment, but it’s certainly something I wanted in my mini home gym, and that’s a speaker. You can probably get away with just using headphones, but I already had a nice JBL FLIP 5 Bluetooth speaker that I included in the little gym area.
Items I Missed
Overall, I’m fairly happy with the home gym setup I have. I built it in a way that should allow me to work towards, and meet my racing goals, and I did it in an affordable way.
However, there are two items that I’m missing currently that I may add in the future. The first is a kettlebell. For now, I am getting away with using the two dumbbells I have, but I may need to add a kettlebell into the mix in the near future.
The second item is a back extension machine or roman chair. One of my areas of weakness, when I ride, is my lower back, so this piece of equipment really helps me train and improve that area of my body when I do my motocross workouts at home.
The reality is you could make a list that is never ending for all the equipment you want or need for a home gym, but the items I’ve covered here have been enough for me. If I need more than this, I won’t do my motocross workouts at home and I’ll just go to the normal gym for the day.
