Pull-up bars, dip stations, rings, parallettes, ab wheels, mats and benches: gear that lets your bodyweight, or a dumbbell, do the work.
This shelf covers gear for bodyweight training and for supporting other lifts: doorway and wall-mounted pull-up bars, dip stations and power towers, gymnastic rings, parallettes, push-up handles, ab wheels and straps, exercise mats, hand grippers, and weight benches.
Bodyweight exercises are real resistance training when you make them hard enough, with harder variations, more reps or slower lowering. Pulling is the movement most home setups miss, so a pull-up bar or a set of rings is often the most useful single item here. A bench mainly expands what you can do with dumbbells.
Small randomized trials show progressive push-up training builds bench-press strength about as well as bench pressing over 4–5 weeks. A 6-week trial found ab exercises alone didn't reduce belly fat. Evidence for specific gadgets (ab wheels, push-up boards, back-stretch benches) is thin, and the trials are small, short and mostly in young men.
30 trained university students did 5 weeks of either bench press or band-resisted push-ups at a matched 6-rep-max intensity. Both groups improved bench-press strength by similar amounts; the control group didn't change.
23 moderately trained men did 4 weeks, 3 days a week, of either progressive push-up variations or bench pressing. Both groups increased their one-rep-max bench press. Muscle thickness didn't change measurably in either group over that short period.
24 sedentary adults did 7 abdominal exercises 5 days a week for 6 weeks, or no training. Ab training improved muscular endurance but didn't reduce belly fat, waist circumference, body fat or weight.