Home gym machines, muscle group by muscle group

Setting up a home gym is usually framed as a shopping list: a bench, some dumbbells, a cage if there's room, a pulley if there's budget. The approach has two problems — space and money run out before the list does — and a third, less obvious one: each machine covers a few exercises, and the muscle groups that don't get their machine end up untrained.

In this article we turn the framing around: what each muscle group needs to be trained well at home, and how a smart gym mirror that equals 260 machines in 0.1 m² of floor solves it.

Chest: press, flyes and crossovers with no bench

The classic chest trio — press, flyes and cable crossovers — demands three separate stations at a gym. With digital resistance they're handled by the two pulley arms: up to 120 kg total, load adjustable to the half-kilo, and the crossover angle changed by moving the anchors in seconds.

Back: pulldowns and rows with anchors at 7 heights

The back is the group that suffers most in improvised home gyms, because pulldowns and rows need a high, stable traction point. The arms, adjustable to 7 heights, give the angle of a lat pulldown, a low row or a pull-over with no more structure than the mirror itself.

Legs and glutes: the bar and the kit straps

Squats, deadlifts, lunges, hip thrusts and abductions with ankle straps: the lower body takes the heaviest load (literally) and is where the 120 kg of digital resistance replace the cage with plates. In the Academy you can see the leg and glute exercises one by one, with their difficulty and accessory.

Arms and shoulders: precision matters more than the max

Biceps curls, triceps rope extensions, overhead press and raises: these are moderate-load exercises where the 2.5 kg jump between plates becomes huge. Digital control to the half-kilo lets you progress week by week without stalling or getting injured.

Core and cardio: what almost no one sets up at home

The Pallof press or the woodchopper require a pulley — rare in homes — and cardio tends to be the great absentee. Here the mirror plays with an advantage: the fold-out bench turns it into a rowing machine, with games and time trials controlled by rowing.

The full catalogue, group by group

We've published the indicative catalogue of the 260 equivalent machines in the training Academy: you can filter by muscle group, accessory and difficulty, and each exercise comes with its muscle infographic. If you'd rather see it in person, book a demo; and if you're already clear that your living room needs fewer gadgets and more machines, here's the full product page and the store.