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Building a Complete Rogue Home Gym

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I’m seeing it more and more…

Folks are one-stop shopping when it comes to building a home gym.

Hey, I did it too when I first started mine… a full-on Rogue home gym.

Rack, bar, bench, and plates – all purchased from Rogue Fitness.

Of course I’ve expanded my lineup since then, but Rogue makes it very easy to outfit an entire home gym with their equipment.

Rogue makes very nice stuff and if you buy on Black Friday (which I did), you can save a good chunk of cash. One-stop shopping also helps save on shipping costs (along with Black Friday).

No, it’s not the cheapest option to go with a full Rogue home gym, but if you do, you’re getting great equipment that will look great and perform well for a long time to come.

Let’s see how someone could realistically build a complete home gym with Rogue gear. For the purpose of this exercise, I’ll focus on necessary pieces of equipment and I’ll sprinkle in some nice-to-haves that can really round out your space.

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Building a Complete Rogue Home Gym

Rogue Fitness Garage Gym Lab Rogue Home Gym

Before getting into this, I want to add a quick disclaimer.

I don’t advocate for blindly building an entire home gym with Rogue equipment because it’s easy or because they’re marketing geniuses (which they are).

There are other companies out there who make equipment that is just as nice, if not nicer, and at prices that are just as comparable, if not cheaper.

Research to see the other options out there. Peruse through this site, shoot me an email (adam@garagegymlab.com), or follow me on YouTube & Instagram.

I’m here to help you pick the best equipment for YOU.

That said, here are some great options to build a complete Rogue home gym.

The Rack

Well, there’s definitely no shortage of rack options at Rogue. You can go simple and cost-effective or you can go all-out and get their top-of-the-line Monster options.

Here are my top three choices if I were picking one for my space:

Rogue Fitness HR 2There’s a common misconception that a half rack is a more efficient option than a power rack because it takes up less space. Depending on the power rack, this may or may not be true. In the case of the HR-2, it has a bigger footprint than the R3 (see below). That said, it does offer a few advantages.

  1. It doesn’t need to be bolted down. Due to its size and general design, this unit is sturdy enough to avoid being secured to the floor or a platform.
  2. It offers a set of back uprights that can be used for plate storage to avoid them getting in the way of your lifts (like plate storage on the R3).
  3. It’s technically a Monster Lite rack, so you’re getting the heftier 3×3 steel vs the 2×3 of infinity/R series racks.

Aside from these unique advantages, it offers a few traditional benefits including Westside hole spacing, a pull-up bar, and of course a nice selection of Rogue attachments. If you own the SML squat stand, you can also buy the HR-2 conversion kit to transform them into this half rack.

Priced starting at $655, this is the most economical option of the three.

Rogue Fitness R3 Garage Gym Lab Rogue Home Gym

I own this power rack in the bolt-together version. You can read my review here. In my opinion, this is one of the best home gym options regardless of manufacturer because it offers a small footprint and it’s extremely versatile.

I personally advocate for the bolt-together version because you can get a bit more interior depth (30″ vs 24″), it ships regular UPS, and it’s not welded.

This rack is constructed with 2×3 11-gauge steel, it’s been tested at over 1,000 lbs without concern, and it offers Westside hole spacing. There’s also a multitude of attachment options that can really elevate your training.

Priced starting at $695, this is a great cost-friendly, highly functional power rack.

Rogue Fitness RML-690C Garage Gym Lab Rogue home gymI picked this rack as an upgrade option, as it’s just awesome. This is a 6-post rack, which will definitely take up more space in your gym, but it offers a few nice benefits:

  1. It offers color options. This is really cool if you’re wanting to color-match your gear. The green is a particular favorite of mine.
  2. It doesn’t need to be bolted down. This thing is a tank. If you have plates loaded onto the frame, it will basically not budge at all.
  3. You can store your plates on it and have plenty of room to lift. Like, I’m talking multiple people.

Like the others, it also offers Westside hole spacing, attachments, etc…

Priced at $1,750, it’s on the higher end of the range at Rogue. I didn’t include the full Monster option, which is more pricey. It doesn’t include Westside hole spacing, but the keyholes on the side are really awesome and I hope Rogue is going to start taking advantage of them soon.

The Bars

Like racks, Rogue offers a number of bars ranging in price and spanning different uses. For the sake of this article, I’ve picked one power bar, one multi-purpose bar, and one Olympic weightlifting bar.

Rogue Ohio Power Bar End CapThis is probably the currently most popular and highest-sold power bar in the world… and for good reason. You can read my review here. In short, it’s a terrific bar that’s headlined by an aggressive knurl and a stiff shaft. It’s perfect for the big three: squat, bench, and deadlift. It comes in several different finish options including bare steel, black zinc, cerakote, and stainless steel.

With pricing starting at $250, it’s no wonder it’s so highly sold. It just may be the best value power bar ever made.

Rogue Ohio Bar Garage Gym Lab Rogue Home GymThis is another wildly successful and popular bar among home gym owners. This is a multipurpose bar that is suitable for general fitness, Olympic lifting, or powerlifting. If you’re focusing on powerlifting or Olympic lifting, I do suggest you buy a specific bar for those movements, but this is a great all around bar. It has a 28.5mm shaft, which provides a nice whip, and it has dual knurl markings. This bar is also made in a number of finishes including black zinc, black oxide, stainless steel, and cerakote.

starting at $282, the Ohio Bar is another excellent value-conscious option that performs extremely well.

Rogue Pyrros Bar Garage Gym Lab Rogue Home GymThe Rogue Pyrros bar is an Olympic weightlifting bar that was developed alongside three-time Olympic gold medalist, Pyrros Dimas. It’s a 28mm 10-needle bearing bar that offers excellent spin and whip. It has single weightlifting knurl markings and it also offers a center knurl, which some Oly bars don’t offer. This bar is made of stainless steel, making it a great option for those who train in a humid environment.

Price at $595, it’s not the cheapest option, but it is one of the best offerings at the price by many accounts.

The Bench

When it comes to benches, you have a choice between a flat bench or an adjustable bench. Rogue offers both variations in a few different options.

Rogue Fitness Flat Utility Bench Garage Gym Lab Rogue Home GymThis is Rogue’s most economical bench option, and I’ve owned it for a couple of years now. It’s a nice bench for the money, and it’s treated me fine. The bench is a little taller than I’d like at 18″, and adding a Thompson Fat Pad to it basically renders it useless (in my opinion). I’m also not a huge fan of the foot design, as it gets in the way of the feet. I think more companies need to start creating a tripod design like the Rep Fitness FB-5000 (my favorite bench – review here). The Rogue flat utility bench is $179.50. They also make a Monster Flat Bench for $265, but I’m not a big fan of that design because the feet are even wider. The height of the Monster bench is better, however.

Rogue Fitness Adjustable Bench Garage Gym Lab Rogue Home GymThis is Rogue’s most budget-friendly option for an adjustable bench. It’s adjustable from 0-85 degrees with six different positions total. at 17.5″ tall, it’s a nice height, and it also offers a small pad gap between the seat and back, which is great. The bench also offers wheels for easy transportation and a separate spotter deck can be purchased and attached.

At $545, I think this is a pretty reasonable price for a nice adjustable bench. The other two options at Rogue are $815 (AB-2) and $935 (AB-3). While both offer better specs, I think the price is a bit high… but we are talking about a Rogue home gym here, soooo…

The Plates

Rogue sells a lot… and I mean A LOT… of plates. It’s something they’re really known for. If you’re building a Rogue home gym, you’re going to be getting some seriously high-quality plates.

There are quite a lot of options for plates at Rogue… way too many to list here. For the sake of this article, I’ll share one steel pick and one rubber pick along with an upgrade option for both.

rogue machinedThese are modeled similarly to the Ivanko OM Series plates but at a fraction of the cost (~$55 savings on the pair). They’re great for powerlifting and/or plate-loaded machines. The weight tolerance is not as good as a bumper plate, but they’re better than standard plates. They will still deviate up to 2% higher on the 25-45 lb plates and about 3% either way on the 2.5-10 lb plates. The deep lip provides for easy loading and unloading.

Upgrade Pick: The calibrated steel plates are awesome. If you’re a competitive powerlifer or if you lift a crap ton of weight, these are a great option. Aside from being absolutely beautiful looking, they’re highly accurate (+/- 10 grams).

Black BumpersThese plates are among the most popular Rogue plates and they’re a great all around option. The big benefit of bumper plates is their versatility. They’re also very accurate and they look sweet. These training plates are black, but they include colored lettering and bands around the outside for easy identification.

Upgrade Pick: Urethane bumpers are on the high end of the bumper plate spectrum. They are exceptionally durable, they look fantastic, they’re very accurate, and they are low bounce. This probably won’t make much of a difference in a home gym setting without extreme use, but it’s an upgrade pick nonetheless. You can also upgrade to the competition bumpers. They’re spec’d the same as these training bumpers, but they are fully colored with white lettering.

The Nice-to-Haves

The above section is really all you need to outfit your Rogue home gym, but they’re a few popular pieces that I want to touch on to really amp up the possibilities.

Rogue Fitness Abram 2.0 Garage Gym Lab Rogue Home GymThis glute ham raise/developer is one of the most popular options on the market. It’s well designed and built like an absolute tank, weighing in at nearly 225 lbs. The foot base is fully adjustable both vertically and horizontally, making it useful to all sizes. The half-moon pad design is considered more difficult than the roller pad GHDs and it doesn’t offer knee support, making it harder still.

Although the GHD is on the larger side, it’s a very versatile piece that many people, myself included, love. I think it’s a worthy addition to a home gym.

  • Specialty Bars

Rogue offers a number of great specialty bars that are ideal to add variety to your training. I’m personally a huge fan of the following specialty bars (in general):

Rogue Fitness Safety Squat Bar Garage Gym Lab

  1. Safety Squat Bar – This is simply one of my favorite bars. You can read my article here on the amazing benefits this bar offers.
  2. Trap Bar – This is another favorite of mine. It’s a piece that can be used in a number of ways. I think it’s great for those who are either just learning how to deadlift or for those who have had back injuries. It’s also fantastic for overall leg strength and sport-specific adaptations.
  3. Multigrip Bars – These bars are commonly used in pressing movements to add variety and to also take pressure of the shoulders. You can also use them in a number of other ways, including rows and triceps/biceps variations.

Rogue Fitness Reverse Hyper Garage Gym Lab Rogue Home GymI feel like this piece of equipment has a cult following. It definitely takes up some space, but to some, it’s a Godsend with its reputation as being excellent for low back rehab/prehab. In addition to those qualities, you can also use the reverse hyper in a number of other ways, including rows, triceps extensions, face pulls, belt squats, etc… This was designed alongside Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell, who originally held the patent on the reverse hyper. It’s a very well-built piece.

  • Conditioning Gear

Rogue Fitness Echo Bike Garage Gym Lab Rogue Home GymTo round out the list, I’m adding some conditioning gear. If this is truly a Rogue home gym, you’d have to look at the Rogue Echo Bike as the option. This overbuilt air bike is absolutely grueling – it will seriously kick your ass. It weighs 127 lbs, it’s easily portable, and it produces a very smooth ride. The LCD screen tracks all your pertinent stats like distance, time, calories burned, etc…

Of course Rogue also sells Concept 2, Schwinn, and Assault conditioning products, so you can also look into those and still technically have a Rogue home gym.

Building a Rogue Home Gym – Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Rogue makes very high quality gear that performs well and lasts a very long time. Buy nice or buy twice, you can say.
  • Rogue is known for having excellent customer service. If you’ve ever had a problem with quality, shipping, etc… they are very quick to resolve.
  • Shipping is fast and reliable.
  • The overall aesthetic is very consistent, so you’re getting a very polished looking setup.

Cons

  • It’s not the cheapest option. While there are some great value buys from Rogue, a lot of their stuff is on the expensive side. If you’re on a budget, you may want to look elsewhere or only buy a few items from Rogue.

There’s a reason why so many people are building out complete Rogue home gyms. They make it easy, they make it sexy, they make it long-lasting, and they make it high performing.

For the most part, you can’t really go wrong buying Rogue gear. If you read my article on this SWAT officer’s home gym, you’d know he bought everything from Rogue right out of the gate. His space looks awesome. There are a ton of other examples of people doing the same. Holly and Haylie’s CrossFit garage gym was built with about 95% Rogue gear. It also looks great.

The bottom line is this: if you have the money and you like the idea of buying all your gear from one place, Rogue Fitness is a great place.

If you’re on a budget or you don’t mind buying a mix of products, check out other companies like American Barbell, EliteFTS, Rep Fitness, Vulcan, etc…

In any case, whether it’s a Rogue home gym or not… just build a home gym 🙂

If you have any questions or comments about building a home gym, please leave a comment below.

As always, I appreciate any feedback.

If you found this article useful, please feel free to share it on social media!

The bar is loaded,

Adam

Adam Hensley
Adam Hensley
Adam is the founder of Garage Gym Lab and has over two decades of fitness/training experience. He serves as the chief content creator and runs our YouTube channel and social media accounts. When he's not testing equipment or sharing his love for home gym life, you'll find him with his wife and two kids in sunny South Carolina.
Adam Hensley
Adam Hensley
Adam is the founder of Garage Gym Lab and has over two decades of fitness/training experience. He serves as the chief content creator and runs our YouTube channel and social media accounts. When he's not testing equipment or sharing his love for home gym life, you'll find him with his wife and two kids in sunny South Carolina.

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