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Summary
Home Gymnastics Equipment Recommendations
- Home Air Track – Top choice and best for floor and vault training.
- Mushroom – Best for pommel horse training. Either the Ultra Dome or Olympia Trainers.
- Hanging Rings – Best for still rings and strength training. I have previously used and can recommend Rogue Gymnastics Rings.
- Two Floor Bars – Best for parallel bars (two) and high bar (one) drills.
Having a safe yet practical home gymnastics training setup affords the flexibility to practice skills & develop strength without needing to go anywhere. Assisting young beginners, looking to kickstart their development, accomplished gymnasts aiming to put in extra time, or adult athletes striving for their own fitness goals all need affordable yet high-quality home gymnastics equipment.
Focusing on the men’s gymnastics events, here are my recommendations for home gymnastics training equipment.
Air Track – Top Choice for General Purposes
My top choice for home gymnastics training is the Home Air Track. The Air Track is an inflatable mat used for tumbling and various other gymnastics skills. Cushioned and bouncy, the air track is excellent for floor and vault drills. Because many gyms use an Air Track for training high-level tumbling, the quality of the product is evident.
Beyond just floor and vault training, the Air Track is versatile and can be used for a wide variety of drills across different events. At at the same time, it becomes firm enough for non-acrobatic training, such as presses, handstands, and back extension rolls.
Its inflatable design makes it portable and easy to store effectively. The multipurpose nature of the Air Track makes it much more affordable than purchasing all the mats and equipment needed to replace each niche it can fill.
Because of its utility for a variety of gymnastics specific exercises, along with its affordability and portability, the Air Track is an essential if you could only choose one piece of equipment.
Mushroom for Pommel Horse
The Mushroom is the essential equipment for training pommel horse at home. A gymnast’s key to pommel horse success is mastering perfect circles, and the most foundational way to train circles is with a mushroom.
For beginners and young gymnasts, just about any mushroom will do. New or used, most brands will suffice. As gymnasts improve, they may want to challenge themselves, so mushrooms with a detachable top allow floor circles. For this reason, I recommend the Ultra Dome Trainer. A high-quality Mushroom with a detachable top like the Ultra Dome trainer will be useful for elite athletes and their circles. If it comes time to resell the Mushroom, it will hold a fair amount of value & can be passed along.
A less expensive alternative to the Ultradome trainer is the Olympia Pommel Trainer, which is very similar to the Ultra Dome trainer but with a suede finish to the mushroom top.
Hanging Rings for Strength and Rings Skills
Hanging Gymnastics Rings are a vital part of home strength training. Although many static holds such as the L-sit or planches can be found via equipment, rings add challenge & difficulty to these strength skills.
Beginner strength progressions include RTO Holds, L-Sits, & Leg Raises, while advanced athletes can use the rings for Cross, Planche, Maltese, & Handstand Training. Again, hanging rings are key fixes to at-home upper body training & strength skill development.
Where can I hang my rings?
Rings need a sturdy place to hang from. Look for rafters in your garage or a strong pull-up bar. A solid tree branch will do as well. A nearby park may have a pull-up bar or monkey bars that could serve well. Taller targets are better, but low targets will be ok, especially with adjustable rings.
As an example setup, these rogue gymnastics rings are hanging from a pullup bar on a power rack. I used this setup in 2020 and it helped me make some personal best rings strength achievements.
Parallettes for Parallel Bars
The Handstand (HS) – The most important skill in gymnastics is even more important for parallel bars. Incredibly simple pieces of equipment, parallettes or floor bars allow gymnasts to easily train handstands from the floor.
Beyond the handstand foundation, athletes can advance their progressions, working on presses, flips, and even single rail HS. For example, parallettes can be used to work on progressions for the L-Sit, V-Sit, and Manna.
Just make sure to place the bars in a safe place so you can safely make mistakes & bail on skills you might fall on.
Short or small parallettes are great for practicing handstand holds, presses, and strength skills. But without room, single rail handstands, pirouettes, and many skill specific drills are not possible to perform. Longer parallettes, or even a set of two floor bars, allow more room to perform more challenging skills and drills with the benefit of also being useful for horizontal bar training.
Floor Bar for High Bar Drills
Just like the PB Parallettes, gymnasts use the floor bar for developing skills to or from a handstand.
Given that extension is a key principle of bars, developing skills that focus on extension is useful on the floor bar. In both overgrip & undergrip, athletes can train HS, single arm HS, & flips, with or without a mat, such as the air track. Gymnasts can also work on bar drills for various in-bar skills, like stalders and endos.
Pull Up Bar for Strength and Shapes
While the floor bar develops skills above the bar itself, a pull-up bar can be used to work on simple skills & strength while hanging below the bar.
Gymnasts can work on classic & strength exercises like pull-ups, chin-ups, & leg lifts. Likewise, gymnasts can work on hanging shapes like the hollow & arch phases of tap swings.
I recommend keeping to strength exercises & static holds with a low pull-up bar, avoiding swings & more dynamic movements for safety reasons.
Final Note:
As you can see, there are quite a few options for gymnasts and athletes looking for home workout equipment. With the equipment from this guide, gymnasts will be able to touch on each event in Men’s Gymnastics. Also, equipment like the hanging rings and parallettes are tremendously useful for strength and conditioning purposes as well.
If I had only one option to pick, again it would be the Home Air Track for its versatility in use. With some creativity, the Air Track can be used for every event. My next two picks would be the hanging rings and floor bar, for strength and skill development covering some of the gaps that the Air Track alone would not provide.