I built the Dream Smart Home Gym

We are about to build our dream home gym right here. So we need to figure out what's the best gear. We need to talk to some experts to make sure that we're making this something special. And then we need to spend a lot of money actually buying the equipment, setting it up and taking this bad boy for a spin. So I thought what we could do is to smart with... So I thought what we could do is to start with the small bits. Full body vibrating roller for large muscle groups. Well, you know. It says large muscle groups. Yeah, it's like the super tech version of a foam roller. What's the wave duo? Contour to the back, spine and neck. Whoa, no way. The Theragun Pro Plus. Sixth generation. Heat therapy, hold therapy, LED light therapy. That's a lot of therapy. Recovery air jet boots. I guess when I read the word jet boots, I'm almost imagining flying around the neighborhood, not recovering on your floor. Oh look, there's a calf one. There's an arm one. There's a back and core one. We could actually kit out our entire body with Therabody. You'd be like the worst superhero ever. You'd just be very relaxed. What's this, Matt? Infrared. The infrared pimp mat. Hello sir, how's your pimp? This website is absolutely insane. We should get some scales too. Apparently it does a full scan of your body in 90 seconds. Even if it's approximate, it's a cool feature. What normal product has someone not tried to turn into a smart alternative? Bets that this says the words AI somewhere. Elite music boxing training machine. Are you kidding me? I love the idea of this. It makes it feel like you're at an arcade. Beat driven workouts, punch to the rhythm. I'm interested in trying this. I think it's cool. I think we should try it. Have we done this before? Smart skipping rope? Oh yeah. Okay, maybe just a normal skipping rope. Just a real skipping rope. Okay, so one thing that I've been battling with in my mind is how techie do we go for the gym? You can get a lot of really interesting looking tech gym gear. I just don't know how good it is. So one of them is the Vitruvian. So it's kind of like a yoga mat, but it's got handles that come out, which allow you to lift weights and it can adjust the resistance according to how much weight you want to lift. So it looks like you can squat, you can bicycle, you can deadlift. The power to deliver up to 200 kilograms in one sleep package. I feel like we need to get a gym experts opinion on this. Because the tech side of me is completely sold on something like this. So we are about to jump on a call with Jeff Nippard. I was doing a lot of digging before this and everyone seems to regard him as the go-to guy for science backed gym knowledge. Hey, hello. What's up? We could do with a bit of help. I'm looking at all this tech gym gear and some part of me is thinking this might not actually be very good gym equipment. What do you think? I think it depends on what your goals are gonna be. Is your main goal to build muscle and strength? Definitely muscular, strength, progressive overhead. I have a list of like basics that I think you definitely want for those goals. That would be a power rack. So you can do squats, presses, pretty much any lift with a barbell. You need a barbell and you need an adjustable bench. So you can do like flat presses, incline presses. Then from there, you need some kind of multipurpose cable machine. And if you've got a set of dumbbells that gives you even more versatility. And then after that, I would say a leg curl would be my next pick because you're gonna find that really awkward on cables, honestly. Oh man, this is really useful. Yeah, good. Thank you very much. All right, thank you. Cheers. Bye. So the only decision that we have left to make is machines, which are actually gonna make up the majority of the gym. Let's do treadmill. Best treadmill of all time. There's Peloton, obviously. Well, I don't love that I think you have to have a subscription to get the main benefit of what they're offering. It feels like the industry standard for exercise machines is calculator display and a resistive touchscreen at best. Oh, wow. That's a pretty treadmill. I like the big screen. It's definitely the nicest looking home gym gear I've ever seen. We wanna make sure that we're not sacrificing on performance for that design. Get a personalized consultation, which we should probably just call them. So off we headed to Technogym's London showroom to see for ourselves. I'm at Technogym. One of the world's greatest friggers. I've got diffusers coming out of the walls. Technogym for men. Right, first off, the treadmill, which was actually really impressive from a tech standpoint, but I did have one concern. Could this damage your joints over time? Generally running on a treadmill is quite impactful for you and running outside. He explained that if we wanted to minimize the impact to our joints, which I certainly do, then we'd actually be better off going for a machine with slats. So we moved over to the Technogym Run, which was actually the more affordable machine since it wasn't part of Technogym's fancy designer line of products. But to me, this actually felt way higher performance. The thing was basically silent to run on thanks to these thick shock absorbing rubber slats, which is also what makes them better for your joints. Also with this machine, you just place your phone on top and an NFC tag inside of it allows you to log directly into both your Technogym account so that you can track your workout details, also all of your own personal apps like Netflix. The thing that also really impressed me though was this is a machine for running, yes. But they've also managed to turn it into a strength training machine by being able to simulate the sled push. So if I start pushing and then if I stop pushing and then if I start pushing. Yeah, exactly, yeah. That is fascinating. You can very easily decide a few things you wanna do and see how you get better at them. The amount of settings and features on this one machine genuinely blew me away. I decided at this moment that we have to find a way to fit one of these in too. But we also knew that we wanted to get an elliptical as our second cardio machine because that's what I currently use every day. Then Technogym introduced us to a new kind of elliptical called the Artist Vario. It's like a normal elliptical, but instead of your movements following a fixed path, you can control where your legs go. You kind of have to find a rhythm, but when you do, this thing is amazing because it's an elliptical. And then when you want it to be, it's also a step machine. It is absolutely insane how in-depth the software is. It's got video visualization. That's pretty useful, actually. I think it works. But then the guy took us to what I would consider Technogym's hero products. It's a line of machines called BioStrength where each one focuses on one muscle group, but takes that to the absolute limit. One thing you'll probably notice immediately is there's no weight stack machine. You are right. The BioStrength machines are actually using magnetic resistance for the weights, which is really cool because it means no clanging metal whenever you drop your weights, but also that you can control that weight electronically and select exactly how many kilos you want to lift, not just go up in fives or tens. So we can change the resistance level here. You can also change the seat height. Whoa. That just went. Oh God. Wow. Because you also can't take a break. Wow. That keeps you accountable. Yeah. Now, cool as that was, we decided we probably didn't have enough space to start getting one machine for every single muscle group. So we decided to just focus on the leg machine since that's what Jeff recommended we go for if we were to only pick one. This is 35 kilos, but then if you push it harder, it will give you way more resistance. Oh yeah. It's workloaded. Oh, I see it. I don't know how much I buy into it, but there is also an AI built into these BioStrength machines that they call Technogym Coach. At least in this BioStrength range, the equipment is way higher tech than I expected. Like I've used tons of Technogym in commercial gyms and I guess they either tend to go for lower end stuff or they're going for stuff that's just older and more functional. We can have a word with them about these bezels though. So that's BioStrength, but for some things like your bench, you also just kind of want to keep it low tech. It's the most comfortable gym bench I've ever sat on. This feels absolutely insanely comfy for a bench. Like you could like sit there reading a book on that thing. We also do need some storage for this room and this was pretty good inspo because the height of the rack means it can fit a lot of stuff in without taking up the much more valuable width of the room. So dream equipment selected. Now it's time to put everything in its place. And this was actually quite incredible to see because these guys have software that takes your floor plan, inserts each of the products you've picked, including exactly how much space each one takes up. So we use this kind of like puzzle pieces to work out how everything fits. Then it gets better because to make sure that it all aesthetically lines up, their software can also generate full 3D renders of what those machines would look like within your exact space, which is pretty cool tech for a gym company, I gotta say. And then after this, we just had to find the perfect flooring, wait for our goodies to arrive, and then top it all off by creating smart systems that make this as slick and automated as possible. And now the ultimate smart home gym is finally ready. This right here is the single most important room of the entire house for me. Because you might've seen about three years ago, my fitness hit an all time low and with it, so did my confidence and my mood. It had a really bad effect on me. And so the entire goal of this dream gym is to never feel like that ever again. Come on in. So we've actually spent the last three months optimizing, fine tuning, and then re-optimizing this room to the point where for us, this is now perfection thanks to five things, five decisions we've made that each take this gym up to a whole new level. So level one is all about how do we eliminate friction? How do we make this as easy as possible to want to come and crucially to stay until we're done? So did you notice something as I first walked through that door? I didn't need to turn on anything. And that's because our first step to achieving this pure frictionlessness is a motion sensor, which as soon as someone walks through the door, will activate the lights, will turn on the TV, and it will set the air conditioning to a cool 18 degrees Celsius. Is this strictly necessary? No, of course not. But does this make it ever so slightly easier to just drift into this room and start a workout when you have 10 spare minutes? Yes, and that's the goal. And now that we are in the room, how do we make sure we stay? Well, one thing we noticed quite early was one of the main reasons that one of us would end up leaving the gym early was we were thirsty and we'd forgotten to bring a drink down with us. So in the event that that happens, having this mini fridge here eliminates that excuse with the added benefit of you're going to perform better in the gym if you're really well hydrated. The second thing though that makes people want to leave this room is if their phones run out of battery. Obviously the idea is not that you come to this room to sit on your phone, but if it does run out, then you are going to need to leave to go charge it just in case someone needs to reach you. So it's helpful to have a charger in here. Now we do actually have wireless charging baked into some of these Technogym machines, but frankly, it's pretty similar to the state of in-car wireless charging. It's slow and it only works about half the time. So we have ended up buying two CryoBoost chargers from ESR. And this is such an elegant solution because it means the first thing that I do when I walk into this room is I stick my phone on here while I'm taking out my gym gloves and it's charging. It keeps my phone away from me. So I'm not checking it between every single lift, which makes gym time far more productive. And it serves as the perfect little gym clock that actually looks nice unlike every single proper gym clock that we've seen. Also, yes, these guys have sponsored past videos. They're not sponsoring this one. I just think they're great. And it means that before we are even five steps into this gym, we are ready to gym. There's one final cherry on top for this level. So got my wrist onto here, connect, and we are in. So I use an Apple Watch for my health tracking, not because I think it has like medical grade accuracy or anything. It just makes it really fun. It makes me want to compete with my friends and to do better than them. And so it is so cool to me that I don't need my phone. I don't need to manually type anything in. I just tap this watch on one of these machines. And because this is all Apple Gym Kit compatible, the watch tells the machine all of my details. So my height, my weight, et cetera. And then the machine tells the watch all of the workout details like pace, like incline, which means that both machines work together to give you the most accurate, most instant workout tracking I have ever had, which because it's happening through the Apple Watch is all automatically logged directly onto the friend leaderboards that I'm trying to climb to the top of. I just love it. So now that we've successfully got ourselves to use the gym, level two is how do we maximize space in the gym? And there's two parts of this, both of which I think could be really useful for any home gym design. So number one is building vertically. With every single thing that we've put into this gym, the key resource that I've been trying to preserve is floor space. The more vertical space we use, the more floor space we get to keep. And so the more features we can get in here and the more open it's gonna feel. That's why we've gone for completely vertical racks for our dumbbells. That's why instead of a punching bag, I really liked the idea of a flat punching wall. Not the only reason though, this is a very unique gadget. I'm getting there. And that's why instead of placing a bunch of plants around the room on the floor for freshness, we've gone for a wall mounted moss feature. This is from the same company who made the one in our office, by the way. And for those of you who are asking, yes, it's real. No, it's not still alive. It's dead and they preserve it with a spray. Oh, and it's also why we created a custom cabinet around this mini fridge, just so that we could build, you're probably starting to understand what makes me happy at this point, a charging station for all the smaller gym gadgets vertically above it. Which means that all of this stuff has a place and all of this stuff is always fully charged. But then the second part of this whole space maximization equation is making sure that the tallest parts of your machines are closest to the walls. Now, you might not always be able to do this, but if you can, it'll mean that even though there might not be physically more space for your feet, it will still psychologically feel like there is more space because you're not seeing as many visual obstructions from up here. But level three is where we get to the meat of this gym. So we bought our dumbbells from a company called Black Box. I just really like how no nonsense their design is. And then all of these adjustable weights are from a company called Bowflex. And honestly, I think this thing right here is an absolutely amazing product. Like if you think about this compared to these two towering dumbbell racks, this takes up a quarter of the space while actually being able to go heavier. These things go up to 41 kilos each compared to just 30. I think their adjustable kettlebell is also very good for the same reason. And then the barbell is, I imagine for a lot of people, the single most useful form factor because it actually saves you a ton of time versus having to come over here, take this off, load weights onto this bar, put this back on, secure it in place. It's just that I don't think this one is quite as good a product as the other two. I just find the weight loading mechanism a little bit fiddly. It's really easy to miss the exact spot that you have to put it back into to be able to change the weight. But the key thing that I think we have got right in this room is the machines. You've already seen which ones we ended up going for, but this is where I get to show you what actually makes them special. First things first, the Vitruvian. And if you actually stop and think about what this thing is claiming to be, it sounds bonkers. They are pitching this thing as an entire gym for people who don't have an entire gym. But the more surprising part of this is that I actually think it's closer to that objective than you think. To get the downside out of the way, while it does save you space, it doesn't save you cost. This is a $3,000 slab. And if you want the full feature set, it is another $40 per month. And if you stop paying that $40, you lose access to your workout history. But then on the other hand, if you really think about this, it's kind of a miracle. I mean, this as a piece of hardware is like barely thicker than a chunky yoga mat. It does weigh 30 kilograms, but then with that 30 kilograms, it actually allows you to lift any weight you want up to 200 kilograms, thanks to magnetic resistance on the inside. This one machine does actually give you the capability of this entire weights rack and more, not to mention software that does a pretty good job at gamifying the whole thing. And it's also just really well put together. There's so much smart gym gear that when you get it, it just feels cheap and creaky and plasticky. This is not that. So we probably won't keep this because we're lucky enough to actually have the equipment that this is designed to simulate. But if you don't, and you're willing to put up with the cost of this, I think it's a really good product. Then we've got the centerpieces, all of these Technogen machines. And again, key caveat out of the way first, given how expensive these things are, you would expect them to be able to go heavier by default. Like for the dual adjustable pulley machine, they only ship this by default with 35 kilos on either side. 35 kilos is not a lot of weight and you have to pay extra to get 50. Or for the squat rack, what you see here is the total weights that this thing shipped with, which is not enough to do any kind of serious lifting. So we've ordered more. Right, so that said, these are the best exercise machines I have ever interacted with. And not even because you can actually play Angry Birds on your treadmill, thanks to them running an Android base layer. It's partly the fact that they've thought about the little things that a lot of gym companies tend to overlook. Things like how every pulley mechanism feels completely frictionless, how the benches are so intuitive. You literally lift it to lift it. There's no pull out this pin, look for the hole, try and line it up and get it back in. And if you want to lower it, not to mention the upper layer is actual memory foam. I love how the machines have built-in storage for all the extras, so they're not strewn around on the floor. How most of the surfaces are padded so that there's very little in the way of metal clanging against metal. And how everything that needs to be adjusted can be adjusted with one hand. But the other thing that I've been so impressed by that I did not expect to be impressed by is the fusion of the hardware and the software. So let's say I jump onto this elliptical and I want to join a class. It's very immediately obvious that these classes are specifically built for people using this exact piece of hardware. You can see your coach using the same exact machine. They'll even point to things that you can interact with on your screen. Because for example, you can do every single session in three levels of difficulty with the further ability to tune it to your exact level. And then like I originally thought all of these outdoor exploration things were really silly, but when you click on one, you're not just watching a video taken on someone's phone that has zero relation to the effort that you're putting in. It is actually all synced up. So I can see how far in kilometers I've got left to go. I can see stats of the walk, like incline and elevation. And the machine will actually adjust itself to factor in what is happening on screen. It's not going to replace actually going outdoors, but one day doing a street side tour in Italy, one day climbing Mount Etna. It does add a bit of that much needed variety into what can otherwise become quite a stale form of exercise. And you can even do crazy stuff. Like yesterday, I went on a real life run. Yes, outside of the house. So on this machine, I can pull up that run and race against myself. This will pull up the exact route I did and I can try and compete against my past self knowing that this is also factoring in all the hills and troughs of that run and adjusting its own elevation to match. But my absolute favorite thing about these machines is the sheer number of stats. These things record and log everything from heart rate that's tracked automatically through the handles to run power, to step length. And since the easiest way to progress in the gym is basically just to try and do a little bit more than you did last time, I've never been able to see that progression as clearly as I can now. And that is a pretty good segue onto level four. So level four is what takes this gym from a gym that's easy to come to to a gym that you want to keep coming back to. How do we build in accountability? And this iPad is an important part of that. So on this iPad is every single thing that we need to use while we're in the gym and nothing more than that. That's by design. So all the music, for example, in the gym is controlled on here, but more importantly, so is all the workout tracking. I actually use the ARIA AI baked into the Opera browser to find this app. And I may have also lost a bet with my team, which means I have to do this entire thing while doing press-ups. So what's the best rated app on iPad for tracking my workouts? Oh, okay. Just about. There's one called Center, Nike Training Club, Apple Fitness Plus. So this one that it's labeled here, Heavy, is the app that I've ended up using, partly because it has quite a wide library of exercises. So when you're setting up your workouts, it already knows what you're trying to do, but mostly, honestly, just because I love the user interface and it's really good at showing you your progress. But then also, I can just ask ARIA. Okay. I wanna make my biceps look bigger. Build me my perfect workout plan and enter. And it can literally make the entire thing end to end from which exercises to how many reps, to top tips, to making sure that you achieve your goals. Not to even mention the Opera now has the slickest integration of split screen. The way the Opera lets you just drag a tab to one side to open it next to your existing tab is so seamless. And they have about a million ways to customize the thing to look just the way you want with these new themes. Link below to download the Opera browser for free. Now, the second part of making sure we keep ourselves accountable is this board. So this is a habit tracker. You can use these for basically anything, but the way that we've set this up is every time we do a full workout, we just slap a sticker on here on the way out of the room. It seems really simple, but for us, it's a really nice way of, without needing to take out your phone or open up an app to see when you've been slacking, but also when you've outdone yourself. And that feels really good. But I've been saving the best till last. The single best thing that you can do for your gym once all the fundamentals are solid is to make it fun. So this is nightclub mode, and it is cooler than I ever thought a gym could be. In most rooms of this house, we put two Meridian speakers in the ceiling. In this room, two, four, six of them, as well as a dedicated subwoofer so you actually feel the bass. We added a 10 meter Philips Hue light strip going all the way around the moss wall on this side, and then five, three meter Philips Hue light strips in between the wooden paneling here, mostly because it syncs to the music. Oh yeah, and we painted this. Last time we saw this paneling, it was just plain natural wood. But as soon as we realized that we wanted to have this dark mode nightclub option, it became pretty clear that we needed to spray paint the whole thing. But the single coolest part of this entire gym is that the dancing of the lights on the walls, which syncs to the speakers that are playing out the ceiling, also syncs to the boxing wall. Now, I will say this is, it's not the most polished product I've ever used. You have to put up with an app that's, how do I put this, not particularly premium and quite clearly just Google translated over from a Chinese version and not particularly well. But to be fair, the core functionality does work quite well. And if you haven't done a lot of boxing before, the calories burned per minute is something else. I actually can't fathom how people can get into a ring and stay at it for over 30 minutes, especially when their opponent actually punches them back. So that is the Dream Gym. And I will catch you in the next one.