Craig Richey has built a career for himself inspiring 90,000 people to train and better themselves – all through the power of video.

Travelling, filming and editing is now an everyday part of Craig’s life but it doesn’t leave him with the amount of time he wants to put into his training.

“For me, going to the gym every day is half an hour one way, half an hour back. If I want to do a double training day, that’s two hours of travelling - I’m not going to be able to keep myself going, making videos and living my lifestyle.”

This is relatable to us all. Fitting training in around work and life commitments is not an easy task. It begs the question; how do we solve this problem? The home gym.

12 months ago, the YouTuber knocked through the wall in his garage and started to lay the foundations of what you see now. By exporting conditioning and accessory work into his home, Craig has been able to take both his job and training to the next level.

“It’s taken it from here [pointing] where you’re just going to the gym every day to saying ‘right, I can work on these extra bits to make me a better athlete,”

“The accessories like the one arm support holds, things that you wouldn’t include if you went to the gym normally because you don’t have the time, you don’t want to spend three hours there. You can come in, five minutes and bang out a little bit something you would not have done.”

However, fully functional home gyms are not built overnight. While there is no one path, Craig has some advice for those looking for their own starting point.

“Step one is get something that inspires you to train. Get the flooring down, when you walk in, it feels like a gym.”

In Craig’s opinion, the next move is to get one piece of equipment that makes you want to train.

FYI: the piece of kit that inspires Craig is the Airbike.

“If you have an airbike you can use it with burpees, air squats, running, jumping lunges and handstand holds against the wall. You can do so much bodyweight stuff and then the conditioning knocks you out.”

Once you’re inspired to train, the rest will take care of itself, as Craig tells us...

“From there, it’s kind of what you fancy and what your budget entails. It’s not really like ‘Oh, I recommend you get this and this and this” - if you want a home gym, you are going to build it over time the way that you want to.” 

Next in the Home Gym Series: we give you an extensive run through Craig Richey’s home gym kit list.