Independent buying guides
For Australians building a home gym in a garage or spare room. Each guide answers one buying question, quotes sourced figures with the date each was checked, and shows the cost-per-session formula instead of asserting a result.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Only 22.4% of Australian adults met the physical activity guidelines in 2022. Pick equipment against the sessions you will actually do, and the floor you have.
Photo: CNEcija12345 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Divide the kit by the sessions you will actually do. At 3 sessions a week over 5 years, an example $1,600 setup is $2.05 a session in AUD, GST included.
Photo: CNEcija12345 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Safety
Manufacturer clearances, two different maximum user weight ratings, and a bolt and cable inspection schedule that takes 10 minutes a month.
Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Nicole R. Schwegman · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
Adds up a kit list against a weight target and a body-weight guideline.
total = base weight + consumables (water litres x 1 kg + food days x food per day); share of body weight = total / body weight x 100
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Turns a price into a cost per use, so a dear item used often can be compared with a cheap one used rarely.
cost per use = (price + consumables over the whole life) / (uses per week x 52 x years)
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: CNEcija12345 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Weight, volume and what gets left behind.
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Photo: Official Navy Page from United States of America Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class William Jamieson/U.S. Navy · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Temperature, weather and terrain, with real numbers.
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Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Nicole R. Schwegman · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Lance Cpl. Cory D. Polom · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Intervals, parts and what they cost.
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Photo: CNEcija12345 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Standards, warnings and the checks worth doing.
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Photo: CNEcija12345 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
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