A gym membership can cost upwards of $100 a month, a lot to pay year over year, which is why people start investing in their own home gyms. Whether that’s a pair of dumbbells or resistance bands, there are many ways to mix and match the tools you need. But sometimes you need a bit more of a challenge. Enter the Handy Gym, a fitness tool that recently launched on Kickstarter, hit its $20,000 funding goal in two hours and is now fully funded ten times over with $223,000-plus pledged.
The Handy team is calling it the smallest gym in the world thanks to its interchangeable weights and variety of attachments and accessories. Built around a pulley system, the tool helps you work muscles as you curl up and curl down. It looks to be like a TRX in that it can attach to anything so you can use it anywhere. And people seem to be really excited about the two-pound device.
So before weighing in, so to speak, we figured we’d check with a personal trainer. “It’s a great tool for people that don’t have in-home gyms,” says Vanessa Padula, NASM-CPT, an instructor at SLT, a leading NYC gym where the workouts combine cardio, strength training and Pilates. “I travel around the city with resistance bands and gliders in my backpack to train clients, and I would add this to the mix.”
We both thought $499 is a bit pricy though. Even kettlebells are cheaper. “This is the only downside of the product,” Padula notes. “With other portable options like TRX bands, the price point will likely be high for most people who are training at home.”
The Handy Gym won’t ship until January 2020, but you can support the Kickstarter today for as little as $379 (but that’s sans all the extra accessories).
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