Whether you call it a home gym, universal gym or multi-gym, these pieces of exercise equipment let you perform almost any workout. Often marketed for their bodybuilding benefits, multi-gyms allow you to create exercise routines for weight loss and improved sports performance. Knowing how to use a multi-gym to create different types of exercises will help you meet your health and fitness goals.
The Equipment
Most multi-gyms provide resistance using weight stacks or resistance cables. You can change the resistance settings to perform the same exercise at beginner, intermediate or advanced levels, or to create different types of workouts. Using heavier weights or more resistance creates muscle-building exercises, while less resistance is best for sports training or weight loss.
Bodybuilding Exercises
You can perform many of the traditional muscle-building exercises you do with free weights using a multi-gym. Depending on the machine you have, you can do these sitting, standing, kneeling or lying on a bench. Using maximum weight you can lift, perform biceps curls, leg and chest presses, lat pulls, rows, flyes, iron crosses, hamstring curls, triceps extensions and arm raises. If your gym has a bench, you can do a variety of sit-ups, crunches and other core exercises to improve your physique.
Weight Loss Exercises
The key to using a multi-gym for weight loss is to use only enough weight or resistance so that your muscles do not fatigue to the point you can't continue for 30 minutes or longer. If your multi-gym has a movable bench, you can perform rowing exercises to create a fat-burning or aerobic workout. Lying on your back or sitting on the bench, pull yourself back and forth using a variety of arm positions and push yourself with your legs.
Sports Training Exercises
Many of the bodybuilding and weight-loss exercises you can perform on a multi-gym are ideal for creating circuit training workouts. You should use resistance settings in between a bodybuilding workout and weight loss routine. The American Council on Exercise suggests using 40 to 70 percent of your maximum effort to create circuit training workouts. Unlike a non-stop weight loss workout, circuit training routines include breaks every few minutes since you're working at a higher intensity and using your muscles more. An example of circuit training would be a set of biceps curls, crunches, leg presses and triceps extension, each done for 30 seconds, or 10 reps each. Take two to three minutes of rest, then start a circuit of four different exercises. If you are an athlete training for a competitive sport, you might do one exercise per set, take a one-minute break, then move on to a new exercise, continuing the circuit for 30 minutes or longer.
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