Darrin's Profile

Cute, yes. But you've seen this shape used in advertising.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/effie_assets/2007/1820/2007_1820_hero_2.jpg

Have you unmasked Berd??

I have been dying to go here an buy one. Thanks for the great post.

While I prefer to weight train at a gym, I'd offer two suggestions: one is to buy one of those inflatable ("swiss") exercise balls. Since it's not really an elegant piece of functional furniture, you'd have to find room to store it away when you're not exercising.

Plenty of great exercises can be done with it (especially abs), but you can also use it to sit on (i.e. for shoulder presses), lie on your back (for chest presses), or lie on your chest (rear deltoid). Etc. etc. Many great exercises can be found online, and you can use your weights in conjunction with the ball, if not totally without it (like lunges, squats, deadlifts, bicep curls, the list goes on and on.)

My other suggestion is that if you get a bench -- the more padded it is, the more comfortable you'll be sitting/lying/using it -- you might have to get one skinny enough to allow a full range of motion when you lie on it (face up or face down). That bench from West Elm might be too thick, or even too heavy to move around (if you need to).

I don't know what kind of exercises you plan on doing. I myself have often daydreamed of having a fully functioning home gym setup with simply weights, a ball, and a yoga mat. Unfortunately, there's simply no comparison to the gym, but I'm a gym rat. I need many different weights and machines to really get the results I'm after.

I have a swiss ball that I keep in my closet in my one-bed/one bath apartment. It's light enough to store up on a shelf above my head.

Hope this helps...