These Gym Accessories Deserve a Spot in Your Bag Every Time You Train
The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.
What’s in your gym bag? If you’re only bringing a towel and a pair of shoes to your workout, we think you’re doing it wrong. There’s an endless array of training aids and gym essentials that can help you train harder, longer and more intelligently, and most of them take up little space at all.
It also doesn’t really matter how you train, whether you prefer cardio or weight lifting or calisthenics, because these gym bag essentials offer serious versatility to almost every training style, or help you recover faster from high-intensity training.
RELATED: Best Protein Powders
Without further rambling, here are our picks for the best workout accessories to stock your gym bag with, whether you want to up the intensity, get more accurate data about your workouts or recover faster.
Sportmediq Pro Grade Liquid Chalk
Most commercial gyms don’t provide their own chalk, and some even bad the regular powder form, but this liquid chalk is a sneaky, portable way to get some extra and much-needed grip strength when you’re deadlifting or doing Olympic lifts while also minimizing the mess (provided you wipe the bar when you’re done). We love this option for its versatility, as you can also take it to a rock climbing gym or even when you some extra grip while bowling.
Gymreapers Lifting Straps
Repeat after me: straps are not a sign of weakness. It’s just simply a matter of anatomical reality that, on certain lifts, at certain loads, your grip is going to fatigue faster than the muscles you really want to train (your back, for example), so rather than leave some gains on the table, strap up and maximize the load on your target muscle. We’re big fans of Gymreapers in general, for providing affordable gym gear that doesn’t skimp on quality, but we especially love their lifting straps for their combination of durability and comfort. As an added bonus, they’re available in multiple color options, so you’ll have no trouble finding a pair that fits your style.
SUNPOW Resistance Bands. Set of 5
You don’t need to bring the full set every time you train, but having one or two resistance bands on hand is a great idea. You can use them to warm up your joints and muscles before you get into the actual training session, or you can use them to add resistance to exercises like squats and deadlifts. If you struggle with pull-ups, you can even use them to help de-load the movement, allowing you to complete more reps with strict form.
Fat Gripz Pro
There are plenty of training aids out there, but most of them are complete gimmicks. The Fat Gripz Pro are a massive exception. These padded cylinders are designed to slide on to dumbbells, barbells and pull-up bars, adding extra width to the bar and taxing your grip more with every rep. If you want a great way to build grip strength, blow up your forearms and take your biceps training to the next level, this is it. And, best of all, they’re highly portable.
Polar Heart Rate Monitor Chest Strap
Fitness in the 21st century is all about data, data, data. We track everything these days, from the calories we eat to the steps we take, the reps we grind out, and the time we spend in REM sleep. So why are you doing cardio without accurate information about your heart rate? This heart rate monitor from Polar straps over your chest, giving it the most accurate heart rate readings possible and allowing you to zero in on your ideal training intensity.
Theragun Mini Massage Gun
Massage guns, once relegated to the world of professional sports, have gone mainstream, and we’re all grateful. If you’ve got a sore, aching muscle or a knot, or if you just want to give your body a recovery boost, a few quick applications of the right massage gun can work wonders. The Theragun is one of the very best options on the market, and their Mini Massage Gun takes the power and versatility of the original and shrinks the packaging significantly, making it easy to keep in your gym bag.
BlenderBottle Classic Shaker Bottle, 20 oz
Whether you’re drinking water, a pre-workout, BCAAs or a simple post-workout protein shake, you need a good blender bottle, something that’s portable, durable and easy to clean. BlenderBottle ticks all the boxes, which is why they’re far and away the most popular shaker bottle on the market today.
You Might Also Dig:
