Home gym/equipment recommendations?

[ButterflyMama]

Hi everyone! I'm about to start my BFL journey and want to set myself up for incredible success!

I've never lifted weights in my life (unless you count my children, lol) and would be really grateful for any advice about what I should get to prepare a fully functional, optimal home gym.

I'll be working out by myself, so no spotter for any heavy lifting. I definitely plan to get a set of dumbells (those are the "hand weights", right?). Do I need to get a barbell and plates, too? I would rather use a home gym system if possible to do that without losing the benefits of building stabilizer muscles...but how do you do the pulley type exercises without that?

Thank you so much for anything you want to share to help me!

[ButterflyMama]

Oh, also, I am scoping out Craigslist for workout equipment and was wondering if a Bowflex might be an option worth considering....

[mrsadm]

The Bowflex resistance training system looks good to me, but it is pretty expensive, even used. I bought a used weight bench with a bunch of weights for $50. Works great for me, esp. as a relative beginner to this endeavor.

[ButterflyMama]

Thanks for the reply!

My concern with the bench alone is that I'll be lifting alone - no one to spot or rescue me if needed, lol. Also, sometimes my two kids will be in the same room with me doing their own thing, but still you never know with little ones if they might come too close while I am concentrating.

I am a scared weakling, help, lol!

[Toddah]

I have a set of Bowflex select tech dumbells and a bowflex 5.1 adjustable bench and IMHO I have found them to be every bit as good as the multiple thousand of dollar machines I have used in the gym for years and they store in my office in a space the size of a big desk. I find the dumbells give me a much more extensive workout involving core groups that I never got on a machine. I lift alone as well but with dumbells there is no bar covering you to trap you in the event of a total failure. worst case you would just need to deflect the dumbell away from yourself. Remember you will be starting with 5 or 10 lbs of weight and only increase when you can handle the weight so it's not like you are doing 250lb bench presses or anything. You can tell when you are getting to a point of failure and should be able to stop without any danger.
I purchased all of this equiptment from Craigslist for less than the cost of a years membership at my local gym. I also got a bowflex 938CX eliptical runner for around $100.00 so I am pretty well set at home now for a very reasonable price point.
Aways remember you are just lifting weight so all the technology and bells and whistles are just sales tools.