My Alibaba Home Gym Finally Arrived — Full Rack Setup for €4.5k Shipped to Europe
Finally got my rack and most of my home gym equipment delivered! Everything was bought through Alibaba using an agent who helped me source and choose all the equipment I needed.
I’ll try to keep this short and simple instead of writing a wall of text, but feel free to ask me anything.
A bit of context first: I’ve never really trained at home before (except for a rowing machine). I’ve always trained in commercial gyms, aside from the COVID period where I bought a very basic setup and later sold it.
But with two kids, building a home gym became almost a mandatory choice… and honestly, I don’t regret it at all so far.
I spent a lot of time researching and trying to build the best setup possible that balanced:
- compact size
- versatility
- ability to replicate as many gym exercises as possible
Costs & Shipping
Shipping to Europe.
- Equipment cost: around €3k
- Shipping + taxes + customs: around €1.5k
- Total: about €4.5k
Shipping terms were FOB with my own local freight forwarder.
The Rack Setup
The rack is basically an Ares 2.0-style setup with:
- dual 130kg stacks
- counterbalanced Smith machine
- GETRXD-style handles
- jammer arms (adjustable but not converging)
- lots of attachments and accessories for different exercises
Timeline from order to delivery at home:
- ~20 days production/consolidation
- ~3 months total delivery time
What Would I Change?
Honestly, not much.
Main modification I made was cutting the footplate support for low rows so I could do incline chest work on the Smith machine.
There are also a few smaller accessories I still need to buy.
At the time I ordered, I didn’t know about true converging jammer arms available on Taobao.
Being able to connect the jammer arms to the weight stacks is already a game changer, but combining that with converging movement would make it even better.
I also think half the fun of a setup like this is finding creative ways to use the rack and attachments.
Sorry for the messy pictures — I don’t have much free time right now 😅
Feel free to ask questions!
