Weight Racks, Trees and Stands

Free weight storage solutions

Now that you’ve got everything you need to be successful at strength training, which means a decent set of barbells and three or four pairs of dumbbells in a challenging enough weight range, you’ll need a place to store or display them.

Some people have one or more rooms in their home that they dedicate to fitness. These rooms can be filled with cardio machines, free weights and more without cluttering up the rest of the home. If this sounds like you, you’re probably looking for a weight rack or stand, so you can display your barbells and dumbbells instead of hiding them away.

Racks and stands are best because they allow you to get in quick workouts without having to search for where you put your dumbbells. Since they’re always on display you won’t be able to forget about them either.

Weight racks

Weight racks are a good choice if you own a large number of dumbbells or barbells or want your weights to always be on hand.

• Horizontal dumbbell rack - Most have two or more tiers and hold between 4 to 12 pairs of weights. If you purchase a weight rack make sure it’s meant to hold the type of weights you own, such as Hex dumbbells or chrome dumbbells. These racks start at $40.
• Vertical dumbbell rack - For people with a lot of dumbbells but not much space, the vertical rack stacks weights in pairs above each other on a tower or upside down V-shaped rack. They generally hold six to 12 pairs of dumbbells and cost $20 and up.
• Stand - These racks are pretty limited in what they can do. They are meant to be used with all-in-one adjustable dumbbells. One dumbbell and its weight plates sits on each of the stand’s arms. The dumbbells are returned to the stand to have plates loaded or unloaded. These stands often cost over $100 if bought separately.
• Barbell racks - Most people don’t need barbell racks because they only own one bar. But if you happen to have several, or maybe a set of professional barbells, plan to shell out hundreds of dollars for a stand to keep them on.

• Weight trees come in standard and Olympic size, which means they’ll hold weight plates for only one style of barbell. You can get a basic weight plate tree for $40.

• Dumbbell cases - If you want a storage case for your dumbbells you’re probably going to have to buy them as a set to begin with or convert something that wasn’t meant for weight storage. If you do buy a set of dumbbells in a storage case, avoid sets with two and three pound weight pairs unless you’re only planning to use them for cardio.
• Barbell cases - Barbell carrying cases also generally come as part of a weight set, but since most sets will have 25 to 100 lbs of plates included there’s absolutely nothing wrong with beginners going for this choice.