7 Reasons Why Your Home Gym Should Have A VKR
A Vertical Knee Raise (VKR) also known as a Power Tower is a super efficient peice of gym equipment to have in your home setup. On a VKR there's only one part designed to move and that is you. Whilst they vary in durability and design across different brands, for the most part this style of equipment is strong and built to help you create lean muscle mass within a small footprint. Which brings us to the 7 reasons to invest in a vertical knee raise.
1). Save Space
Due to it's upright design this style of gym equipment takes up a small footprint but allows you to do loads of different exercises involving the ab station, chin up bars and dip handles.
2). Affordable
VKR's range in price depending on the materials used, the design and weight of the station. Our advice is to invest in a VKR/ Power Tower that feels sturdy. If you purchase a flimsy feeling station the unstable nature of it will just become a point of frustration as you workout over time.
3). Save Time
Due to the fact you can hit multiple body parts on one station you can save time by creating workout sections around dips, pull ups and ab exercises.
4). Combine with Bands and Weight Vests
As you start training on your VKR you can use power bands and resistance bands to aid your training goals. As you progressively get better you can move away from using bands to body weight exercises. Conversely, as you get stronger the addition of weight vests will challenge your training goals and help take you to new levels of fitness and lean muscle mass growth.
5). Suits All Fitness Levels
The great thing about having a VKR at home is that you can challenge yourself no matter your fitness level. Whether it's increasing the amount of reps, rounds, duration or adding extra weight there's always a way to tweak your workouts.
6). Build A Strong Upper Body
Despite all of the advancements in fitness equipment chin ups or pull ups are still one of the most fantastic movements for development of the upper back, infact, I'd go as a far as saying that they are the perfect test of relative upper body pulling strength. As VKR's are essentially muscle-building towers they will help deliver an incredible total-body workout. Target your biceps and forearms with the chin up bars. Build your triceps, chest and shoulders with the dip station and isolate your core to develop lean, sculpted abs.
7). Easy To Use
Finally, this style of equipment is straightforward and easy to use. There's nothing more simple than chin ups, tricep dips and knee raises. Once you've mastered the basics you can start to work on the multiple variations to all of the exercises on the VKR Station/ Power Tower.
Written by Fitness Warehouse Personal Trainer, Simon Mitchell. Simon has a Bachelor of Human Movement, is a certified FMS trainer and has worked in the fitness industry since 2003. Simon started his fitness journey as a trainer with iNform Health and Fitness before moving into commercial radio and then back into fitness with Bodyism in the United Kingdom and Australia. A career highlight was being one of the cast trainers on Star Wars IX - The Rise Of Skywalker.