To join or not to join a gym: That is the question. If you opt out of building a home gym, you can join a club and have access to more weights and machines. Friends and classes motivate you to keep coming, and that monthly bill keeps you disciplined. On the other hand, gym memberships are steep, workouts can get hijacked by bullies, and going to the gym is an additional commute.

My gym tardiness, however, will likely catch up to me. One of the most consistent messages from health and fitness experts today is that lifting weights has immeasurable benefits. Strength training allows us to keep doing the things we love well into our advanced years. It reduces blood sugar, lowers blood pressure, burns calories, and reduces inflammation. A recent review of studies in the British Journal of Sports Medicine by Harvard Medical School found that strength training is linked to lower risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer and provides a 10 to 17 percent lower overall risk of early death.

But you don’t need all the time and money in the world to have a great home gym. Reviews editor Adrienne So and I have been slowly adding to our existing, minimalist home gyms in our living rooms and garage—a roughly 10- by 10-foot patch in our basements and living rooms. There’s a ton of equipment out there, but for maximum results, I asked two physical therapists—Grace Fenske at Excel North Physical Therapy and Performance and Samuel Hayden at Limit Less Physical Therapy—for their recommendations.

Here’s a PT-recommended guide for an ultrasimple setup that will keep you pumped and motivated. Don’t see anything you like? Don’t forget to check out our existing guides to the Best Running Shoes, the Best Fitness Trackers, or the Best Walking Pads.

Adjustable Dumbbells

Yes, these are very pricey. But people outgrow their small dumbbells very quickly, and if you bite the bullet early, adjustable dumbbells take up a lot less space than individual dumbbell or kettlebell sets. The Nüobell adjustable dumbbells required 38 patents and allow users to increase weight in increments of five pounds all the way up to 80 with a twist of the handle. Each dumbbell set replaces 32 individual dumbbells. In a cramped space, that’s a game changer.

The way that both Steph’s Nüobells and my Nike adjustable dumbbells work is that the full barbell fits into a cradle. (You can also mount the barbells in a stand.) When the user twists the handle to five pounds, the aluminum bar with grooves will grab onto the first hollowed-out plate, which is 2.5 pounds on each side of the barbell. With each subsequent turn of the handle the bar will pick up heavier weight in increments of five pounds. A safety hook at the bottom of the cradle ensures the barbell weight must be locked in place before lifting.

I like my Nike dumbbells because the end of the dumbbell is flat, which means I can rest it on its end on my thigh without putting a divot in my leg. Also, the plates aren’t round. If you have a big round dumbbell on the floor, or especially in your garage, it will find the nearest incline and roll away on top of a house pet or child. You can still take individual plates out of the rack if you need them for leverage under your heel or for mobility exercises. Whichever one you choose, though, both Steph and I recommend getting a floor stand to decrease strain on your back. —Adrienne So

I’ve tested a lot of software tools over the years designed to block distractions and keep you focused. None of them work perfectly, mostly because of context.

Reddit, for example, is something I should generally avoid during the workday, so I tend to block it—this is a good decision for me overall. The problem is that sometimes the only place I can find a particular piece of information online is in a Reddit thread, meaning that to get that information I need to turn off my distraction-blocking tool. Then I inevitably end up down some kind of rabbit hole.

This is the exact problem Fomi, a macOS distraction-blocking tool, is built to solve. The application asks you what you’re working on, then watches everything you do on your Mac desktop—every app you open—and uses AI to analyze what’s on your screen. The tool can tell, from context, whether you’re using a particular website productively or as a distraction.

Zach Yang, part of the team behind the app, tells me on Discord he dreamed up the app after talking with a friend who was studying for an MBA. “He needed YouTube for study videos, so web/app blockers didn’t work, and once he was watching, recommendations would often pull him away,” Yang says. “That’s when I started thinking about using AI to solve this. I built a small prototype to test whether current models were capable of distinguishing distraction from actual work, and the results were good enough that I decided to turn it into a real project.”

Fomi offers a three-day free trial. If you decide you like it, subscription plans cost $8 per month. However, since the tool uploads screenshots of your desktop to an AI model in the cloud, there are privacy concerns you will need to weigh before deciding if a tool like this is right for you.

Watch This Space

I’ve been trying out this application for a couple of days. The first time you launch it, you’re asked what you do day-to-day and what kind of tools you use to do it. Then, when it’s time to focus, you tell the software what you’re working on and which tools you plan to use while doing it.

As you work, a green dot and a timer appear at the top of the screen, surrounding your MacBook’s notch. If you switch to a potentially distracting application, the dot changes to yellow. If you start engaging in things that are clearly distractions, the dot turns red and an animated tomato splats across the screen. You’ll see a custom message telling you to get to work—the app calls out your specific distraction.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has laid out a strategy to help the UK boost its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, underpinned by research, access to shared assets, and support for innovators and universities.

It has published a six-point plan with a target completion date of 2031, by which time it says the research it supports will make the UK a global leader in explainable, human‑in‑the‑loop systems, agentic AI, edge computing and sustainable models. The 2031 target date also sets out ambitions for faster, reproducible science across disciplines through UKRI‑supported national AI testbeds and shared methods, as well as growing the research and innovation workforce to produce more deep technical experts and those who can drive AI companies and research groups.

From a data access perspective, UKRI’s goal is to open more environmentally sustainable compute and data foundations that provide equitable access to AI research resources through UKRI‑enabled infrastructure and new models released based on these resources, reusable, privacy‑respecting datasets, and Trusted Research Environments (TREs) that accelerate discovery and ensure data providers benefit from their contributions.

The UKRI’s AI safety objectives for 2031 include the UK becoming a co‑leader on global standards for safer, greener AI through UKRI international partnerships.

It also aims to foster a culture where the UK develops and fully harnesses the power of AI to drive economic growth, improve lives and livelihoods, and tackle major global and societal challenges.

Discussing the strategy, Charlotte Deane, senior responsible owner for the UKRI AI programme and executive chair of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, spoke about the UK’s strengths in mathematics, which puts it in a strong position to grow its AI ambitions. “We must make bold choices in areas where the UK can genuinely lead the world. UKRI will play a central role in backing the full innovation pathway from fundamental research to prototypes to scale-up,” she said.

“By uniting universities, businesses, industry and government, we can unlock the potential we have long had but have not yet fully mobilised,” Deane added.

Among the UKRI initiatives currently deployed are the Radar AI system, which detects faults on the railway network in real time, and the IXI Brain Atlas, which is supporting more than 40 clinical trials into degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. 

Commenting on the strategy, UK AI minister Kanishka Narayan said: “The potential of combining our AI expertise with our peerless R&D community is a game-changer. This plan will harness AI to accelerate both the pace and possibility of scientific endeavour. 

“We are already seeing AI change the game for what’s possible in fields from health to energy and beyond. Boldly backing this technology is how we push our great British innovators to further success, and build a path to breakthroughs that boost our health, wealth and wellbeing.”

Deputy prime minister David Lammy, who is leading the UK delegation at the India AI Impact Summit, said: “The UK is backing its pioneering AI leadership with more than £1.6bn in investment to make sure the best of British expertise develops the next wave of AI innovations. Together, we are turning potential into progress, and that’s the ambition I am bringing to the AI Summit in India this week.”