What is the best adjustable weight bench?

If you’ve read some of the other posts on the website you might already know I have a home gym set up in my garage. My home gym wouldn’t be complete without a gym bench, so in this article I’ll be going through what is the best adjustable weight bench.

Feel free to have a read of these other posts first, where I go through the other equipment in my home gym:

Which is the best squat rack for a home gym?

What is the best home gym floor?

What is a weight bench?

If I’m going to start talking about what is the best adjustable weight bench I should probably go through what a weight bench actually is.

A weight bench (or gym bench) is a piece of fitness equipment that you can either sit or lay on. You use it to perform free weight exercises like barbell bench presses (chest press) and shoulder presses.

Gym bench being used for a kettle bell row

The reason I bought mine was because I wanted to be able to do bench presses with a barbell. And I figured if I was going to buy one I might as well get an adjustable one. Then I could use it on an incline if I wanted to. I also wanted one that came with a rack so I could easier rack the barbell after performing the bench presses.

Barbell bench press

Why do I need an adjustable weight bench?

For your home gym set up you should consider investing in a weight bench. Some exercises can be done from the floor but you don’t have as big a range of motion, so you’re not working your muscles as hard (e.g bench/chest press). This means you won’t get as strong and your muscles won’t grow as much. Who wants to put in all that effort but not get all the gains possible!? I definitely don’t!

Performing bench presses works your chest (your pecs) and your triceps, it’s one of the “big 5” compound exercises that work multiple muscles at the same time. The other four are squats, dead lifts, rows and shoulder presses. Compound exercises are great to do because you’re working out efficiently. We’re all busy these days so doing exercises that hit multiple muscles at the same time means we can spend less time on a workout. But we can still get the muscle growth we want. These are the exercises I’m performing at the moment to build my strength and get some muscles!

The bench press is the only one of the big 5 that requires a bench. You could use it to sit on to perform the shoulder press but sitting down doesn’t work your abs as much as the standing shoulder press (remember compound?). So I’d much rather do the same move but work my abs at the same time!

Other exercises that the bench can be used for:

• Single arm dumbbell row
• Tricep pull over
• Reverse fly
• Skull crusher (sounds worse than it is!)
• Bulgarian split squat

These are just a few.

I want to be honest with you guys so just so you know this post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure here. You will not pay more for any items purchased using the links below (it just helps to support me a bit)

And the best adjustable weight bench is…

After researching lots of different adjustable gym benches this is the one I picked, you can buy it here or click on the picture.

Homcom adjustable weight bench

There’s a few reasons I went for this one.

1. Four adjustment levels. Some others I looked at only had two
2. Has the built in rack/ stand so perfect for barbell bench presses
3. It looked quite padded (which it is) so is comfortable to lay on
4. Good value. Was the same price as a lot of the others which didn’t come with a built in rack
5. The rack/ stand wasn’t too high. As a lady lifter I had to make sure the rack wasn’t higher than my arms could reach otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get the barbell back on the rack (very dangerous)

On the downside because I am pretty short (5’3″) my feet don’t touch the floor completely when I lay down to perform a bench press. This was easily solved by using some bags of compost to rest my feet on. Now my feet are flat when I bench press! You won’t have this issue if you’re a bit taller and if you do you can use something to rest your feet on.

⬅️ Compost bag steps

Spotter arms

If you’re going to bench press with a barbell and you’re thinking of going heavy you should think about using spotter arms, these will catch the barbell if you fail a rep (get the barbell to your chest but you can’t push it back up). You don’t really want a barbell + weights falling on your head or neck! I use the spotters on my squat rack when I bench press, I just have to make the squat rack wider and move the whole thing closer to the bench. If you had a squat cage you could put a bench inside the cage and move the pins so they’d catch the barbell.

If you had a squat stand instead of a rack you could easily move the two individual parts of the stand. Just put them where you want them for the bench press. This would work well if you had a bench with no rack as you could use the rack part to put the barbell on and the spotters to catch it if needed. You can buy one on Amazon here.

Alternative weight benches

If the one I have isn’t for you here are some alternatives to buy that look decent:

YOLEO adjustable weight bench. Buy on Amazon here.

A good price and doesn’t come with a built in barbell rack/ stand. Perfect if you already have a squat rack, stand or cage (I bought my bench before my squat rack so I have two racks). Maximum user height is 6′

GYMAX folding adjustable weight bench with rack.

Similar to mine but more expensive and the assembly instructions aren’t great, but looks sturdy. No maximum user height mentioned but looking at the q&a two people (one 6′ the other 6’4″) have had no trouble. You can buy it on Amazon here

In conclusion

Well that’s it folks, if you didn’t know what a weight bench was you do now. And if you’re interested in performing compound exercises (which you should be, saves time and works multiple muscles) a weight bench will allow you to do this. Having an adjustable one will allow you to perform other exercises as well, and using one with a rack/ stand and spotters will allow you to bench press safely.

I hope you found the article useful, let me know your thoughts by commenting below.

Happy lifting

Katie

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