It may not appear to be a residence gymnasium must-have like a weight set or treadmill—however as soon as you discover the very best weight bench on your exercise, you’ll surprise the way you ever went with out it. That’s as a result of weight benches can present extra help, modify sure workouts, and enable you to simply carry out strikes like single-arm rows, hip thrusts, and extra.
They’re significantly versatile, but additionally a little bit of an funding. To ensure you select the correct one, we spoke to health specialists about key options and chosen the very best fashions in the marketplace. Store our faves under.
Our prime picks
- Finest General: BowFlex 5.1S Adjustable Weight Bench, $349
- Sturdiest: Rep Health AB-3100 Adjustable Weight Bench, $320
- Finest Price range Choose: Reebok Deck, $250
- Finest for Small Areas: Speediance Incline Bench, $299
- Finest Splurge: Rogue Adjustable Bench 3.0, $595
On this article
Store the very best weight benches
People, now we have carry off.
Finest General: BowFlex 5.1S Adjustable Weight Bench
Christa Sgobba, SELF’s director of health and meals, offers this BowFlex bench her stamp of approval (and devoted SELF readers could acknowledge it from our 6 Weeks to Stronger exercise problem). Its seat is upholstered and cozy, and its incline adjusts with the flip of a knob.
The 5.1S doesn’t simply verify the important packing containers for a weight bench—it additionally has some nice-to-have particulars that give it a slight edge over different choices. For one, it may be set on a declining angle (and also you don’t see that fairly often, Sgobba says). For an additional, it has a detachable brace that holds your legs in place. These options offer you extra place choices for strikes like Russian twists, cranium crushers, and sit-ups.
Dimensions: 28.10 x 61.30 x 18 inches | Incline choices: 90, 60, 45, 30, 0, and -20 levels | Weight capability: 600 kilos
Sturdiest: Rep Health AB-3100 Adjustable Weight Bench
This heavy-duty bench received a SELF House Health Award final yr. “I really like its sturdiness and stability,” Kellen Scantlebury, DPT, CSCS, a bodily therapist, founding father of Match Membership NY, and certainly one of our Awards judges, mentioned. “You’ll be able to carry out step-ups on it with out worrying that it’s going to flip over. From a security perspective, it’s a fantastic choice!”
Its most load capability is 700 kilos (for the consumer and weights mixed), making it a superb alternative for a variety of individuals and health objectives.
Dimensions: 23 x 50.50 x 16.75 inches | Incline choices: 90, 75, 60, 45, 30, and 0 levels for the again; 20 and 0 levels for the seat | Weight capability: 700 kilos
Finest Price range Choose: Reebok Deck
One other House Health Award winner, Reebok’s Deck offers you a fantastic bang on your buck. It’s the least costly choice on our listing, however some of the versatile—not solely does it operate as a standard weight bench, however it additionally serves as a stepper, an anchor for resistance tube bands, and a storage container for smaller items of apparatus.
What it might lack in sturdiness (the utmost weight capability is way decrease than different choices on our listing) it makes up for in portability: The Deck clocks in beneath 30 kilos and folds flat.
Dimensions: 13.20 x 47.80 x 7.90 inches or 13.20 x 47.80 x 13.80 inches | Incline choices: Incline, decline, and flat | Weight capability: 350 kilos
Finest for Small Areas: Speediance Incline Bench
Technically an adjunct to Speediance’s House Health Award–successful Fitness center Pal, the model’s Incline Bench can also be offered individually—and it makes a superb weight bench for smaller or shared exercise areas. It weighs simply 33 kilos, has a smooth-locking adjustment system, and folds flat (at lower than eight inches excessive, it may be tucked beneath your mattress, desk, or sofa).
Dimensions: 15.60 x 45.48 x 15.60 inches | Incline choices: 90, 75, 60, 45, 30, 20, and 0 levels for the again; 20 and 0 levels for the seat | Weight capability: N/A
Finest Splurge: Rogue Adjustable Bench 3.0
“This bench is constructed like a tank—steady, sturdy, and secure for heavy lifting,” Everett Miner, NASM-CPT, an in-person and on-line health coach, tells SELF. He notes its {smooth} adjustment system and vertical storage choice as key options. “If I had been designing a gymnasium from the bottom up, this is able to be my go-to bench,” Miner sums up.
It comes at a a lot greater worth level than the opposite benches we’ve featured, so it’s finest suited to devoted weightlifters who need to take pleasure in difficult exercises at residence regularly.
Dimensions: 24.75 x 56.50 x 17.50 inches | Incline choices: 85, 75, 67.50, 60, 52.50, 45, 37.50, 30, 15, and 0 levels for the again; 30, 15, and 0 levels for the seat | Weight capability: 1,000 kilos
What to search for when shopping for a weight bench
You don’t want a bench with 1,000,000 incline settings, however the extra there are, the extra strikes you are able to do, Miner says. Take into consideration the workouts you normally use a weight bench for while you’re on the gymnasium—that may enable you to get an thought of which angles are must-haves in your house weight bench.
“The bench [should be] heavy and steady sufficient to not shift round throughout use,” Miner says. He recommends on the lookout for fashions with a non-slip base or grippy pads beneath the legs. A steady bench must help the load of your physique and your most well-liked weights, so make certain to verify the utmost load capability earlier than making your buy.
The seat and backrest ought to really feel sturdy too—even when they’re padded for consolation. “I search for high-density foam that’s agency, not overly mushy or soft, so you will have a strong, constant floor to carry off of,” Miner says.
As with every bigger piece of health gear, your bench’s dimensions are key. It ought to slot in your exercise space, leaving sufficient room so that you can maneuver round it. Don’t neglect to take storage choices into consideration. Some fashions retailer upright, others fold flat and might slide beneath furnishings, and others nonetheless don’t fold in any respect.
How we picked the very best weight benches
We requested private trainers about their favourite fashions and referenced earlier years’ House Health Award winners to curate our listing above. When an merchandise wins a House Health Award, which means it’s been used firsthand by at the very least certainly one of our testers or judges and located to be an distinctive piece of drugs.
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