When I was building my garage gym, I searched on Google for “what makes a great weight bench for a home gym”. The only results that came back were site after site listing their “best benches of 20xx”. There was no good advice. There was no one explaining what to look for.
In reality, every one of those sites was simply a giant list of affiliate links that contained meaningless specs and the manufacturer’s ad copy. All of which were positive. None of which helped me learn how to pick the right bench for me. At best, they simply regurgitated things that reviewers on Amazon had said.
A few key qualities should be looked for when buying a weight bench for your home gym. A bench that is adjustable, well-built, stable, comfortable, safe, and reasonably priced will serve you well for years.
How do we figure out which benches have those things and which don’t? Read on. By the end of this article, you’ll know exactly what to look for, what will work best for your needs, and how much you’ll have to spend to get it.
Want to skip all that and just get a great bench? Check out my recommendations at the end of this article as well as on my recommended benches page here!
Why does it matter?
Can’t you just go on Amazon and grab a low-priced bench? Isn’t one bench as good as the next? I’ve heard that and lots more from people trying to get away with spending as little as possible on their bench. I can see doing that on some things, but a bench deserves a little more consideration than that.
Not only is a weight bench an essential piece of gear for your home gym (see my article on all the essentials here), but it’s one of the pieces that you shouldn’t go cheap on. There are a lot of places where you can save money on your gym, but your bench shouldn’t be one of those.
Your weight bench will be something you use almost every time you use your gym. It’s right up there with your bar when ranked by the amount of use. And more importantly, it involves your direct contact and supports you during lifts. Hopefully safely.
When you are laying on your bench, with 200-400+ lbs. suspended over your chest, the last thing you need to worry about is the stability and build quality of your bench. When you are supporting yourself in any manner with additional weight involved, it’s critical that your bench is bulletproof.
Not only does it need to be safe, but it also needs to be comfortable. Pressing on a bench with a .25” pad made of cheap foam is a world apart from a pad that’s over an inch thick and made of quality material.
And speaking of quality material, a good bench should last for years. Saving money on your bench but having it fall apart quickly didn’t actually save you money at all in the long run. Your bench will take a beating. Make sure you buy one that can take it!
As you can see, a quality bench is an important piece of gear for your gym. And that piece of gear will come at a price. You simply shouldn’t go cheap when it comes to buying a bench.
That said, it certainly doesn’t mean that your bench should cost a fortune. There are a lot of overpriced options out there, too (cough, cough, Rogue, cough, cough). They are overbuilt, overpriced, and a complete waste of money for most home gym owners.
Armed with a few pieces of important knowledge, you should be able to find a great bench that meets your needs perfectly. It won’t be cheap, but it won’t break the bank either. Now, on to finding the best weight bench for you!
How much room do you have?
It doesn’t matter how nice of a bench you buy. If you don’t have anywhere to put it, it won’t matter. Home gyms can often be crammed into the smaller, unused spaces of our homes. Sometimes, they need to be able to disappear altogether because they share space with others in our family.
Other people may be luckier. They get the use of the entire basement. They take over both bays of a two-car garage. Space isn’t at a premium, and that opens up options that are not possible in tighter quarters.
Knowing how much room you realistically have to work with will help you choose the right bench (or sometimes benches) for you. Think about not only how much space you have when using your bench but also where your bench will live when you aren’t using it. Where will it go when you need it out of the way?
And speaking of that, what if you need it to go away completely when it is not in use? Those of you carving out space in a small apartment to train know exactly what I mean. In that case, you’ll want something that folds down flat to store under the bed or in another out-of-the-way place.
Fixed or adjustable?
Once you know the space requirements of your particular situation, you are equipped to make the first decision about buying your new bench. Fixed or adjustable?
You are going to want to be able to work from, at minimum, a flat surface and an inclined surface. For those with a lot of space to work with, you have room for two or more fixed benches. A common setup here would be a flat and incline at minimum and a third bench, a decline bench, in many cases. All are separate and all dedicated to a single purpose.