Olympic Bench Press Equipment
April 21st, 2008 | 
Author: About Weight Benches
Free weight exercise equipment offers the biggest bang for the buck. Ideal for novice to advanced trainees, free weightsare useful for building core strength, stabilizer strength, and improving overall muscular strength and bone density fora lifetime. Standard iron weight plates, a 45 lb olympic bar, and an adjustable olympic weight bench are all that is needed to start aneffective home-gym. Olympic weight benches come in many varieties including the flat olympic weight bench, decline olympic weight bench, incline olympic weight bench, adjustible olympic weight bench, and many combination units.
How to Choose a Weight Bench
The olympic weight bench is a standard in today’s fitness clubs, and should also be the standard in your home gym.Nothing builds upper body mass like heavy bench pressing. With the various olympic weight bench designs we are able to train the bench press at many angles, thereby stimulating every muscle fiber in the chest. Some of the topweight bench brands availabe today includeinclude Nautilus,Weider, Proform, Xodus, andPowertech. The Proform weight bench models are designed for both comfort and functionality. They are probably the highest quality equipment that can be purchased today. The Xodus weight benchand the Powertech weight bench are also recommended.
You will want to find a weight bench with the rackbars set several inches wider than your shoulders, with 3 or more pin settings so that the bar can be racked high, medium, and low. Your feet should reach the floor when you are bench pressing so make sure the weight bench is also tall enoughor short enough depending on the length of your legs. Be sure to also pick up an olympic barbellwith a set of olympic weight plates. You will want a set of at least 300 lbs from the start.
How to Bench Press
Always remember to bench press with perfect form, keeping your feet on the floor and pressing the bar in a straight vertical line from your chest. Press the bar with maximum force on the way up and don’t let it bounce off your ches ton the way down. Do not forget to breathe in on the way down, hold your breath through the bottom of the press,and breathe out during the second half of the press. Also try lifting with lighter weight and maximum speed once a week, for 3-5 reps, in order to increase your power in any exercise.
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My God, great that you chipped in with some decisive insight at the end there.
The most comprehensive info I have found on this subject on the net. Will be back soon to follow up.
Here is an example of a challenging instability exercise: try good old-fashioned schoolyard pull-ups! It is not easy but there is nothing like pulling one’s entire bodyweight through space for building strength. To do pull-ups: use an overhand grip placing your hands about twice your shoulder width apart. Let your body hang from the bar, then pull yourself up until your chin is at, or over, the top of the bar. Slowly return to the starting position with your arms extended, but be careful not to stress your shoulders. You can also add weight by using a dipping belt. If you get bored doing these pull-ups, then try gorilla chin crunches: perform this exercise the same way, except now crunch your knees up to your chest at the top of the motion.
Good looking blog. Added you to my bookmarks – keep up the good work.
Thanks!
Jeff
Very Interesting Blog I have a Weider home gym myself and I love it.
I like the Olympic style weight benches. They are much more sturdy for the heavy sets as compared to the adjustable benches.
Good general information about weight benches. I have built my weight bench by myself. just looked at some pictures and took some measurements in a gym. Then i welded the frame. Very easy and cheap. My whole bench did cost me less than 50 bucks.
i need one of those benches so bad. the problem is i have nowhere to put it!