What Fitness Bench Workouts Can You Do at Home?
For home workouts, a weight bench is an affordable and versatile option that supports a wide range of training needs. A bench provides support for your back, allowing your joints to move more freely and comfortably. Depending on your fitness goals, you can target different muscle groups for a full-body workout. From bench presses to seated shoulder presses, you can use it to train your chest, shoulders, back, arms, and even legs!
Common types of weight benches are categorized by their incline angles: flat benches, incline benches, decline benches, and FID benches (Flat-Incline-Decline), which can adjust both upward and downward. Different types of benches are suitable for different bench workout. Flat benches are typically used for basic chest exercises such as bulgarian split squat, bench presses and flyes. Incline benches focus on the upper chest and can be used for incline dumbbell presses, incline flyes, dumbbell row and shoulder exercises. Decline benches can reduce shoulder strain and are ideal for decline bench presses and lower-chest flyes. FID benches combine all three positions, allowing for a even wider variety of exercises. You can choose the bench according to your training needs.
Bushing vs Bearing Barbells: Which One to Choose?
In a barbell’s structure, bearings and bushings are two common mechanisms that connect the sleeve and the shaft. How you choose between them significantly affects how the sleeves rotate and how the bar feels during lifts.
A bushing barbell uses bushings, which is usually made of bronze or composite materials, to reduce friction between the shaft and sleeve. This sliding connection offers controlled, moderate rotation, minimizing unnecessary wrist and elbow torque, making it ideal for slower, controlled lifts like squats, bench presses, and deadlifts.
A bearing barbell, on the other hand, uses needle or ball bearings within the sleeve assembly. This rolling connection enables smoother and faster rotation, essential for Olympic lifts where explosive wrist turnover is key, such as snatch, clean, jerk, and front squat.
From cost and maintenance perspective, bearing barbells are more expensive and require more frequent care. So it’s essential to take your training approach, objectives and budget into account when selecting the right barbell for your needs.
What are Hip Thrust Bench & Glute Bench Used for?
The hip thrust bench and glute bench are primarily used to support the upper back while performing glute-focused exercises, the most common being the barbell hip thrust, glute bridge, box squats and bulgarian split squat. They provide optimal height, stability, and comfort, making your workouts safer and more effective. Both the glute bridge and hip thrust effectively target the gluteus maximus while also activating parts of the hamstrings and lower back muscles, enhancing overall posterior chain strength and muscle definition.
However, there are some differences between the two gear. The hip thrust bench is taller and thicker, with a slightly larger back support, making it ideal for heavy barbell hip thrusts. In contrast, the glute bench is lower and lighter, making it more suitable for bodyweight exercises such as glute bridges, single-leg split squats.
A standard weight bench is primarily designed for upper-body exercises, such as chest and back presses, and provides limited support for lower-body training. If you want a dedicated machine to specifically target your glutes, you can choose our hip thrust bench/glute bench. We also offer isolation trainers like leg extension machines to help you build leg strength, which you can add to your setup as needed.
