Flat Bench
A flat bench (or weight bench) is one of the most important pieces of equipment in any gym. A flat bench is simply a flat board (roughly three feet wide) with legs keeping it a few feet off the floor. There are a few variations to this. For example, a weight bench used for bench presses will include poles to hold a barbell. This bench would also most likely be longer as well. The bench used for bench presses could either be a single fixed bench or a flat bench with a separate item for holding the weights.
A flat bench is used for a number of exercises. If you look at the design of the typical flat bench it is a tool for you to perform weight lifting exercises while sitting, kneeling, or lying down. This includes dumbbell rows, butterfly curls, and more. Most exercises performed with a flat bench use dumbbells but there are a few exercises that can be performed with barbells. You could also add various accessories to the flat bench to perform other exercises. The only real down side to the flat bench is that it may be difficult to get the weight positioned before each set.
Choosing a Flat Bench
There are a few things to look at when choosing a flat bench. The most important factor of a good flat bench is the sturdiness level. You will want to make sure that you purchase a flat bench that is very sturdy as you could injure yourself otherwise. Keep in mind that you will not only have your body weight on the bench but the weights that you are lifting as well. In some cases this could be more than double your body weight being moved around while on the flat bench. If the bench is not extremely sturdy then this could be very dangerous.
Besides the sturdiness of the flat bench, look at the support as well. This means that the bench should be designed to hold a lot of weight in all areas. Without a good support design the bench could easily fall over. A good flat bench will be mostly made up of metal but the board will obviously be a different material.
Other Types of Benches
Besides the flat bench you can also choose from other types of benches as well. These will be designed similar to the flat bench but will just be angled differently. This will allow for variations of standard weight lifting exercises. If you look at the bench press, you could use an incline or decline bench to perform the exercise at different angles. The same goes for short benches as well.
You can find some benches that are designed just for sitting exercises or you could even find sit up benches that are angled like decline weight benches. There may be attachments available for the bench but that depends on the exercises being performed on it.
Final Thoughts
One of the most common mistakes beginners make when going to the gym is that they just use a few pieces of equipment. Some people even isolate themselves to just using the standard weight bench and only perform grip variations for the bench press exercise. If you are not switching up your exercises then you will not get any noticeable gains. Add in incline and decline exercises, and also use various other benches as well. The flat bench is one great example of a bench that can be used for free weight exercises. Taking into consideration the usefulness of this item, it should be a major part of your weight lifting routine.
