Help me pick a weight bench

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hello fellow gym rats.

I am in the market for a cheap (under ~75.00) weight/exercise bench - i want to supllement my cardio with some light weight training, and i figure getting a bench at home to use daily is better than hauling myself to the gym for a 20 minute workout a day.

i am NOT looking for anything to do bench presses on - dumbells would be the extent of my weight training on this thing. I’m more interested in a bench for sit ups and abdominal workouts.

I’ve also used a declined bench at the gym for sit ups, which worked out nicely.

Any experiences with a good one?

I’ve found a couple at amazon that look ok - unfortunately the way these benches decline still leaves a part of the bench on the level (as opposed to a decline-only bench which has slope on all parts of the bench) - if you don’t know of any you would recommend, looking & commenting at these may give you a sense of what i’m looking at

Sit Up Board

Fitness bench

Yes, i understand that these are probably crappy compared to some 200-lb, cast iron, $300 bench. Sorry, that just doesn’t work for me :wink: And i cant really get more than one, either

2

You don’t need expensive equipment to get a good workout.

You need to make absolutely sure that your bench is going to be stable. You don’t want any thing that is flimsy. Do you have a partner? If not, you’re going to need a safety catch on any bench you buy, or be prepared to spend a couple hundred at the dentist when you chip a tooth.

I’ve been around gyms most of my life and I can’t tell you the number of broke toes and chipped teeth from people using free weights improperly.

So the key thing is SAFETY. If you’re going to go it alone and not have a spotter you need some kind of safe catch on the bench.

If you buy from Amazon, make sure you’re able to somehow test it in real life, then buy it online. You really can’t tell how stable and strong the bench is till you are on it.

3

any opinions on either of those brands?

i hear you on safety - i’m really intending to use it mostly for sit up/ab exercises, and if i used dumbbells on this it would be extremely handle-able stuff (not interested in bulking up, just cutting) - so i think i’d want something that’s better for abs than anything else.

4

A cheap alternative would be a pull-up bar. I have one of these; it comes with separate mountings for pull-ups or sit ups.