The Importance of a Fitness Bench

The importance of the simple fitness bench in your typical home gym cannot be stressed enough. It is a very important element of a home gym for anyone who is at least half a bit serious about weight training and body building for a healthier lifestyle. Right now, you may be asking a lot of related questions, but it's more important to know why and how the fitness bench is such an essential piece of equipment for the gym at home.

The fitness bench, also known as the exercise bench, is a very important piece of gym equipment that can be used for a variety of exercises and weight lifting routines. Weight training can be made a whole lot easier with the presence and usage of even the simplest and most affordable fitness bench. Great exercises for the core and parts of the upper body can be done more easily and more effectively with the use of one of these. And that's just part of the reason why everyone who has a gym at home should have one.

The fitness bench may come in all sorts of configurations, but basically it's just a flat bench on which an individual can rest on top of while facing the ceiling. They can usually also be adjusted to an angle so that weight lifting exercises done on them can have more resistance and therefore more strain resulting in a better effect on the body.

There are many different types of exercises you can do on a fitness bench. Some examples of body weight exercises you can do include crunches, bicycle crunches, and sit ups. And with the use of free weights, an exercise bench can instantly become the only gym most people will ever need.

Most weight training programs include weight lifting exercises that require the use of free weights like dumbbells and barbells. And often, the use of these free weights will require the presence of an exercise bench. Without it, some free weight exercises cannot be performed properly. This, of course, means that the entire weight training routine cannot be performed properly and progress can be jeopardized if not completely thrown out the window.

One of the many weight lifting exercises that requires the use of a fitness bench during lifting is the bench press. That's where this weight lifting exercise gets its name. You have to lie flat on a bench to perform it, pushing the barbell upwards and away from your chest for maximum effect. Doing a bench press on the floor just wouldn't cut it, and you would just end up hurting yourself if you performed a bench press while lying on your bed. The bench press exercises the muscles located on your chest as well as your shoulder so it's a very important weight lifting exercise that anyone into weight lifting should incorporate into their routines.

Another type of exercise that requires the use of these is the bent over dumbbell row. The bent over dumbbell row is performed by kneeling over the side of a bench with a dumbbell in hand. Or to be more precise, by placing one knee and one hand of a supporting arm on the bench while holding a free weight such as a dumbbell on the free hand and continually pulling the dumbbell up from the floor before lowering it down again but without letting the dumbbell go. This is to be done for both sides of the body, or in other words, both arms and hands. The bent over dumbbell row works on the shoulders and back muscles and like the bench press, it is something that everyone should have in their weight lifting routines.

Yet another one of the many exercises that simply cannot be done properly without the use of a bench is the military overhead press. This weight lifting exercise is done by sitting on top of the bench and pushing a barbell upwards until your arms are fully extended. Like the bench press, this also exercises the chest and shoulders, and can be done most easily and effectively with the use of an exercise bench. There are many other weight lifting exercises like these and they all require the use of benches. Suffice it to say that many weight lifting programs would be broken and incomplete without them.

Some variants are even portable, so you can basically have a gym with you anywhere you are. Just as long as you can also carry the free weights necessary for the actual weight lifting exercises themselves, that is.

A portable bench offers a ton of convenience and is ideal for people who wish to do bench-related weight lifting exercises outside of the house or gym. They basically let people travel and exercise at the same time, and that can only be a good thing, especially if you're really dedicated to losing that extra weight and building up some muscle. These are just some of the reasons why the fitness bench is so important.

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Joe J Jackson is a highly successful freelance writer and the author of Weight Training For Men

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