What do you make of my new bench press bench

[CharW]

I Just got this bad boy and, I am wondering what you make of the width of the posts? It seems to me, an am of course, that they are right where your arms should be. Tell me what you think of both of the options!

[Shawn M]

It becomes very hard to load plates on those kind of benches because you can easily flip the bar. Also they lack spotter pins or bar so if you miss or drop your bench you can be injured. The back of the uprights is too short, if you lock out your might lose the bar up and over the back...I could go on, I used to build fitness equiptment. But where there is a will there is a way...I have seen worse. I would go to testosterone.net and read dave tates articals on bench press. It looks like your bench form could use a little tune up. Even if you dont want to be a powerlifter it will keep your shoulders healthy to bench as dave tate suggests. Laying on your bench and benching with one dumbell at a time is another option to consider...it is a great chest exericize that also hits a ton of stablilzers and is much safer if you are lifting by yourself

[shmathews]

You can go to the hardware store and get a set of folding sawhorses. Mine are rated at 500 pounds each (I have put a 405 pound bar across mine and then put my bodyweight on it- no problem). Put them on either side of the bench to spot you, just where the bar hits your chest (when you do it right). If they are not the right height, put either the bench or the sawhorses on as many 1 inch blocks of wood as necessary to get the right height. Someday, you may be thanking yourself for spending that $15.

[CharW]

Thanks for both replies!

[D-Rock]

I used to have the same one. Get ready to lose lots of skin from your hands. Also, we ditched the crappy bar and weights that came with it and started using my roommate's olympic set.

I started to get nervous about the cheesy looking welds on the brackets and struts that were holding the bench in place (the one I had could incline and decline) when we were working out with heavy weights. 260-300 pound guy + 280-300 pounds of weights, plus cheesy bench seemed like a recipe for disaster.

[CharW]

I wanted to edit my post, I actually have it set up to an incline in the pictures. There is a higher setting but I don't see how it would work, the bar is too low to start out right.

It is my own bar and weights..


Anyway! I didn't see the articles you were talking about, Shawn M.. I do have 1 curl bar, but no dumbells.. Think that would work? I need to look for some articles about benching with them too!