A weight bench looks like the simplest piece in a home gym. It is also the one most people get wrong on their first purchase. I have watched dozens of clients buy a $180 sit-up combo bench, snap a weld six months later, and end up paying twice for the bench they should have bought first.
An all-in-one home gym is the most efficient strength purchase you can make. One frame replaces a separate squat rack, cable column, lat pulldown station and Smith machine — and a good one will outlast the house it sits in.
The 15 best power rack exercises are: back squat, front squat, pin squat, Romanian deadlift, rack pull, bench press, overhead press, floor press, pull-up, Pendlay row, inverted row, dead-stop deadlift, isometric mid-thigh pull, hanging leg raise, and anchored banded row. A power rack turns a barbell, a couple of plates and an empty corner of your garage into a complete strength training system.
