York Olympic Combo Bench

Author's product rating:   

Durability	Excellent
Comfort	Excellent
Value for money	Good

Advantages:	stable and versatile .  .  .  . did I mention stable (Its excellent)
Disadvantages:	A bit costly, the weights you will need are expensive .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

This is the best bench out there for the money, offering versality of exercise but being one of the sturdiest benches I have used.

FUNCTIONALITY

Adjusts from decline, flat, incline, and full upright position

Now this for me is a really improtant aspect of the bench as the ability for the bench in particular to decline is an important aspect of weight training that is not offered by other benches. Most benches will operate from flat, through to fully upright. This covers most exercises from bench pressing to arm (bicep curls etc) and shoulder work (shoulders press). However with the introduction of the decline, it provides the opportunity to do decline presses and/or decline butterfly's (bench pressing on the decline) This is particularly useful to be able to develope the muscles in the lower pectorial's (in the chest). You will find that most serious weight trainers will not buy a bench without this feature. Its also relevant to note that the seat positions can be easily altered using the spring loaded adjustments, offering a huge range of positions from which to exercise from. The seats and back supports are also really padded which makes for comfortable use.

Telescoping uprights extend to 63"

These are the arms that hold the barbell. With an extention of 63" this will cover anybody who is that bit taller so you can get a good starting position for your bench press. This may not seem like a big deal, but if the position is too low, or too high, it could result in serious injury to the person training. It is also useful if you were looking for a good start position for lunges/squats, where you would mount the bar from beneath to rest it on your shoulders.

Comes standard with leg developer

For me, this is the only attachment that is worth having on a home bench. I've seen benches that have the butterfly attachments, which I personally think are awful and extremely uncomfortable to use. The leg extention and hamstring curl however is extremely easy to use. I would point out a couple of floors however. On the bench I used, the 20g load did not fit, I therefore had to use x2 10kg. All well and good, but depending on your leg extention and hamstring curling ability, you could run out of room to place more weight onto the small bar and really outgrow its use.....just something to be mindful of. My other small complaint is the foam which you place your shins onto rides up your leg when you complete each extention, which is a bit uncomfortable at times.

Accepts Preacher Curl attachment

Ok maybe I was a little hasty saying the leg extention was the only attachment worth having. You also have the option of a preacher curl attachment, which while not essential, is quite a useful attachment. For those that don't know, a preacher curl attachment is basically a pad that you can rest your arms on whilst doing a bicep curl. The idea behind it is it stops any movement of the body helping to perform the lift (the body naturally tries to move to give the bicep a helping hand). The preacher curl attachment therefore focusses all the effort of the lift purely on the bicep muscle, aiding its development. The preacher curl attachment will set you back a further £70 as an add on.

Length 58" Width 48" Height 20" Heavy Duty steel frame 70kg

For me the most important aspect of a bench is the fact that it feels stable. Well I can tell you that this is where the York Olympic combo bench really stands out. It is extremely well made. There is no wobble when your doing a bench press which is the biggest problem I've had with cheaper benches (for one thing its incredibly dangerous) infact in any of the exercises I have done, it feels safe and secure. The frame itself is made out of steel (it is hollow steel but is extremely stable) and it weighs 70kg. This does mean that you will need to set the machine up where you are going to use it, because it is quite large and awkward to move if not. Its not a huge peice of kit but you will need a dedicated room to fit it in (It will not fit at the end of your bed unless its an extremely large room.

WARRANTY

Manufacturers Warranty: Light Commercial Use - corporate facilities, apartment complexes, police and fire departments, personal training facilities, hotels, rehabilation centres - all products come with a minimum 2 years parts & labour warranty. I think this should cover home users!, really the warranty is negligible because having used this kit, I cannot see how you could break it, its certainly robust.

PRICE

yorkfitness.com £244.67
Amazon £243.47

Not alot in it to be fair but from amazon you have to pay an extra £23 for shipping costs whereas its free through the yorkfitness.com website

SUMMARY

This bench is fantastic because it is versatile and most importantly extremely stable. I cannot stress this enough because every bench I have used below the £150 really has been throwing my money away because they are not that stable. When you are lifting heavy weights, the last thing you want to be thinking about is whether or not the whole bench is going to topple over or collapse! This bench gives you that piece of mind.

There are a couple of downsides. The bench is quite expensive at £240ish pounds. You need to factor in that you will need to be buying olympic sized bars and weights to fit on the bench. These are quite expensive too, with the bars costing anything upto £30 to£50 and the weights roughly being £1 per kg (therefore £20 for a 20kg stack).

The other downside is the instructions. They, for me atleast were not the easiest to follow. Make sure you have a lot of patience and a good tool kit (the spanner they provide was designed by a spanner....its useless!

That said I would definitely recommend this product 8 out of 10

Anyway I hope this helps,

Kind Regards,

Logan