Best Bench Pressing Multi-Station Home Gyms

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What are the multi station home gyms that are best for bench pressing? Here are the best options.

Here are the three best multi-gyms that allow you to exercise your chest muscles.

1. Bowflex Blaze/Xceed
2. Body-Solid G9S
3. Body Solid G6BR

Those three machines have a good chest exercise options, plenty of resistance and are good multi-gyms all round.

Let’s take a closer look at those machines and what they have to offer.

Multi-gyms With Good Bench Press Option

Most multi-gyms have an exercise option for the chest. However, not all of them are great and the maximum resistance is often also an issue. 

Building a big and strong chest requires a bit of resistance. Pressing 150 lbs. isn’t really going to make you look like Arnold. While you can adjust the number of repetitions and sets to get the most out of lighter weights, at some point you’ll want to have a heavier weight to keep progressing. 

The movement pattern of the chest press is another thing to look at. A traditional bench press means you lay flat on a bench and have a barbell in your hands. There is no multi-gym that does exactly the same thing but there are plenty that can give your chest a good workout. 

Here are the best options.

1.     Bowflex

Bowflex is the go to brand for affordable yet complete and quality home gyms. You get a lot for your money and while they’re not as well built as some other models on this list, they still last many years and are a lot cheaper. 

For a focus on bench pressing, the Blaze and Xceed are good choices. They both have plenty of exercise options for the chest. The Xceed is more upright and takes up a little less space but if you have the extra space, the Blaze is a little better for not much extra money. For starters, the Blaze can be upgraded to 410 lbs. of resistance while the Xceed is limited at 310 lbs. 310 lbs is still plenty for most people though. 

The Blaze also has a sliding seat which can be used for leg pressing which is a massive benefit over the Xceed. Try finding another home gym with 410 lbs. leg press option. You’ll find out that any other multi-gym that offers something similar costs a whole lot more.  

Here are the chest exercises you can do with the Bowflex Blaze:

• Shoulder Horizontal Adduction 
• Bench Press 
• Decline Bench Press 
• Incline Bench Press 
• Decline Chest Fly 
• Incline Chest Fly 
• Resisted Punch 
• Lying Cable Crossover

The bench press variations mentioned above look more like a cable press. You’re not holding a barbell but two handles at the end of a cable. 

2.     Body-Solid G9S

You got an affordable multi-gym above, but what if you just want the best of the best? 

The Body-Solid G9S is a beast of a home gym in many different ways. It’s very big and heavy but also has tons of exercise options and is built to a very high quality. It is very smooth and absolutely as good as the commercial equipment you can find in big gyms. It’s actually built for light commercial use and if you only use it at home, you get a lifetime warranty!

It has a solid bar that pivots in a way that mimics a real bench press as closely as possible. On top of that you’ve got a separate pec dec and leg press as well as lat pulldown. And it can be used by multiple people at the same time since there are two 210 lbs. weight stacks. The weight stacks can be upgraded to 260 lbs. if necessary. 

This is the last home gym you’ll ever need. In the first place because it does absolutely everything you can think of but also because it’s a very well built machine that will last decades. It does come at a price though. 

3.     Body-Solid G6BR

Is the G9S a bit too much? Body solid has another very solid offering that does a lot of the same chest exercises but in a lot smaller package It still has the chest press bar and pec dec which are the two most important chest exercises. That means you do give up some other things like the leg press, 

It still has the so called bi-angular system which means the movement patterns feel more natural like you would with free weights. So if chest exercises are what you care about, the G6BR is about the same as the G9S but costs a lot less. You still get the lifetime warranty and super solid build quality. 

It’s a relatively simple home gym that doesn’t have a lot of exercise options. All the basics are there though. The thing with the G6BR is that it does those exercises very well. 

How Heavy A Weight stack Does Your Multi-Gym Need For Chest?

You might be wondering how much resistance you actually need? Since upgrading the weight stack of multi-gyms is quite a bit more complicated than just buying extra weight plates for a barbell, it’s good to buy the right one from the beginning.

On strengthlevel.com you can choose your exercise, age, weight and gender. From there you can see what people in similar situations can lift and therefore what you can expect from yourself. They divide the weights into different levels. From beginner to elite. Most are pretty self-explanatory. Beginners are people that have never done anything like this exercise. Elite are the top 0.01% of weightlifters. Intermediate is achievable after maybe 2 years of consistent training.

Let’s take a look at a few different examples to see how much resistance you need.

I’ve taken the weights from the chest press since that more closely resembles the exercise you do on a multi-gym.

Example	Weight	Age	Beginner	Novice	Intermediate	Advanced	Elite
Male	160	18	73	121	185	262	348
Male	190	60	65	102	150	208	272
Male	220	35	111	170	245	334	432
Female	100	18	15	32	63	104	152
Female	120	60	13	29	52	83	119
Female	150	35	24	49	86	133	187

As you can see, the vast majority of people don’t need more than about 200 lbs. of resistance for a machine chest press. Keep in mind, reaching intermediate already requires a few years of serious training. For women about 100 lbs. is likely enough.

The bench press exercises will likely be some of the heaviest exercises you will do on a multi-gym. If your multi-gym has a leg press, that will probably be done heavier but most multi-gyms have an option to make the leg press heavier. That means the 210 to 260 lbs. weight stacks are perfectly fine for everyone but the biggest/strongest.