Starting Strength

equipped with safety hooks, fixed below the top hooks, to give a stuck solo bencher a way to get the bar off his chest without having to dump it on the floor or wait till the First Responder arrives. If these safety hooks are present, they should be right above chest height, about 9–10 inches above the bench.

    Figure 8-11. A standard upright support bench for the bench press. Note the safety hooks at the lower position on the uprights.

    Most commercial gyms will have bench-press benches, since having them frees up the power racks for other exercises (assuming that the gym has power racks and knows how they’re used for this purpose), but again, they are not actually necessary since the power rack and a flat bench can be used for bench presses. Your garage gym will not need anything but a flat bench, which should have the same dimensions and simple construction as the support bench without the uprights. Too much padding will increase the effective height of the bench; that is not good for shorter lifters, annoying to taller ones who have used proper equipment before, and bad for everybody trying to get a firm plant against the bench. Too wide a bench is a bad problem at the bottom of the movement, where it interferes with the shoulders and arms as the bar touches the chest.

    Figure 8-12. A flat bench can be used with a power rack as a bench press station, as shown in Figure 8-6 . The flat bench should be as sturdy as an upright support bench.

    Most benches are upholstered with vinyl for ease of cleaning. This material wipes off well, but fabric upholstery lasts many times longer, especially auto upholstery fabric. Fabric also provides better traction for the back during lifting. Fabric can be cleaned with a wire brush and a shop-vac, and stains can be removed with mineral spirits and a rag.
    Bars, plates, and collars
     
    Bars are the place to spend money, if you have it. If you don’t, raise it somehow, because cheap bars are potentially dangerous, unpleasant to use, and a bad investment. Cheap bars will bend. Even expensive bars can bend under the wrong circumstances, if they are dropped loaded across a bench, for instance. But cheap bars will always bend, even under normal use. Cheap bars should be – but somehow never are – an embarrassment to their manufacturers and the gyms that keep them. You can do better, and you should.
    Standard “Olympic” bars – the general term for a bar with a 2-inch sleeve that accepts plates with a 2-inch hole – should weigh 20 kilos or 44 pounds, within a tolerance of just a few ounces. The tradition in the United States is to round the bar weight up to 45 pounds since our plates have traditionally been manufactured in pounds (even if the bars were actually 20 kg to satisfy the competitive standards of the international barbell federations). The weight on the bar will always be referred to as “135” even though it actually weighs 134 pounds. Cheap bars are occasionally produced that weigh below spec, so be careful, again, with cheap bars.
    A good bar should be properly knurled and marked, should be put together with roller pins or snap rings, not bolts, and should require little maintenance beyond wiping it off occasionally and putting a drop of oil on the bushings or bearings every six months. It should be made to international competition specs, not because you’ll be competing internationally (although you might) but so that the sleeves will accommodate the different brands of plates that all weight rooms eventually accumulate. Above all, a good bar is made of excellent steel bar stock, which will not deform with normal use. Expect to pay $250 or more for a good bar. There are lots of cheap imported bars available for less than $150. They are junk. Do not buy them. And do not hesitate to send back a good bar that bends under normal use, since it is not supposed to do that. A reputable company will replace a bar that fails, since their manufacturer will stand behind them in this event. If they don’t, tell all your friends.
    All real weight rooms are equipped with standard barbell plates with a 2-inch center hole. The little plates with a 1-inch hole are referred to as “exercise plates,” and are not useful since no good bar is commercially produced for them. Standard barbell plates come in 2.5-, 5-, 10-, 25-, 35-, and 45-pound sizes. Of these, all are necessary except the 35s. Any loading that involves a 35 can be done with a 25 and a 10, and the space