Monday, November 14, 2016

Product Review: PT Pro Fitness Bench

As a trainer and nutritionist working with weight loss clients, I have noticed for years that clients who exercise at home get much better results than those that go to a gym.

If you want to stay in shape and at a healthy weight as you get older, exercise has to be a daily event. Most of my clients do cardio every day and hit the weights at least two or three times per week. Given our busy lives, is it realistic to expect to get to the gym every day? For just about everyone, the answer is no.

There are several reasons why working out at home is better than joining a gym:

1) It takes much less time to workout at home. If you have to get in your car, drive to the gym, get changed in the locker room and then do the same thing in reverse, you have just turned your 40 minute workout into an hour and 20 minute ordeal. It’s just too easy to blow off. 

Furthermore, at a gym you may have to wait for someone to finish using the cardio or weight training equipment you want to use. This adds even more time.

2) It is just more convenient. If I am watching my kids, I can take them downstairs to play while I hit the weights for 20 minutes. I can’t bring them to the gym. I can also combine my exercise with something I need to do if I workout at home. I can return phone calls, check my email, read the paper, watch the news, etc, all while doing cardio. When I was in grad school, I even used to study while doing my cardio. It is hard, if not impossible, to do these things at the gym.

3) It is much cheaper over the long term. Gyms can be quite expensive. The cheaper $10 a month gyms that are popping up are great, but they may not be convenient to you. Say your gym costs $70 per month, or $840 per year. In 5 years, you have spent $4,200. You can set yourself up with a really nice home gym for a fraction of that amount that will last you for decades.

A great place to start for any home gym is a set of dumbbells and an exercise bench. Enter the PT Pro Portable Fitness Bench. This bench is perfect for people that don’t have a lot of space and/or don’t want to look at their exercise equipment on a regular basis.

Here are some of the benefits of this bench:
#1) It folds up for storage. The legs of this bench fold up so you can store it in a closet or under your bed. This is a great feature if you live in an apartment and don’t want your bench taking up valuable space. For most of my time in Boston, I had a tiny apartment and this feature was critical.

#2) For fitness professionals; this bench is light weight and portable. You can bring it to a client’s home if you are an in-home trainer.

#3) The bench has both incline and decline capabilities, so you can add a lot more variety than you can with a simple flat bench.

#4) It is very well made. I’ve had mine for years and it is holding up extremely well. In fact, it looks and works as well today as the day I got it, which was 7 years ago.

Cost: It is not cheap at $299, but it is a one time expense. You will likely never have to buy another bench. It’s also a cost saver if it allows you to cancel your gym membership. 

For more information, here’s the manufacturer’s website:
http://jpdesignandmfg.com/product/ptpro-portable-fitness-bench-the-full-featured-portable-gym/

Note: I have no relationship with this company and do not make any money for promoting their products. I just have been really happy with my PT Pro and recommend it highly.

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