5 Best Exercises for Your Multi-Functional Bench

So you’ve decided to incorporate a Multi-Functional Workout Bench into your exercise routine. Great choice!  A Multi-Functional Workout Bench with a hyperextension bench functionality can produce remarkable fitness results due to its unique configuration and the variety of exercises that one enables.

If you’re looking to use a Multi-Functional Workout Bench, you probably already have some solid fitness experience.  But where the Multi-Functional Workout Bench differs from most other at-home gym equipment is that it focuses very specifically on the body’s core: The lower back, glutes, abs and obliques.  Through a variety of exercises, you’re able to target each specific area, while also working he entire core for better overall results.

More Than Just Abs: Glutes, Glutes, Glutes

While a Multi-Functional Workout Bench is often used for abdominal exercises, it provides real benefits in other areas as well. Working the gluteal muscles is often a difficult and staggering workout. Squats, deadlifts, lunges and the like can be particularly grueling – and those exercises can develop unwanted muscle mass when the user may want more a toned look. 

Multi-Functional Workout Benchs offer exercises that are often more body-weight oriented, and can be very effective without bars, weights or dumbbells.  They allow you to work the glute muscles to give a smoother, more natural look to the booty – without adding major muscle mass. 

Easing Lower Back Pain

Multi-Functional Workout Benchs also provide another benefit: It can help those with chronic lower back pain.  It’s difficult to properly work the muscles in the lower back area. There simply aren’t a lot of exercises to be done without the aid of a bench to strengthen the tough-to-reach muscles in the lumbar and lower back area. 

The Multi-Functional Workout Bench has a number of exercises that involve bending at the waist and then utilizing those hard-to-isolate muscles.  While repairing tissue, bone and vertebrae is definitely not something that a Multi-Functional Workout Bench can do, it often does strengthen the surrounding muscle groups that support the lower back. 

5 Multi-Functional Workout Bench Exercises

This guide offers 5 of the top exercises that you can do on your Multi-Functional Workout Bench, and shows you how to hit your troubled areas, or to improve your already strong and solid core.

1. Side Bends

Sure, you’ve been doing side bends since your first workout. Sure they’re a staple of every yoga, aerobics and jazzercise class you’ve ever seen. But there’s a reason you’ve seen them so often: they work, and they target a particularly stubborn body part for most people.

Position your feet in the footrests in a standing position. Your hips will be sideways to the hip pads on the bench. Intertwine your fingers on top, or behind your head, with your elbows flaired out to the side.

Bend your torso to the side, exposing your hip and obliques toward the ceiling. Then, use your oblique muscles on the side of your stomach to contract and raise your torso back to the upright position. Do as many reps as you’re comfortable with. Then, switch your feet to position your other hip toward the hip pad, and repeat a set of exercises for that side of your core. Side bends are a terrific way to work the obliques and can help you to isolate hard-to-tone spots down by your hips and pelvis.

2. Back Hyper-Extensions

Back Extensions work your lower back muscles, as well as the glutes and hamstrings.  First, position the bench so that the ankle pads are at a lower setting, and in an approximately 45 degree position relative to the pelvic support pads. 

Then, anchoring your ankles in the supports, place your body weight on the Multi-Functional Workout Bench pad at the waist.  Cross your arms across your chest, then bend at the waist as far as you can without causing discomfort.  Now, finish the rep by using your glutes muscles, and pushing against the ankle pads to raise your torso back up into its original position on the bench. 

That equals one rep.  Perform Back Extensions in sets of ten or choose fewer reps until you gain more core strength. 

Once you’ve become comfortable with Back Extensions, and you need further challenge, you can perform the exact same exercise by clutching a small weighted plate or kettle bell to your chest as you rise. 

3. Multi-Functional Workout Bench Sit Ups

Multi-Functional Workout Bench Sit Ups can provide a fuller range of motion for core work and are popular CrossFit athletes, boxers and fitness competitors. 

This exercise puts an interesting spin on the traditional sit-up or abdominal crunch.  With sit-up benches, there is a pad that provides support to the exercise, keeping a constant shape to your abdominal movements.

With Multi-Functional Workout Bench Sit ups, your feet are anchored in the pads, with the pads set low.  Hook your feet in, then sit down on the pelvic pad, with the back of your thighs providing support to your torso.  With your hands behind your head, lean back as if doing a traditional sit up.

Only lean back as far as your torso is comfortable. Then raise your upper body up to a horizontal position, focusing on your abdominal area to provide the muscle for the lift.  As you get more comfortable with the exercise, you can also add weights to your chest to add tension to the sit-ups.

4. Reverse Crunches

Lower abdominals are a troubling area for many people. Traditional sit-ups don’t hit those muscles very hard, and fat tends to deposit there. But with a Multi-Functional Workout Bench, you can work your lower abs just as easily as you do your upper abdominals.  

With the hip pad raised, lay down on the back pad with your head towards the hip pad. Grasp the handles attached to the hip pad, with your feet pointed toward the floor. Focusing on your core muscles, raise your legs straight up to a forty-five degree angle to the back board. When your legs have reached that angle, push your pelvis and hips toward the ceiling. Complete the repetition by lowering your pelvis back to the bench, and slowly lowering your legs back down to the floor.

This is a more complex movement than most, but it is a great exercise to help isolate lower abs, your lower back and your glutes and hamstrings.

5. Dumbbell Fly’s

While the bench is often used for abdominal and core exercises, it can also be used for more traditional dumbbell exercises. It can also be used to focus on upper body exercises that are normally done at the gym.

Dumbbell fly’s are an excellent exercise for shaping and toning pectoral muscles. Position the bench with the back pad flat, and horizontal to the floor. Then, slide your knees under the hip pads as you lay your torso flat on the bench. With a dumbbell in each hand (make sure it’s light to start) spread your arms out to your side. Keep a slight bend in your elbows to maintain control of the weights.

Once you’ve reached the weights all the way out to the side, raise the weight back up toward the ceiling in a controlled meeting. Do not do this with straight arms. Rather, move the dumbbells upwards as if you’re hugging a barrel. This isolates your outer pectoral more effectively and will give your wrist and elbow joints more support. Do this exercise in sets of ten, or until you’re comfortable.

Finish Strong!

While the Multi-Functional Workout Bench is often overshadowed at the gym, it’s the perfect piece of home exercise equipment because it addresses so many areas of need for those who use it.  Whether you’re looking to improve your core strength, increase the definition of your waist, thighs and glutes, or to build those stubborn lower back muscles, the Multi-Functional Workout Bench from Finer Form can help you to achieve your goals.

 Thanks to Ryan at HomeGymMag for helping us with this article.