Everything You Need To Know About The Pelpo Weight Bench

Pelpo are a company that hasn’t been around long, but their weight benches for the price are surprisingly impressive. These guys build quality weight benches and sell them at affordable prices.

Stable, Well Built bench, Foldable

Their benches are a long way off commercial-grade. Still, for home use, they are good enough, and if you’re on a budget? Their range of adjustable benches are worth some serious consideration.

Today, I will take a close look at their workout bench called the Pelpo Hermes adjustable weight bench. It’s their most affordable option available, yet it still boasts some great features such as 6 adjustable back pad positions, a stable build,  2″ padding, and foam rollers for support when performing decline presses and sit-ups.

Why Do We Like The Pelpo Adjustable Weight Bench?

The best feature of this bench has to be the number of back pad angles it provides and the angles at which they adjust. There are too many cheap benches out there that do not adjust to a near-vertical.

Why is near-vertical important? We need a near-vertical back pad position to perform seated shoulder presses correctly; you will see a lot of benches in this price bracket that adjust to just 70 degrees. This angle won’t let you target the shoulder fully.

If you want to hit the shoulder hard, you need a weight bench with a max incline of anywhere between 80-90 degrees which thankfully the Pelpo includes.

As well as a near-vertical, this bench also includes decline, decline is useful as it allows you to perform decline presses and sit-ups, decline presses are great for adding mass to your lower pectorals, and decline sits ups will give your abs a good workout, plus you have the support of the foam rollers for your feet to keep you stable.

There are a few other incline positions for incline bench pressing etc.

Another big positive of the Pelpo back pad is that it uses a ladder adjustment system. Ladder adjustment systems are much faster to adjust than the pull pin type. They’re also studier and can take heavier weight loads.

Nothing wrong with pin pull-type adjustment systems, except when featured on cheap benches. They tend to break under heavy weight loads. Pin pulls are okay on commercial benches because the quality is there, but if you are going to buy a low-cost bench id recommend going for a ladder adjustment system, if only for safety reasons.

No Adjustable Seat

The only real drawback of the Pelpo bench is that it doesn’t include an adjustable seat. Adjustable seats stop our butts from slipping down the bench in low incline angles, and without one, you won’t have a stable base to press from.

Not having an adjustable seat isn’t a deal killer as we only really need one for low incline bench pressing. If you’re not planning on performing this exercise, you probably won’t miss having an adjustable seat.

But for the more serious trainers who want to press heavy at low incline angles, the lack of an adjustable seat is something I know many of you will not go without. (check the People Ares bench comparison end of this review, includes adjustable seat)

Click here to check price of Pelpo Weight Bench on Amazon

660lb Weight Capacity – Realistic For A low-Cost Bench?

660lb is a high weight capacity for a bench that costs under $100. Most budget benches like to claim high capacities, but in reality, if you took one of these benches every day to its max capacity, it wouldn’t last a month.

High weight capacities are typically reserved for heavy-duty benches built from heavy gauged steel that cost at least 3 times what the Pelpo does.

The Pelpo is a light bench, and although it says commercial quality steel, it’s not the heavy gauge stuff. This is a light folding bench designed for light to medium dumbbell workouts, and while it might take its max capacity a few times, I  wouldn’t risk it regularly.

With any low-cost bench, I’d recommend staying at least 100lb under its max capacity if you want the bench to last a few years. And remember the max capacity of a weight bench includes your own body weight,

The Pelpo may not be suited for heavy barbell workouts, but it’s a great bench for dumbbell workouts. If you own a set of 50lb Bowflex or Powerblocks, this is a great bench to go with them.

Stability  – WSide Stabilizers & Adjustable Foot Caps

Low-cost weight benches like the Pelpo don’t have the weight to help keep the bench stable, so they have to make up for other design features.

What we need to see on a bench in this price bracket are wide stabilizing feet at the rear and front of the bench, which the Pelpo includes.

It’s also good to see that the Pelpo includes adjustable foot caps. These are excellent for keeping the bench level on uneven surfaces.

And lastly, this bench is quite low, which is a good thing because not only will the low center of gravity keep the bench stable, it will also allow shorter users to place their feet firmly on the floor when bench pressing.

10 Minute Assembly

Thankfully most of the Pelpo bench comes pressabled. All you’ll have to do is screw in the stabilizing feet. Clear instructions are provided. I haven’t heard of any horror stories of assembly concerning this weight bench. Most people got it together in under 10 minutes.

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Pelpo Ares Weight Bench

The Pelpo Ares Adjustable Bench is the big brother to the Hermes bench we looked at above. The Ares bench costs about $30 more and there’s a good reason for it.

The Ares bench includes all the good stuff about the Hermes bench such as a quality stable build, “2 foam padding, and ton of adjustment angles for the back pad, the big difference with this bench is that it provides a four-way adjustable seat.

A couple of other minor differences: the Ares bench provides one extra back pad position. It folds properly for storage (to almost half its original footprint), handy for those of you who lack space to house a bench permanently.

Both benches have a max capacity of 660lb, which tells us the quality of the build is very similar.

Is it worth the extra $30? yes, if your workout schedule includes low incline bench pressing as an adjustable seat is essential for support.

I also like the fold for storage feature on this bench its a much better design than the Hermes, which just partly folds.

So depending on your workout schedule the Ares bench might be a more suitable choice for your needs.

To Sum Up

Even though the is their cheapest option, I was impressed with what was on offer. It’s one of the only lightweight benches that doesn’t suffer from stability issues because of its lightweight build, with many users praising how stable this thing feels when in use.

I was happy to see the bench includes a near-vertical back pad position for shoulder presses, something many benches dont include, even a few of the high-end ones, and I loved that Pelpo Hermes boasts a ladder adjustment system. Super quick to adjust and study.

Overall an excellent, well-priced dumbbell bench. If you can live without an adjustable seat, I see no reason why anyone will be disappointed with the Pelpo Hermes Adjustable weight Bench.