The Valor Fitness CB Preacher Curl Bench is the best on the market today but there are other great options that may better suit your needs or budget.
Better and bigger arms are a common goal – and the best preacher curl bench for a home gym is the one that helps you achieve them without costing an arm and a leg.
Today we’re looking through the best preacher curl benches on the market, which ones you should give your attention to, and how you decide what to look for.
Let’s get started!
The Best Preacher Curl Benches
- Best Overall: Valor Fitness CB Preacher Curl Bench
- Best Value: Titan Fitness Preacher Curl Station
- Most Comfortable: StrengthTech Fitness Preacher Curl Bench
- Best for Tall People: Body-Solid Powerline PPB32X Preacher Curl Bench
- Best Plate Loaded/Multifunction: GOLD’S GYM XRS 20 Olympic Bench
Best Overall Preacher Curl Bench: Valor Fitness CB Preacher Curl Bench
The Valor Preacher Curl Bench is our favorite because it balances up the needs of a good preacher curl bench with the realistic demands of finances and space.
- Good foam quality for comfort and performance
- High-quality frame and fixtures for reliable and durable use
- Comfortable and adjustable, offering good performance at a great price
- Best balance of function and value
- Lacks some of the single feature specialties of other products on our list
The Valor Fitness CB Preacher Curl Bench wins our top spot because of its high quality, despite how little it costs.
It’s a fantastic compromise between the two to give your home gym a professional feel without the commercial price tag.
It has a great triangular-shaped footprint with plenty of space but will still fit neatly into smaller home gyms.
In addition, it has a good range of seat adjustability and good angles for both the supporting arm pad and the bar-holding U-cups.
The foam and the upper quality are both great, especially considering the reasonable price point. In addition, the foam density is good, offering a soft and comfortable surface for the elbows without too much deformation during use.
Key Takeaway
The Valor Fitness CB Preacher Curl Bench is our favorite because it does everything well, and it’s cheap on top of that. It balances up the needs of a good preacher curl bench with the realistic demands of finances and space.
You’ll have a great arm workout using this product, with a well-rounded feature profile and reliable all-around build.
It’s a simple, effective, and unassuming product that will improve your workouts at a great price and fit nicely into almost any home gym setup.
Best Value Preacher Curl Bench: Titan Fitness Preacher Curl Station
A well-rounded preacher curl bench that does everything at a good level, with an excellent price tag.
- A great curl station with fantastic extra adjustability
- Comfortable and wider seat than the Valor fitness offering
- Good value with a low price and well-rounded quality
- Arm padding is lower quality than the Valor bench
- Does lack some of the more premium features you could find at a higher price
Titan offers a more affordable adjustable preacher curl station; with all the adjustability, you need to find the right angles for your body.
It also offers an adjustable pad and bar-holder height, a fantastic feature for adding more comfort and customizing your workout.
The seat is a little wider than the Valor fitness seat, making it more comfortable.
However, the trade-off is that this is a significantly larger and heavier product. This helps with stability but can make it challenging to fit in some smaller home gyms where the Valor would fit easily.
The main area where it shows this is the padding, which is a little weaker than the Valor product. However, the overall feature set is great. The added adjustability makes the Titan Fitness Preacher Curl Station one of the best value offerings on the market.
Key Takeaway
The Titan Fitness Preacher Curl Station is a perfect place to get started if you’re skeptical about preacher curl benches for home gym use.
They’re a great asset, and Titan’s product comes in at a price that makes it a fantastic ‘bang for your buck’ choice without overcommitting.
It’s a well-rounded product that does everything at a good level, with an excellent price tag.
Most Comfortable Preacher Curl Bench: StrengthTech Fitness Preacher Curl Bench
A fantastic choice for those looking for comfort and function. It’s comfortable, adjustable, and should fit most people.
- Great length for taller people at 6-foot plus
- Great adjustability in all 3 major moving parts
- Outstanding pad comfort compared to cheaper products
- Great basics with a solid frame and good stability
- Can be a little large for shorter people
StrengthTech went all-in on comfort, following Titan with the same adjustability to all 3 main set pieces: the seat, pad, and bar-holder all adjust for height.
The padding on the StrengthTech Fitness Preacher Curl Bench is a little higher quality than Titan, too, with an extended pad for better upper-arm support.
The overall design is simple and uses alloyed steel in a simple, rectangular footprint. It is a little light in the frame, producing some sideways movement. Still, it’s comparable to something like the Titan preacher curl.
The angles are good, the fixtures and build are reliable for the price, and the extended pad also makes it great for taller individuals.
If you’re over 6 foot, this is a good place to look for a combination of comfort and performance, though it does make it quite the reach for shorter people (5’3 and under).
Key Takeaway
The StrengthTech Fitness Preacher Curl Bench is a fantastic choice for those looking for comfort and function. It’s comfortable, adjustable, and long enough for most people. It’s not the obligate choice for taller people but overlaps well with the needs and demands of those over 6-foot.
The actual product is well-rounded with a small emphasis on pad comfort, making it a joy to use compared to some more minimalist products.
Best Preacher Curl Bench for Tall People: Body-Solid Powerline PPB32X Preacher Curl Bench
This is an outstanding product for taller and larger people trying to get all the comfort of a preacher curl workout.
- Extra-wide pad and seat offer great comfort
- Fully adjustable to a great full-length setting
300lbs weight rating speaks to the durability and design choices - Excellent warranty on the frame with additional parts-warranty bonus
- The bar holder is rubberized (unlike many on the market)
- Pad thickness isn't the best on the market
- The rubberized bar-holder is relatively poor quality
The Body-Solid Powerline Preacher Curl Bench is a fantastic, minimalist choice that caters to people of all sizes. While the frame is small and simple. It offers excellent adjustability in the seat, bench, and bar-holder, just like previous products.
This product distinguishes itself among taller people, with a great upper limit for these adjustments. This ensures that even taller people get a great arm workout – perfect for dealing with the challenge of arm thickness that a long wingspan demands.
It also comes with extra-wide seating and arm pads for more comfort, no matter height or weight.
This product is rated for 300lbs – which is more than you’re going to curl. It also comes with a 10-year warranty on the frame and a 1-year warranty on parts. These are great for peace of mind and ensure that the Body-Solid Powerline PPB32X has the lifespan you need to keep growing and training together for years.
The rubberized bar-holder isn’t made in the best quality, but this is a small issue for such an accommodating product at a great price. It’s also one of the only rubberized versions on our list!
Key Takeaway
This is an outstanding product for taller and larger people trying to get all the comfort of a preacher curl workout. It helps relieve pressure on long arms and is perfect for building out a home gym that suits your body and needs.
If you’ve struggled with smaller products in the past, the Powerline could be the perfect remedy.
Best Plate Loaded Multifunction Preacher Curl Bench: GOLD’S GYM XRS 20 Olympic Bench
The GOLD’S GYM XRS 20 Olympic Bench is a great multipurpose product to add serious value to your home gym in one purchase.
- Multipurpose workout bench
- Adjustable bench positions for comfort
- Fantastic stability and functionality
- Great price for the wide range of training options it provides
- Great 300lbs added weight rating with a great lever-arm design
- Does lack adjustability in the height of the pad and bar-holder
- Not much use if you already have a weight bench
This is a multipurpose product that covers a range of functions.
It’s an adjustable utility bench but, most importantly, offers a plate-loaded preacher curl station.
This is a great way to make the most of your purchase and expand your home gym massively with one product.
The GOLD’S GYM XRS 20 Olympic Bench offers a comfortable seat using high-quality padding and stability from the utility bench design. This is – of course – the best on our review list as a result.
The pad uses a wide design, but the foam is a little thin, not quite as plush as the StrengthTech finish.
The plate-loaded preacher curl is a fantastic addition that lets you put your weights to use directly on the bar.
It has a swinging lever arm that perfectly targets the biceps and a well-balanced footprint built into the length and other functions of the utility bench.
This produces a great workout, fantastic stability, and a sense of comfort that is only compromised by the foam thickness
Key Takeaway
The GOLD’S GYM XRS 20 Olympic Bench is a great multipurpose product to add serious value to your home gym in one purchase. It’s a fantastic way to get a better preacher curl experience and open up training options from presses to curls.
This is an excellent choice if you don’t already have an adjustable workout bench and expands on the preacher curl bench in some really useful and effective ways.
How We Chose the Best Preacher Curl Benches
There are a lot of benches on the market nowadays. Trust us – we know, we looked at them all to pick our best list.
Narrowing it down to only 5 was no easy feat. To help us rank the options, we used the criteria in the Buying Guide section below – including:
- Stability
- Construction & Quality
- Comfort
- Adjustability
- Weight Capacity
- Size & Footprint
- Price
Why You Should Trust Us
There are a lot of preacher curl bench options on the market and almost as many recommendations.
At Home Gym Boss we pride ourselves on being impartial and only recommend products we would use ourselves.
Sometimes it is not possible to try all the different products, so we do our research by talking to athletes, strength coaches & personal trainers, through reading user reviews, checking product manuals, assessing overall brand quality and reputation, and checking the current prices.
Benefits of Preacher Curl Benches
Preacher curl benches are a great way of isolating the biceps and opening up new ways of training.
As the name implies, they’re mostly used for Preacher curls but can help with other exercises.
The preacher curl bench is about stabilizing the position of the elbows during a curl. This shifts all the focus of the lift onto the biceps (e.g.) to improve your training effect and build bigger arms.
They’re the inspiration behind the arm blaster, but with more comfort, utility, and training options.
You can use the preacher curl with a range of different exercises, supporting various types of training equipment.
But, first, let’s look at the types of preacher curl benches and how their differences impact your training…
Types of Preacher Curl Benches
There are 3 types of preacher curl benches: barbell-holders, plate-loaded, and dumbbell preacher curl stations.
The latter is just a pad since you don’t need it to hold the dumbbells.
Barbell preacher curl benches
These offer a holder for the bar. They’re typically best combined with an EZ curl bar to relieve pressure on the wrists, elbows, and shoulders. They also offer a better bicep position to take some strain off of the tendons.
These preacher curl stations are free-standing, but they require you to already have a barbell and plates. They’re the majority of what we’ve covered in our list today.
Plate-loaded preacher curl stations
These are independent workout equipment. You only need to add plates, and they offer the rest, using a lever arm to swing the weights, giving you a great arc to your curl. This is perfect for the actual elbow-flexing function of the bicep.
Of course, this also means you only need plates to start using them. This can minimize your spend on additional equipment if you don’t already own a barbell.
Dumbbell preacher curl benches
These are just a pad. But, as we’ve looked at in the Gold’s Gym preacher curl bench, this can be a massive benefit for non-barbell home gyms. You can get a lot done with a pair of adjustable dumbbells and this kind of bench/preacher curl station setup.
These are the most versatile since they can be used with a straight bar, dumbbells, or a curl bar. The versatility is excellent, and – when attached to a fully adjustable bench like the Gold’s XRS 20 – they typically offer tremendous value by the range of things you can do with them.
What matters is that you get a preacher curl bench that suits the equipment and space you already have. The best preacher curl bench for your home gym is the one that balances up your existing equipment and your future needs.
We’ve covered at least one of these in our review list – with multiple barbell preacher curl benches with different strengths – so you can get a great idea of what to look for in each type.
How to Choose the Best Preacher Curl Bench
A good preacher bench demonstrates at least some of the most important qualities: stability, construction quality, comfort, adjustability, weight rating, and a good footprint.
These are the main features, and the more of them that a preacher curl station offers, the better. Let’s look through each and why they’re so important.
Stability
The stability of a bench is important because you will be sitting on it. It has to be able to handle your weight and the movement of your training weights well. This is particularly important front-to-back – especially if you’re using a barbell-holding preacher curl bench.
Look for a good footprint and a weight distribution that favors the seat. This will help keep the bench balanced when you start adding a bar or weights.
Construction & Quality
Anything you buy for a home gym should be built to last. It’s your equipment, and longevity should give it a lifespan that continues to help you train for years to come. Construction is always important for both lifespan and peace of mind.
This is made up of the material choices and the fixture quality. That means nuts, bolts, machining, and other errant “bits and bobs” that tend to malfunction first. Look for a high-quality build first and foremost.
These products often offer a better weight rating as a proxy for the quality of fixtures and materials and give you surplus strength in case you drop something.
Comfort
A preacher curl is all about finding proper comfort. This usually means better pads with higher density foam and a good “upper” finish. This can completely change the pressure you feel in the elbows and forearms.
It should also have a good angle that is neither too steep nor too shallow. Comfort here is about proper shoulder and elbow positioning, helping keep you safe while exercising. You also need to consider seat height.
Adjustability
The more options you have for things like seat height, pad angle, and bar-holders, the better. This is the best way to ensure that the preacher curl bench for your home gym suits you. It’s easier when you can customize the position and find something you’re happy with.
A product that has more adjustability also puts a slightly higher demand on quality. There are more moving pieces, which does bump up both the price and the need for good design and build. Price doesn’t always mean quality, but adjustability has its trade-off somewhere.
Weight Capacity
The more weight an item like this is rated for, the better. This usually speaks to the quality of the build and materials and the general design. The more heavy-duty a preacher curl bench is, the more stable it will be and the more “headroom” you provide for things going wrong.
Weight capacity is both important by itself and a proxy for other things you should look for. It’s a key buying factor, so keep this one in mind when shopping.
Footprint
This is the physical floor space your preacher curl bench takes up. It should be big enough and well-designed to spread weight evenly through the floor. It should also be balanced and stable because of this footprint, focusing more on the seated side and ideally a little more for foot positions.
A good footprint is a combination of shape, weight distribution, and the positioning of supporting feet. This is a factor in stability and size: a footprint will tell you how much floor space your new preacher curl bench will take up.
You’ll be using footprint to find a balance between stability and space-saving, so pay attention. Always measure at least twice before buying.
Preacher Curl Bench FAQs
Is a preacher curl bench worth it?
Yes – a preacher curl bench is a great investment in your home gym. As we’ve looked at with our reviews, they come at a range of prices and with myriad features and functions.
The important part is that they are “worth it” at different prices. If you’re still skeptical, you can invest in a cheaper product to see if you like the way it works. You can get more from premium products, but they are a larger investment if you’re still unsure.
Preacher curl benches revolutionize your arm training and can be small, affordable, and high quality. So whatever you’re looking to spend, there’s something worth your time on the market.
How to perform preacher curls properly?
What muscles do preacher curls work?
The preacher curl is an isolation exercise that focuses on a single muscle group — the biceps brachii, commonly referred to as the biceps.
For more workout ideas, check out our Best Dumbbell Workout You Can Do at Home.
Conclusion
A preacher curl bench is a great investment in your home gym.
As we’ve looked at with our reviews, they come at a range of prices and with various features and functions.
Preacher curl benches revolutionize your arm training and can be small, affordable, and high quality. So whatever you’re looking to spend, there’s something worth your time on the market.
Happy Lifting!