Home Gym Machines World

They may be a rather obscure piece of equipment in most gyms – even many ‘iron pits’ – but weight releasers really are a useful piece of home gym equipment for free weight users, particularly those who are looking at maximizing their strength. Free weights, for those who aren’t aware of the terminology, are your bread and butter weight training equipment – the barbell and dumbbells.

Weight releasers are designed to be used in conjunction with squatting and bench pressing barbell exercises, to allow for a greater starting weight on the eccentric (lowering) phase of a lift, and automatically de-load at the bottom of the lift, allowing for a lighter weight to be lifted on the concentric (lifting) phase of the rep.

Powerlifters make use of these simple devices to help build explosive and reversal strength.

Weight releasers take the form of a hooked rod with an adjustable length attached to a stand that sits unevenly on the ground which plates are loaded onto. They are then hooked onto the ends of the barbell, and depending on the length the rod is adjusted to, when the barbell reaches a certain position during the lowering phase, the base of the weight releasers will touch the ground, unhooking from the barbell, and will tilt forward or backward (depending on which way you have them) clear of the path of the barbell allowing you to drive back up unimpeded at a lighter weight.

Powerlifters also make use of powerlifting chains and resistance bands, which differ slightly in usage in that they don’t ‘release’ but stay fixed for every rep, with the resistance becoming greater the further you move through the concentric phase of the repetition, and less resistant throughout the eccentric.