Mastering the bench press

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As of 2014, the bench press and the deadlift have swapped places. Now, it's hip to have a 400++ lb deadlift and a weak bench press (meaning that anything beyond your hamstrings and core is weak as all f*ck), and the bench press is the new exercise everyone loves to hate and who everyone believes will injure them. I think a lot of people struggle with the form in this exercise (a lot of people struggle with form in deadlifts as well, but this won't leave you trapped below the bar), so therefore, I'm making a thread about proper form. Proper form in bench press may actually help you lift more, depending on what aspect of the bench press exercise you struggle with.

Note that this guide is divided into two posts, because of the limited amount of pictures that can be used in one post.

Why do the bench press?

A lot of people think that it's an unnecessary exercise; they couldn't be more wrong. No barbell exercise will activate more muscles in your upper body than the bench press, and while many people think that it's merely a chest exercise, your pecs will only do 1/3 of the job. The press itself is done with the pecs, the triceps, and the front delts, but you'll still use your traps, your lats, your core, and your rear and side delts to stabilize the weight; nobody can stabilize 300 lbs or more with a weak core.

Arm and shoulder position

A lot of people get this wrong. These people lift with their arms all the way to the side, and place the weight on their backs rather than their rear shoulders. While you are reading this, try raising your elbows to shoulder height with your palms and forearms facing forward, and your upper arms facing outwards. Now try pushing your arms backwards until your hands reach chest level. Notice that this is both difficult and painful. Now try the same, but with your upper arms in a 45 degree angle instead of a 90 degree angle, and notice how much easier this is.

Proper arm positioning:



Wrong arm positioning:



Most olympic bars have rings. While there are no standards for the placement of these rings, your little finger should be placed directly on the ring on an Eleiko bar. Flex your rear delts and place the weight on the upper back and rear delts before liftoff. This will spare your rotator cuffs a lot of pain. If you keep these rules in the back of your head, you'll notice that the bar "automatically" goes where it's supposed to go (your lower chest or upper abs).

Muscle tension

The bench press exercise begins with an eccentric movement from the top. This is because you need to keep the tension in your muscles before the bar reaches your chest. The trick is to get all your muscles to work together (which is actually easier for an aspie than an NT, at the cost of inferior fine motor skills). While 1RM competitions have a rule that says that you should pause the bar at the bottom of the lift, the lifters themselves still manage to keep the tension during this pause. This rule is only in place to check that the lifters do not bounce the bar of their chest (Newton's 3. law), and generally, during your working sets, you should not pause the bar at the bottom. Nevertheless, you should keep your eccentric phase at three seconds, and your cocentric phase as fast as possible.

How far down?

If you keep your arm positioning right, going all the way down is not difficult. As mentioned, you should keep the eccentric phase slow, and if you can manage it, try letting the bar reach your chest with so little force that it won't even crack an egg shell. You should never bounce the bar of your chest; only posers do this and the worst case scenario if you do this, is that you fracture your ribs.

Lower back and leg/feet positioning

You'll notice that some people lift with their backs arched like a horseshoe. While this is technically legal, it's a loophole in the rules, and most people who do this are posers as well. This could potentially cause severe damage to your lower back, and because the range of motion is significantly lowered, it won't leave much room for strength or muscle gains either.

Feet positioning isn't that important, but it's recommended that you keep your stance 1.5 times wider than your shoulders, and keep your feet turned 30 degrees to the side.

How posers lift:

[img][800:804]http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ta42MzZ-Hjs/maxresdefault.jpg[/img]

How you should lift:



This doesn't mean that you should lift with a flat lower back, but that you shouldn't arch your lower back. You can (and should) still raise your chest by placing your weight on your rear delts.

In general, the bench press is not a complicated exercise. To properly understand the exercise, you just need to know the basics of Newtonian physics and statics.

Last, but not least (FAQ)

- Will the bench press injure my shoulders?
If done correctly, no. I see plenty of exercises at the gym that are far more harmful, such as extremely wide grip pullups (something posers do as well), crossfit exercises, behind the neck pulldowns, Smith machine squats, and so on. While I do have a permanent shoulder injury, this was caused by pull-ups and dips; it doesn't keep me from bench pressing, though.

Most injuries from bench pressing happen when the lifter racks the weight, not when the lift itself is performed.


- How often should I bench press?
This depends on what other exercises you do. I don't bench press more than once per week, but I still do incline presses, military presses, narrow grip bench presses and various isolation exercises related to the bench press twice per week. There are many roads to Rome.

- How much will I eventually be able to bench press?
This depends on your genetics. On an "average" man, the genetic maximum can be anywhere between 120 and 180 kgs, with 150 kgs being the median. Some (rare) genetic freaks can reach 270-280 kgs naturally, though. Cut these numbers in half if you're a woman.

- How much will steroids help?
As a rule of thumb, steroids won't boost your maximum lift more than 15% if you're at your genetic peak and at a medium bodyfat level. They'll help you a lot more if you wish to keep your lean mass when cutting, though.

They're generally far more effective as far as strength goes on women, but the effects on women are also far less reversible.


- Should women bench press?
Absolutely! Any exercise that's beneficial to men is beneficial to women as well. A woman only has 1/20th of the testosterone levels of a man, and won't end up looking big and bulky from bench pessing.

- Should I use a Smith machine?
Unless you intend to use it as a coat rack, stay away from the Smith machine. The Smith machine forces you to use a fixed range of motion, and won't activate as many muscles as bench pressing with free weigths will.

- Should I lift with a spotter?
If in doubt, always use a spotter. You can ask a random person in the free weight section in the gym; most weightlifting enthusiasts are both helpful and friendly.

- Where can I find more info?
Mark Rippetoe's YouTube guides and Muscle & Strength are both good places to look.

Ive always used dumbells as I get pain in my wrists from the fixed range of bars, what am I likely doing wrong which causes this?