The Bench Press

[MalcolmX]

The Bench Press​

How do I properly perform a bench press?​

Starting Strength​

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Quick, down and dirty. If you want more detail, go buy Starting Strength. This is not a bodybuilding bench press, nor a powerlifting bench press. This is a basic bench press. Don't point to westside-barbell.com or Metal Militia's site and tell me that I am explaining the bench wrong. Don't point to one of Bob Chik's video posting/explanations and tell me that I am explaining the bench wrong. This is the standard bench press for a novice.

1. Lie flat on the bench, ensuring that you are evenly balanced from left to right. Falling off of one side of the bench in the middle of a press is embarassing and decidedly non-anabolic. Your eyes should not be gazing directly beneath the bar, but rather looking just past the "foot side" of the bar.
   
   
2. Your feet need to stay on the floor at all times, and not move. If you need to get blocks or use plates on either side of the bench so your legs can reach, then do so. Don't lift your feet in the air or rest them on the bench. Your knees should be bent at approx. 90 degrees, and your feet should be on either side of the bench, with your legs spread at approximately 30 degrees to either side. An extra wide stance will generally be uncomfortable, an extremely close stance will not allow for proper stability and can encourage the lifting of the butt off the bench, which is a no-no. Find a comfortable stance and foot width, and maintain it throughout the motion.
   
   
3. Your glutes should stay in contact with the bench at all times, and should be contracted during all repetitions to help maintain a stable base.
   
   
4. Tuck your shoulder blades underneath your body and pinch them together and down. This will elevate the ribcage and stabilize the shoulder girdle. Maintain this state of tightness in your upper back/traps during all repetitions. This will also create a natural arch in the lower back, and will create a stable platform out of your upper back muscles for you to press from. This is called "shoulder joint retraction" and will make your rotator cuff very happy when benching.
   
   
   

   
   
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5. Without protracting your shoulders (allowing them to roll forward/upward and lose tightness), reach up with each hand and grasp it an equal distance from the center of the bar. Use the outer "smooth ring" as a reference point. You should use a hand spacing that places your pinkies within an inch or 2 of the smooth ring. Wrap your thumbs around the bar and allow the bar to rest along the heel of the hand, rather than up near the knuckles (which will cause unnecessary stress to the wrists)
   
   
6. Lift the bar straight up with locked elbows (still touching the rails) and bring it straight forward over your nips. These are two distinct movements, not one. Remember each rep begins and ends with locked elbows. Do not unrack the bar and immediately lower it to your chest from the rack in a diagonal line. Make a mental note of where the bar is in relation to the ceiling. Find a spot, beam, or other marker to use as your visual reference point. If no point pre-exists, make one. The bar will return to this point after every repetition.
   
   
7. From a stopped position with the bar directly above your nipples, take a very deep breath, maintain tightness in the upper back and "pull" the bar to your nips in a controlled fashion. Your elbows should not flare or tuck excessively. Ideally, your upper arm bones (the humerus) will form an angle that is approximately 40-60 degrees from your torso. If your elbows flare out wide to the sides (~90 degree angle) then you hit your pecs incredibly hard at the risk of your rotator cuff's health. If your elbows tuck into your body (20-30 degree angle) then you will place too much emphasis on your triceps and delts, and not enough on your pecs. Your forearms should form about a 90 degree angle with the bar and with the floor (straight up and down). This is illustrated in the final picture on the left. If his grip was any narrower or wider his forearms would either be acute or obtuse to the bar. Having your forearms going straight up and down allows for the most efficient transfer of force to the barbell. You might need to experiment with hand spacing to find this "sweet spot."
   
   
8. Touch the bar to your shirt, not to your chest - if you visualize this and then try to perform it, this will pretty much guarantee that you don't bounce off your chest.
   
   
9. Press steadily and evenly to complete lockout without hyperextending your elbows or protracting (lifting) your shoulders from the bench (i.e. your upper back/traps should stay tight even at the top).
   
   
10. Lather, rinse, repeat
    
    
11. On the final repetition of the set, do NOT press directly toward the rack. The last rep should look identical to the first. You will press the last rep to lockout directly over the chest, and then bring it straight backward until it hits the rails of the bench, and then it will be lowered. Any attempt to press the final rep directly into the bench rests (diagonally) could result in the loss of your face if you miss!

 

[MalcolmX]

What are the most common errors in benching, and why do they occur?

1. Half-assed bench press: This occurs because you shorten the ROM by several inches when you pop your hips off the bench, and also allows for hip drive to actually assist. Keep your ass directly planted on the bench at all times and this won't happen.
   
   
2. Bouncing: This occurs because people want to be able to use stretch reflex as well as the flexibility and rebound properties of the sternum and ribcage to help get the bar up. Only ever touch the bar to your shirt and you shouldn't have a problem with rebounding.
   
   
3. Lifting one leg while benching: this usually occurs in the novice who has asymmetrical strength/coordination/flexibility. The stronger side arm presses the bar too fast, and the bar tips toward the weaker side. In an attempt to "rebalance" themselves, they lift the opposite leg, which, of course, doesn't work. Keep both feet firmly planted, and push them down during the press, this will keep them from rising off the ground. Also make sure to press both arms at the same speed, don't lift the bar at an upward/downward angle.
   
   
4. Lowering the bar/pressing the bar unevenly: happens for the same reasons as the "lift one leg". One side will be stronger or more flexible, so the bar will typically be lowered farther on this side than the weak/tight side. While pressing, one side will shoot up and the other side (the weak side) gets stuck. This is a shoulder joint wreck waiting to happen. If you have issues with this, you will have to correct this with firm concentration on pushing with both arms at the same rate and not to give the stronger arm the advantage.
   
   
5. Not tucking your shoulder blades properly - this leads to a whole host of problems:
   • If one shoulder blade is tucked and the other isn't, then one shoulder joint is stable and the other is loose. Again, this is a shoulder-joint train wreck waiting to happen.
   • If your shoulder blades aren't tucked, then your base will NOT be stable, and you will be pressing from a big pile of mush. Imagine standing on a row boat in a calm pond. If you are balanced properly on the rowboat (stable), you can jump straight up into the air without too much issue. Now imagine standing on the rowboat, but you are off balance. One side is lower than the other side. Try and jump...you can't generate any type of pressure or force when you press off of an unstable base. Your shoulder blades are the same way. If they are loose, then they can wobble around, and you cannot press properly or with any power, not to mention the rotator cuff injuries you open yourself up to with this kind of unstable position.

Should I pause while benching?

Simply; no.

Pausing at the chest during a bench press is the primary technique adjustment of the powerlifter. In order to get "3 whites", the powerlifter must lower the bar to the chest and hold it there briefly until the official signals him to press. For a powerlifter, it is a necessity to pause their bench press during a contest.

During training, there are advantages and disadvantages to pausing (or not pausing). For now, those advantages and disadvantages are irrelevant. Lower the bar to your lower pectoral region, and "touch your shirt" without touching your chest. In other words, touch very lightly without bouncing. Don't worry about pausing. That is beyond the scope of this discussion.


I have a sticking point in my bench press, how do I fix it?

In a normal person who is doing a standard grip bench press, the lifter will get usually stuck a few inches off of their chest. At the very lowest point in the lift, the lats and anterior delts are going to be strong relative to the pecs and triceps, which will be weaker at this point in the motion. As you press the bar from your chest, the pectorals begin to take over the motion, and eventually "hand it off" to the triceps.

People make the mistake of assuming that they can automatically determine the weak point just by knowing where in the motion the sticking point occurs. Professional powerlifters who use bench press shirts know that a poor lockout is caused by triceps that aren't strong enough (relative to the spring in the shirt and the strength in their pecs). However, in a non-assisted athlete, this determination can NOT be made without examining the technique across a full range of motion, as well as examining strength in the various muscle-specific strength benchmarks.

In other words, if someone tells you what your weak muscles are just by reading where in the bench press motion you get stuck, then they are full of shite. There is a lot more than meets the eye.

Something can look like a pork chop, but smell and taste like chicken.

Regardless, your sticking point exists not because one muscle is weaker than another, but simply because you are untrained. Spend at least 4-6 months of steady, consistent pressing, both supine (Bench press) and overhead, and then we can worry about where your sticking point is.


Can I do bench presses without having my thumbs wrapped around the bar?

No. There's a good reason this is called the "suicide grip."


Can I do DB presses instead of barbell presses?

There are a few reasons why the barbell version is the preferred "initiation" to the supine press (as the bench press used to be called). Firstly, this is a barbell program and only barbells are used. On this movement you will be adding 10 pounds, 5 pounds and eventually 2.5 lbs per workout. This is impossible to do with dumbbells, where only ten pound jumps are usually possible. (Dumbbells go in 5 pound increments and 2 dumbbels make that 10 pound increments. No good.) Also barbell availability is much more commonplace than dumbbell availability, and this is a "minimalist equipment" sorta program.

Don't use DBs in this program. Their use is wholeheartedly and enthusiastically endorsed by Mark Rippetoe and I (and any experienced strength athlete who has used them). However, their use is not warranted on this program.


Should I do inclines instead of flat bench?

The overdevelopment of the lower pectoral and the possibility of shoulder injury are not 2 things that a novice need concern himself with as long as their technique is proper.

Your lower pecs aren't presently overdeveloped when compared to your upper pecs. You don't have either upper or lower pecs, so neither could possibly be overdeveloped relative to the other. Both, however, are definitely UNDERDEVELOPED. With the tools at your disposal, the flat barbell bench press is the preferred introductory exercise for upper body chest pressing strength when compared to the incline press. The incline press is an outstanding exercise, and its use is encouraged as training and conditioning progresses, but the potential pectoral and strength development of the flat barbell bench press is simply higher than the incline press, and as such, use of the flat press should be thoroughly explored before making the decision to refocus your supine pressing efforts elsewhere.

As for the shoulder injury issue, the vast vast vast majority of pectoral tears occur in one of the following scenarios:

1. The injured party uses steroids, and has developed his strength faster than his connective tissues can safely support.
2. The injured party uses weights that are far too heavy for him, and he uses them far too often.
3. The injured party uses poor technique, frequently bouncing the weight off his chest
4. The injured party has poorly developed upper back musculature, which makes all supine pressing a relatively precarious event.

Assuming you do what you're supposed to do in this program, it will be years before you would ever need to even worry about a potential pectoral or shoulder injury arising from bench pressing.


Can I do hammer strength or machine or smith rack bench presses?

No.

Machines of any sort are not used in this program. The basic fundamentals of balance are not learned on machines, the overall neural response is lesser, and the muscular stimulation is ultimately less.

More advanced trainees can and probably should incorporate useful machines into their training for various reasons. Machines have no place in the training of a novice, however.

If you've already been defeated by the barbells, then don't bother with this program. If you want to use machines as a novice, then go get a membership at Curves or Bally's and do whatever the trainer there tells you to do.

Spoiler: Credits

All credit goes to Mark Rippetoe. These text are simply ideas contained within his books.

Sometimes a very complex idea requires a very simplistic solution. Starting Strength details that simplistic solution, and Practical Programming follows up with information to maintain the trainee's progress.

If you want a more detailed description, go buy Starting Strength (on Amazon) for yourself.

 

[smith]

Why not watching a relative video tutorial instead of reading long post? Are you looking for a such a realistic plan then i recommend to watch a video tutorial of Edward Checo.

Those tutorial are for those who love to learn from video tutorial instead of reading long post.