I grew up lifting weights the way most people did—in my basement with a set of Sears weights and a dubiously constructed bench that felt like it was going to drop the barbell on my larynx after every set. I even used the tried-and-true self-spotting method, when I got stuck, of tipping the bar to one side and sliding the plates off, then hanging on as the bar flew up and dropped the rest of them in a big, noisy pile—which caused my mother to come running every time.“What happened?!?”Back then, I think we all used to do the same thing—bench and curls, five or six days a week. That’s all anyone ever wanted—a big bench, and big biceps. Hell, that’s pretty much all anyone still wants in the gym, as evidenced by the dozens of guys you’ll see, every day, clustered around benches and standing in front of mirrors doing curls.When you’re young, this kind of training isn’t a problem. It’s how you learn. Unless you’re completely blind to life’s cause and effect relationships, you see what’s getting you bigger and stronger and you modify your training in favor of what’s working, discarding what’s not.When you’re older, however, and you haven’t taken the time to pay attention to programming and technique, this bench/curl style of lifting isn’t going to work anymore because it’s bound to lead to injury. I did this for way too long—benching with too much volume and poor technique—and my shoulders have paid a steep price. It wasn’t until I was older, and done playing college sports, that I realized I needed to find a better way to do things. My shoulders were fried, I was in pain, and my bench went absolutely nowhere for several years.In my last article, I covered programming your training for a bigger bench. Here, I’m going to address some major technique points that, if incorporated, will help you add weight to your lifts and avoid the wear and tear injuries that make it so difficult to continue benching heavy as you get older.
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Grip
Keep it shoulder width, and never outside the rings on the barbell. The wider you go, the more stress you’re putting on your shoulders, and the less impact your triceps have on the lift. As we’ve discussed previously, your triceps are vitally important to a big bench, because they’re the muscles that should take over about halfway through your range of motion, and they’re the muscles that lock out the bar at the top so you can complete the lift. If you’re too wide, it takes them completely out of play.
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Elbows
Your elbows shouldn’t be flaring out. They should be tucked toward your sides, and they shouldn’t extend out at any more than a 45-degree angle from your body. This, too, will help avoid shoulder injuries, and as we’ll explain further, it helps turn the bench press into a full-body exercise, taking advantage of the power produced by your legs.
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Tight Shoulders
Before you get into position to bench, retract your shoulder blades as tightly as you can, and “squeeze” them down into your lats. You want to stay in this position throughout, because this gives you a nice, tight base to push from. Staying tight in this manner also decreases the distance the bar has to travel from your chest to lockout. This is what coaches mean when they tell you to “get into your lats” when you bench.
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Tight Arch
The only parts of your body that should be touching the bench during the lift are your butt, your traps and your head. You should arch your body into this position, taking care to ensure that your lower back and shoulders remain tight throughout. Line up with your head slightly behind the bar and work your way into a position where you’re able to comfortably press the bar without ramming it into the J-hooks.
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Leg Drive
Your body should feel like one piece, from your heels to your traps. Your feet should be in a position where, if you push your toes into the front of your shoes, you feel yourself sliding backward toward the bar. Now, instead of allowing yourself to slide backward, position yourself on your traps so you “roll” back onto your traps instead of sliding toward your head. When the bar hits your chest, violently push your feet forward in this manner, and you’ll feel that leg drive assist the bar in getting off your chest. This is difficult to describe in writing, and it takes a lot of practice, so be patient. It’s worth it, though—I’ve spoken to powerlifters who’ve said that leg drive has given them upwards of 150-200 pounds on their bench press.
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Bar Path
Contrary to popular belief, everyone’s bar path is different. Some people are better off as “belly benchers,” while others are better served pressing the bar from just below their nipples. It works the same way with the path the bar traces upward. Some people are stronger pushing it in a straight line—it’s the shortest distance to the top, after all—while others, for a variety of reasons, are stronger if the bar drifts “upward” and finishes over the face. As with everything in the gym, experiment and find what’s right for you.
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A Word About Grip
Although nobody’s sure exactly what happened, the recent USC football bench press accident has brought a great deal attention to the thumbless “suicide grip” style of benching. We don’t know for sure if that’s why a loaded barbell fell on the athlete’s throat, but it needs to be stated that this is a grip for advanced lifters only‐and that it’s not really advisable for them, either. Wrap your thumbs around the bar in a conventional grip and squeeze the bar tightly. That will help encourage the tightness in your shoulders and lats that’s essential to building a solid base to press from.
9 of 10
Set-Up
If your gym has a power rack (cage), that’s where you should be benching. When you bench in a rack, you can set everything up exactly where you want and need it—the bench itself, the J-hooks and the spotter bars. If you’re benching by yourself without spotters, position the spotter bars just under your arch, so if you get stuck, you can simply loosen your arch and let the barbell rest on the spotter bars without injuring yourself.Additionally, it helps to use benches with soft leather in order to get that heels-into-traps feeling without sliding backward. If your bench is too smooth for this, lay some Muscle and Fitness Strength Bands flat across the length of the bench in order to get traction.
10 of 10
Video Analysis
Yes, workout videos are a running joke on YouTube right now, but you don’t necessarily have to film yourself and share everything with the world. Video yourself from a variety of different angles and make sure your form is correct. With any technique, what we think we’re doing isn’t what we’re actually doing, so it helps to step outside yourself and see things from a distance from time to time. It’s also sometimes necessary to exaggerate certain movements. You may think you’re tucking your elbows properly, then look at yourself on video and see that you’re still flaring them. Video analysis can go a long way toward solving these types of problems.
I grew up lifting weights the way most people did—in my basement with a set of Sears weights and a dubiously constructed bench that felt like it was going to drop the barbell on my larynx after every set. I even used the tried-and-true self-spotting method, when I got stuck, of tipping the bar to one side and sliding the plates off, then hanging on as the bar flew up and dropped the rest of them in a big, noisy pile—which caused my mother to come running every time.
“What happened?!?”
Back then, I think we all used to do the same thing—bench and curls, five or six days a week. That’s all anyone ever wanted—a big bench, and big biceps. Hell, that’s pretty much all anyone still wants in the gym, as evidenced by the dozens of guys you’ll see, every day, clustered around benches and standing in front of mirrors doing curls.
When you’re young, this kind of training isn’t a problem. It’s how you learn. Unless you’re completely blind to life’s cause and effect relationships, you see what’s getting you bigger and stronger and you modify your training in favor of what’s working, discarding what’s not.
When you’re older, however, and you haven’t taken the time to pay attention to programming and technique, this bench/curl style of lifting isn’t going to work anymore because it’s bound to lead to injury. I did this for way too long—benching with too much volume and poor technique—and my shoulders have paid a steep price. It wasn’t until I was older, and done playing college sports, that I realized I needed to find a better way to do things. My shoulders were fried, I was in pain, and my bench went absolutely nowhere for several years.
In my last article, I covered programming your training for a bigger bench. Here, I’m going to address some major technique points that, if incorporated, will help you add weight to your lifts and avoid the wear and tear injuries that make it so difficult to continue benching heavy as you get older.
Grip
Keep it shoulder width, and never outside the rings on the barbell. The wider you go, the more stress you’re putting on your shoulders, and the less impact your triceps have on the lift. As we’ve discussed previously, your triceps are vitally important to a big bench, because they’re the muscles that should take over about halfway through your range of motion, and they’re the muscles that lock out the bar at the top so you can complete the lift. If you’re too wide, it takes them completely out of play.
Elbows
Your elbows shouldn’t be flaring out. They should be tucked toward your sides, and they shouldn’t extend out at any more than a 45-degree angle from your body. This, too, will help avoid shoulder injuries, and as we’ll explain further, it helps turn the bench press into a full-body exercise, taking advantage of the power produced by your legs.
Tight Shoulders
Before you get into position to bench, retract your shoulder blades as tightly as you can, and “squeeze” them down into your lats. You want to stay in this position throughout, because this gives you a nice, tight base to push from. Staying tight in this manner also decreases the distance the bar has to travel from your chest to lockout. This is what coaches mean when they tell you to “get into your lats” when you bench.
Tight Arch
The only parts of your body that should be touching the bench during the lift are your butt, your traps and your head. You should arch your body into this position, taking care to ensure that your lower back and shoulders remain tight throughout. Line up with your head slightly behind the bar and work your way into a position where you’re able to comfortably press the bar without ramming it into the J-hooks.
Leg Drive
Your body should feel like one piece, from your heels to your traps. Your feet should be in a position where, if you push your toes into the front of your shoes, you feel yourself sliding backward toward the bar. Now, instead of allowing yourself to slide backward, position yourself on your traps so you “roll” back onto your traps instead of sliding toward your head. When the bar hits your chest, violently push your feet forward in this manner, and you’ll feel that leg drive assist the bar in getting off your chest. This is difficult to describe in writing, and it takes a lot of practice, so be patient. It’s worth it, though—I’ve spoken to powerlifters who’ve said that leg drive has given them upwards of 150-200 pounds on their bench press.
Bar Path
Contrary to popular belief, everyone’s bar path is different. Some people are better off as “belly benchers,” while others are better served pressing the bar from just below their nipples. It works the same way with the path the bar traces upward. Some people are stronger pushing it in a straight line—it’s the shortest distance to the top, after all—while others, for a variety of reasons, are stronger if the bar drifts “upward” and finishes over the face. As with everything in the gym, experiment and find what’s right for you.
A Word About Grip
Although nobody’s sure exactly what happened, the recent USC football bench press accident has brought a great deal attention to the thumbless “suicide grip” style of benching. We don’t know for sure if that’s why a loaded barbell fell on the athlete’s throat, but it needs to be stated that this is a grip for advanced lifters only‐and that it’s not really advisable for them, either. Wrap your thumbs around the bar in a conventional grip and squeeze the bar tightly. That will help encourage the tightness in your shoulders and lats that’s essential to building a solid base to press from.
Set-Up
If your gym has a power rack (cage), that’s where you should be benching. When you bench in a rack, you can set everything up exactly where you want and need it—the bench itself, the J-hooks and the spotter bars. If you’re benching by yourself without spotters, position the spotter bars just under your arch, so if you get stuck, you can simply loosen your arch and let the barbell rest on the spotter bars without injuring yourself.
Additionally, it helps to use benches with soft leather in order to get that heels-into-traps feeling without sliding backward. If your bench is too smooth for this, lay some Muscle and Fitness Strength Bands flat across the length of the bench in order to get traction.
Video Analysis
Yes, workout videos are a running joke on YouTube right now, but you don’t necessarily have to film yourself and share everything with the world. Video yourself from a variety of different angles and make sure your form is correct. With any technique, what we think we’re doing isn’t what we’re actually doing, so it helps to step outside yourself and see things from a distance from time to time. It’s also sometimes necessary to exaggerate certain movements. You may think you’re tucking your elbows properly, then look at yourself on video and see that you’re still flaring them. Video analysis can go a long way toward solving these types of problems.
