Benching correctly.

[The Defiant One]

How to? Is it as simple as raising the bar up and down with a certain amount of reps? Cause i'm hardly feeling any strain upon my chest although I do struggle to actually lift the bar.

O.o whats even stranger is that I don't feel any muscle soreness when I wake up.

[Thai Bri]

https://www.hardgainer.com

[EmptyneSs]

How to? Is it as simple as raising the bar up and down with a certain amount of reps? Cause i'm hardly feeling any strain upon my chest although I do struggle to actually lift the bar.

O.o whats even stranger is that I don't feel any muscle soreness when I wake up.

you arent doing it right. you should feel your chest muscles rdy to burst from contracting so hard.

keep your back on the bench and your feet on the floor.

try pinch your shoulder blades together a bit when u lift, it may help you hit your chest better.

dont lock out your arms when u raise the bar, bring the bar back down before your arm actually locks. this actually makes a huge difference in the lift, as your muscles are worked constantly.

raise and lower bar slowly.

dont lower it too much or you will strain your sholders. what i mean by this is press the bar back up right before your elbows reach your chest.

bar should be aligned right below the chest, or aligned with your nipples.

dont press too much weight, or you wont be able to lift correctly.

3 sets of 8-10 reps should be good. do em nice and slow with proper form.


try doing a set of pushups till failure after each set of bench.

[The Defiant One]

alright i'll try.

[Thai Bri]

Ahem. Do lower the bar to your chest. Otherwise your doing what is called a "partial".

These can be useful when applied by well developed experts, but not by anyone else. To ordinary folks its just a cheatin'!

[eXcessiveForce]

one fist length from the chest is generally accepted as far enough down.

[Thai Bri]

By who pray tell?

[SamuraiGuy]

By pussies, thats who....

Sorry XF but its true.

Go to the chest, and ALWAYS lockout, if you dont lock it out, its not a rep, and if it doesnt hit your chest, its not a rep. Also you should actualy pause with the bar on your chest, keep holding it with your arms, but count, one one thousand.

This will give you the full workout of actually lifting the weight, not "bouncing" or springing it up in a plyometric type movement.

The reason you need to lockout, if you dont you wont be fully working your triceps out, TRICEPS are the benchpress muscle, not so much the chest, and I'm not talking about close grip benchpress. You need the chest, but the triceps are the muscles your using for the majority of the lift.

If you really want to work the chest, put your grip out farther, this places more emphasis on the chest muscles, and less on the triceps, consequently decreasing the space between your hands, in a "close grip" bench will work the triceps more.

You need to touch your chest though, even if you dont pause, you need to touch your chest, and you need to lockout. You have to do the full reptition.

[eXcessiveForce]

In many personal training courses such as ACE and ACSM.

Place your fist in the middle of your chest. To figure the distance to bring the weight down. For well developed lifters the bar can still touch the pecs even when this is used. This keeps someone from resting the bar on the chest at the bottom of the lift. It also keeps new lifters from arching their back.

I have also seen it expressed as 3 inches from the sternum

[J-Luck]

you arent doing it right. you should feel your chest muscles rdy to burst from contracting so hard.

keep your back on the bench and your feet on the floor.

try pinch your shoulder blades together a bit when u lift, it may help you hit your chest better.

dont lock out your arms when u raise the bar, bring the bar back down before your arm actually locks. this actually makes a huge difference in the lift, as your muscles are worked constantly.

raise and lower bar slowly.

dont lower it too much or you will strain your sholders. what i mean by this is press the bar back up right before your elbows reach your chest.

bar should be aligned right below the chest, or aligned with your nipples.

dont press too much weight, or you wont be able to lift correctly.

3 sets of 8-10 reps should be good. do em nice and slow with proper form.


try doing a set of pushups till failure after each set of bench.

Sets and reps heavily vary depending on the goal.

Also, neg and pos reps should not be the same speed... neg rep should be coming down at a rate of 3 while the pos rep should be coming up at a thrust, or rate of one. Same as squats or any other weight lifting exersise.

[J-Luck]

By pussies, thats who....

Sorry XF but its true.

Go to the chest, and ALWAYS lockout, if you dont lock it out, its not a rep, and if it doesnt hit your chest, its not a rep. Also you should actualy pause with the bar on your chest, keep holding it with your arms, but count, one one thousand.

This will give you the full workout of actually lifting the weight, not "bouncing" or springing it up in a plyometric type movement.

The reason you need to lockout, if you dont you wont be fully working your triceps out, TRICEPS are the benchpress muscle, not so much the chest, and I'm not talking about close grip benchpress. You need the chest, but the triceps are the muscles your using for the majority of the lift.

If you really want to work the chest, put your grip out farther, this places more emphasis on the chest muscles, and less on the triceps, consequently decreasing the space between your hands, in a "close grip" bench will work the triceps more.

You need to touch your chest though, even if you dont pause, you need to touch your chest, and you need to lockout. You have to do the full reptition.

Hitting the chest with the bar causes unnecessary strain on the shoulders, decreases the ability to bring it up therefore interferring with gains. It's generally acceppted by powerlifters, athletes, and body builders do come the fistlength above the chest as XF said.

Locking out is bad... since when is the bench(widegrip) a tri exersise? I've trained with all different lifters with all different goals and have not once heard this, in fact only the opposite.

[Thai Bri]

Yes, it is so generally accepted by powerlifters that their lifts don't count UNLESS they touch the chest!

Sounds like a training method for the egotistical to me, as the less you go down the more you can "lift".

[eXcessiveForce]

most of the guys that lift in my gym who go down to about three inches of the sternum are touching the bar to their pecs.

Allowing the bar to sink into the chest is also grounds for disqualifing a lift in powerlifting.


Powerlifters do lock out, whether that is smart or not is a different story.

all this is probably moot as the original poster was talking about feeling it, sounds to me more of bodybuilding than it does of powerlifting. Also since they are struggling with the bar, that to me indicates a person who is probably quite young. So the recommendations of the various training certifying bodies to increase safety are probably even more important.

Just depends on what you are training for. Bench press really isn't a great lift for functional strenth anyway.

For the reasons above i'd tell the person to switch to dumbbells and make sure your stabilizers are in good shape before trying to life heavy on a bar.

[EmptyneSs]

locking out your elbow can be harmful to the elbow joint, or so ive been told. ive never, ever seen anyone advocate locking your arms out in 6-7 years ive been lifting.

[eXcessiveForce]

yeah locking joints in weightlifting is generally considered dangerous and foolish.

You can "lock out" without actually locking the joint though. That is just the term they use for full extension