Bench Press Tutorial
Back in my high school daze, the benchmark of strength was the bench press. Of course the gymnasts had something to say about strength, but we didn’t pay much attention to them since we thought of them as more of a circus act.
It was common challenge issued, ”Oh yeah? Well how much can you bench”? Then you had to prove it and of course there were certain rules that had to be met for it to count. Never mind all of this was done on a chrome Universal multi-station.
Once out of high school, I continued benching, now with barbells but occasionally ran into shoulder problems, sometimes lasting for months and shutting down further bench press workouts. When I started back up sometime later, I had to start over and as I repeated the cycle, I got a little smarter and would back off whenever I got a warning impingement, but I think I never really learned how to correctly bench press and I suspect many of you may have similar issues with it. It is an excellent lift, though I wouldn’t call it the King of Lifts, but like anything, if it is worth doing, it is worth learning how to do it correctly and without injury.
Smitty, of Diesel Crew puts on a very helpful bench press tutorial on how to do the bench press safely and correctly.
You may also add in floor presses or board presses which will help from the midpoint of the bench press to lockout. Other variations on the bench press theme include inclines, declines, bands and chains.
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I was always much weaker on chest bench press [the criterion] and for some reason could press more with tris. Yet I’d defend free weights because it brings other muscles into play. Not as pure, granted, but it just seems more satisfying to me.
I find dumbbell bench pressing to be very challenging and a little scary. I am sure that would change if I did them more often and did them with light weights.
Yeah, the heavier stuff you must have the spotter.