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How to Bench Press Correctly and save your Shoulders

Yeah i do the toes only touching the floor as my legs are bent back towards me.
If my legs are streight down and feet flat then i lose tightness in my lowerbody and that seems to negatively impact my bench, something i would never of dreamed of 1 year ago
i also take shoes off for ALL barbell lifts nowadays
Give it a go, for me this is almost essential for those 120kg+ benches
 
JDizzle said:
Yeah i do the toes only touching the floor as my legs are bent back towards me.
If my legs are streight down and feet flat then i lose tightness in my lowerbody and that seems to negatively impact my bench, something i would never of dreamed of 1 year ago
i also take shoes off for ALL barbell lifts nowadays
Give it a go, for me this is almost essential for those 120kg+ benches
Click to expand...

I forgot my gym shoes yesterday so had to squat without shoes, wasnt a fan.

I put the arch in my back but i dont get an all over tightness like they describe in the videos. Im going to try again on wednesday and try to get that tightness all the way up. Thinking i might not have my legs back toward me enough.
 
Your feet should be as close to being under your arse (not directly under, but on the same vertical plane) as possible. That's how you get super tight in the lower body.

You may need to work on some hip and ankle flexibility to be able to do that.

Get someone to push a little against your legs after you've set up to check how tight you are.
 
Heres some advice that may not go over too well with some of you.

For those of you that bench less than 140kg, get strong at pressing before you worry about feet, shoes etc.

Too many major in the minor shit. Become a strong presser first.

I remember reading about a Russian coach who said his lifters did no assistance work for the bench until they could bench 140kg.

I recently had lifters at PTC who can bench 100kg + try some BB incline pressing. They failed with 60kg.

Get strong first. Lie flat, push your feet hard into the ground, stay tight, press. Control your breathing. Dont worry about arching and feet under your ass, get strong in the pecs, delts, tri's, and upperback first.
 
There's another school of thought (e.g Dave Tate's) which tells you to learn how to bench RIGHT first before adding more plates on the bar and injuring yourself.

Besides, feet under your arse keeps you tight, and when I arch & learn to bench that way, I feel my pecs, delts, tris and back working way harder than when I just lie flat there and press it up.

It only takes a few sessions to learn to bench like that. Not exactly "majoring in the minor stuff".
 
arching also reduces range of moement unless your competeing in powerlifting I wouldnt be arching at all.... benchinf with your back flat on the bench and arching is a bit like military pressing and push pressing.... true power is when a lifter does it back on the bench all chest power...
In saying that if your competeing in powerlifitng etc then you shuodl defifnitly learn how to arch use leg drive properly etc.. But I agree with markos.. too many people worried about the technicalities when they shuold be worried about getting strong.
 
Dancelot, look at your bench, 100kg, ring Dave Tate and tell him your benching 100kg, ask him where your feet should go.

See what he says

Guess where I got the line "major in the minor shit" ?

Your concern should be to get stronger. Period.

I benched 165kg before I ever heard about chains, bands, boards, arch, deloads etc

Your concern should be to build some muscle and get stronger. Technique for a non competitive gym lifter.

Lie flat on the bench, push feet into ground, press, breathe. Do this till you put another plate on the bar.
 
Seeing as how I couldn't even TNG 110kg, then with a bit of technique work, I paused it, Im going against the grain here and say proper technique is quite important.
I can see me benching 120kg in the not to distant future. Something I could have never dreamed about without getting the technique better.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
yeh but sticky can you bench 110 kg through stregth..... ie without using leg drive without arching..... the whole point is to get stornger... I agree and im sure markos does that technique arching, leg drive, breathing properly you will get gains any one will the question you should be asking is have you gotten 10kg stronger or have you just gained 10kg through better technique... because once you have the good technique tou wont keep getting big gains because you will need more strength.... each to there own.. Ill follow ur benching progress with a keen eye and see if you progress as quickly now u have good technique or if the improvements slow down until you get stronger..
 
Most, if not all of the gain is due to technique. But now that I'm benching correctly, i reckon the gains will be more constant. I took me well over 6 months to add 2.5kg to my bench with poor technique and hard training. I guess we will see in the coming months.
I just don't understand the logic of getting strong with poor technique........ Why not by strong with good technique?
Posted via Mobile Device
 
PTC said:
Dancelot, look at your bench, 100kg, ring Dave Tate and tell him your benching 100kg, ask him where your feet should go.

See what he says

Guess where I got the line "major in the minor shit" ?

Your concern should be to get stronger. Period.

I benched 165kg before I ever heard about chains, bands, boards, arch, deloads etc

Your concern should be to build some muscle and get stronger. Technique for a non competitive gym lifter.

Lie flat on the bench, push feet into ground, press, breathe. Do this till you put another plate on the bar.
Click to expand...

M do you think that if you had come to know of all these different techniques earlier that you would have been able to bench more than 165kg? Or even bench the 165 earlier than what you did?

Im more into getting everything correct to stop the pain im getting in my shoulders. Im trying to fix this so i feel as though i may as well get everything right now instead of later. Im pretty sure the fix to my shoulder pain is to bring my elbows in towards my body. Also i have been raging Military Press like never before (up to 80kgx3 x 5 sets as of last night yay!). Hoping Military Press will carry over to my bench both in terms of pressing more as well as stopping shoulder pain. We will see in a couple weeks :)
 
Markos, for sure my concern is just to get stronger. And as for Dave Tate, I follow his advice in his 6 weeks BP cure course. Learn to bench right, and don't worry about assistance exercises, which is exactly what I'm doing. Looking in my logs, you'll see that I hardly do any assistance for bench. My BP training consists of BP and occasionally some curls or OHP.

I don't understand why you have to ignore technique - and the setup is crucial for good technique - in order to get stronger. It's not like learning good technique, particularly the setup, is hard and takes a lot of time. It took me 3 sessions to learn it from Dave Tate's video and according to people at the PL club I just joined, my technique & setup look pretty decent (apart from grip width and speed off the bottom).

I'd agree with you if learning the setup were a long process with very minimal gains. The fact is that it's simply not true. It's very easy to learn with significant gains.

I agree with Scott that having the right technique makes the gain more constant. When I had a shitty setup & poor technique, my bench was stuck at 80kg for a couple of reps for months. While it's not anything to brag about atm, I've been getting constant gains in the last couple of months.
 
BigJim said:
Im more into getting everything correct to stop the pain im getting in my shoulders.
Click to expand...

One thing the arch does for me is exactly that. With a flat back, the shoulders are in a terrible position at the bottom of the BP as the bar touches your chest. With an arched back, it's far better.
 
Dancelot, your a gym lifer, not a competing powerlifter. If and when you compete, you will be a novice for a year or two.

Get strong now.

Thats all, you'll do as you like, just offering some free advice.
 
Great advice too Markos. I'll tweak my form for that comp in October, but I know I need to get a few more plates on the bar so I'll just keep cycling PPP until I get strong. I used to plateau only because of rotator cuff issues when I hit the high weights though. Now I know how to arch and lower forward to just below my ribs with my elbows tucked in, I'm taking the weight on my muscles and have something I can grow.

Failing on my shoulders was always my problem. I think the correct form, if not perfect, will allow me to progress steadily now.

Cheers mate,
Mike
 
Big Jim, we'll never know lol

Looking around at clients and comps, not too many guys under 200lbs bench 165kg, a true bench, no arch or bounce, no belly, bar to nipple, bum on bench, straight up, drug free.

The PA guys have more experience than me, I'm guessing they would have seen stacks of them.

Kelly benched 161kg @ 85kg and 160kg at 81kg, thats the best at PTC.

Adam Coe and Laurie Butler never used a band or chain in their lives, pretty strong lol
 
I guess at the end of the day, time spent under the bar will always trump the small things such as feet placement.

Was the 165 paused M?
 
I'm all for getting technique sorted out, but I think that PTC has a fair point about keeping it simple and sticking to the basics for building strength. I know I am moving off track, but I thought I'd chime in anyway.

I'm a grumpy old sod, but it seems to me that people seem super keen to find a whole bunch of ways to complicate a simple movement.
The most important things for raw benching are consistent and smart training. Its not that I don't see the benefit of working on technique or adding chains and bands and all that- its just that, aside from working out fair form, that stuff is no where near as important as moving the barbell. It might seem obvious, but so often I hear people talking about this stuff like its a shortcut or some kind of magic formula. I recall a line Vinny Dizenzo offered once when I was discussing weightlifting nerds- "stop lifting books, lift more weights".
I know knowledge is good- but I can see his point. I have trained alongside dudes who follow all the latest trends, read all the articles, use all the 'tricks'. More often than not these guys make less progress than the guys who just train and focus on shifting iron.
Personally, I have found that set up etc is most important for equipped lifting or in competition- where every inch can make a difference, angles matter and stability is tested. For training, generally speaking, its not so important. The more I progress and learn the more I have found straight weight with no frills the best path.
 
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the vidio one page 1 is exacley the way i teach bench be it a new lifter or an experianced one why not get it right the first time not just gains in load ,strength,but lots more safty for shoulders ,i also use some of the newer trends to get top results ie bands ,boards but they are a very small percentage of bench time i can not recomend enough the page 1 vido, that tells you all ,study it get every point right, after a good sesion you should have sore lats not recked shoulders
 
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