Proper Bench Excercise?!
Question: When i bench press, i usually dont bring the bar all the way down to my chest. Some people suggested that it's ok to bench without bringing the bar down to the chest. I usually bring it down to where my tricep would be parallel to the floor, forming a 90 degree angel with my elbow. Can anyone explain to me the disadvantage of doing that?
Thanks in advance
Answers: When i bench press, i usually dont bring the bar all the way down to my chest. Some people suggested that it's ok to bench without bringing the bar down to the chest. I usually bring it down to where my tricep would be parallel to the floor, forming a 90 degree angel with my elbow. Can anyone explain to me the disadvantage of doing that?
Thanks in advance
This is a little tricky. You want to perform the exercise through the fullest, safe range of motion to engage the muscle fully, but many people have shortened ranges of motion due to bad training or form habits that prevent them from initially doing this.
Ideally, you should bring the bar to your chest. However, you probably are weaker or less flexible at the bottom "stretch" position in the movement, and this is preventing you from handling the same amount of weight that you can at the mid-point or top of the motion.
By the way, DO NOT bounce the bar off your chest. Not only is it dangerous (the force literally can stop or distrupt your normal heart rhythm), it's terrible form and actually reduces muscle load because you are using the momentum from the "bounce" to drive up, and not working the muscle.
The best strategy here is to add in some exercises that allow you to train the muscle at the bottom, stretch-portion of the motion. Best bets are dumbbell chest presses, which allow you to go much deeper with your motion and get a better stretch. The key here is to reduce your weight by at least 25% from your normal bench weight and focus on the movement and going deep, versus pushing tonnage. Within a few weeks, you should notice a difference on your bench.
You can also throw in some alternating dumbbell chest presses, where you push the dumbbell up with one arm, while you bring the dumbbell down on the other side. You'll find that you can go really deep with this approach. Again, you will need to lighten up substantially, because it's a more challenging exercise from a coordination standpoint. I included a link to how to perform this below.
You can also train deeper on the bench, but again, you need to substantially reduce the weight you are using so that you can handle the load in the stretched position. Reduce the load, by about half to start, and then gradually add weight until you get to the point where you can do 8-10 reps with the bar at your chest.
Finally, as Mr. Burns points out, the chest press machine is actually very good for training from the stretched position and increasing range of motion. You'll want to set the machine at the lowest comfortable position, so that you are beginning the movement in a pre-stretched state, with your elbows past parallel. As you become more flexible, you may be able to even move the handles back another notch or two. Because you begin the movement in the stretched position, you'll be working your weakest muscle fibers first in the movement, when the pecs and triceps are less fatigued from the top-portion of the exercise. This is one example of when machines can be really valuable. Plus, because you don't have to balance the bar, you can go a little heavier.
Also, if you have any shoulder problems or impingements, you need to be very careful training your chest in highly-stretched positions past parallel. In those cases, start very light and stop if you notice any pain or discomfort.
By the way, expect to be VERY sore after doing these stretch presses ... especially at the beginning. This is a good thing, though.
Best of luck!
The full exercise with the bench press is putting it down to your chest. It took me a while to get the form down too. If you're having trouble getting the form use a chest press machine or something similar that works out your chest.
you want to bring down to your chest. you quickly bring it down bounce off chest and explode up. if you dont touch chest it really does not count as a rep. bringing to chest will help to because you will be able to do the movement more quickly instead of holding at 90degrees then pushing it up.
It is my opinion that if you are trying to do a maximum on bench press, it must touch your chest. If you are doing reps, keeping your triceps parallel to the floor is ok but maybe you should try to go a little lower. Also, you definitely do not want to bounce the bar off your chest as someone else suggested. You need to keep the weight in control throughout the whole range of motion.
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