Ultimate Bench Press Tutorial for all Beginners - Body Knowledge Park 2019
- Frank
- Jan 23, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 25, 2019
If you think the Bench Press is just an exercise to push a bar up and down , that'd be absolutely wrong!
Bench Press is considered the best exercise to increase the size of your pecs. But always remember that you should do it before getting enough knowledge and understanding its risk, or you better hire a professional trainer. And that's what Body Knowledge Park wants to deliver to our reader, "Lift your knowledge of what you're doing."
People all love the bench press. Nowadays, the bench press has literally become the measure of the man. “Whaddya bench, bro?”, that's no wonder the benches are the most popular equipment in the gym.
However, there are 7 common mistakes that you might often see from other people in a gym or it's happening on you but you even don't know about it.
#1 Hips off the bench
Lifting your hips transforms your body into an arch from your feet to your shoulders, and puts massive strain on your spine. Don’t do this. Keep your gluteus on the bench at all times. Also, arch with your upper-back and thoracic spine, not your lower back.
Mainly seen being used by power lifters in order to shorten the distance the barbell has to move, but not for any beginners.
#2 Bar Bouncing
That's sort of cheating. When you bounce the bar off your chest, you’re using momentum to lift the weight. This means that your muscles are actually doing LESS work, and this will also result in less muscle growth and strength development.
Furthermore, if it comes to a heavy weight, the bouncing is highly possible to ruin your chest and cause terrible injury.
#3 Unfixed Feet
Your feet should be planted firmly into the ground and they shouldn’t move during the entire set. Despite the bench press works out your upper body, but it requires your whole body, including your legs and core muscle group, to make the exercise work in place.
#4 Pressing With Scapula.
When you perform the bench press with your shoulder blades flattened out, your shoulders lose their solid contact with the bench and have nothing to properly drive backward against.
Not only does this reduce the total amount of weight you can press, but it also places undo stress on the shoulder joints as well. In order to stabilize your shoulders and prevent potential injuries, always ensure that your scapula is retracted and locked down throughout the bench press exercise.
#5 Incorrect Bar Path
The path of the barbell is not a straight up and down. Actually it should start from the parallel to the top of your shoulder and end at your lower chest. This distance is longer than with a vertical bar path. But it prevents shoulder injury.
#6 Improper Grip Width.
If you grip the bar too wide or too narrow, your forearms are forced into an unnatural angle that compromises your strength and increases the stress on your shoulders, elbows and wrists. Using a medium grip just outside shoulder width is optimal for bench pressing.
#7 Wrong Breathing
A weak breathing would tremendously reduce your strength to the entire result of bench press. This is a common mistake for most beginners that they can't improve their weight of bench press just because of the wrong breathing method.
Always make sure take a deep breath before your first rep, then exhausting at the top. Regarding the inhale timing, it can be either done at the top after exhausting or do it during lower the barbell.
What you can do to improve your bench press performance?
Making a checklist and make sure you are doing these correctly during the entire bench press process.
1. Bench position
Line up your eyes with the bar and make sure your neck is positioned neutrally to prevent injury.
2. Set your feet
There are several ‘acceptable’ foot positions, all of which require your feet to be firmly planted on the floor. Try to keep your feet back toward your butt as far as you can while still keeping them flat on the ground. Depending on your height and body type, having a natural and firm position is the priority.
If you've got your feet planted firmly on the floor, you will be able to generate power by pushing from that base when you hit the dreaded sticking point. Having your feet on the floor also helps maintain the arch in your back, which we'll explain in the next section.
3. Arch your upper back
Arch your upper back and lock down your shoulder blades at the same time. Setting your scapula backward and keeping it attached to the bench during the whole press as possible as you can. It allows you avoid too much engagement of the scapula, reduce the possibility of injury and create more senses for the chest when you push up the barbell.
4. Hand placement
Your grip width will depend on your body type and goals. There are various grips used in performing the barbell bench press, but today we'll just focus on the general grip used for the standard barbell bench press.
You may have never given much thought to how wide apart you place your hands on the bar when benching, but simply moving your hands in and out on the bar has big effects. It can direct the stimulus from your upper to lower pecs, or from the inner to outer pecs. Your grip can even alter the range of motion and how much weight you can push.
Making sure that your wrists are in a neutral position, as this places great stress on your wrist. You can also lift more and produce more power by utilizing this positioning.
5. Lower the weight slowly
Now, nicely controlling the barbell and lowering the weight slowly to your lower chest.
When barbell comes to the button of your lower chest, your upper arm and forearm should form a 90-degree angle. Remember, the RM (repetition maximum) is just a number of goal, more importantly, is to feel the tension where the stress comes from weight instead of bouncing it up and down meaninglessly.
6. Push back the barbell
Use your whole body in the push back. Push against the floor with your feet. Keep your upper back muscles tensed and keep the upper back on the bench for stability. The power of push back should be produced from your feet first then deliver it to your back and explode the strength upward to your chest in the end.
7. Squeeze the barbell
By squeezing the bar, your arms, chest, lats, legs, and glutes will tense up—and that needs to happen when you have a heavy weight over your chest. Squeezing the bar will activate the triceps more and help you with a stronger bench press.
Imagining you're trying to bend the barbell (even it's not possible) but just imagine that.
Last but not least, don't let a wrong breathing messes up your entire process. Keeping the breath smoothly and regularly, tense your core muscles and make sure your chest
is involved as possible as you can.
Now you have the tools to bench safely and effectively.
If you're interested in upgrading to a higher level, let's check what Mike Westerdal said in
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