When it comes to muscle building, Bench press is the most common exercise. In every movie scene at gym, there is at least one guy doing bench press. I bet that when you first time went to gym, this one was the exercise you wanted to try out. Why? Because big chest looks really impressive, but bench press is not all about chest – it works out a lot of other muscles too – such as triceps, shoulder muscles, traps and others. In this article I will try to get together everything related with the Bench Press.. from facts and correct technique to myths. So, enjoy your reading!
Ok! Some basics about bench press. In this article I will tell you about flat barbell bench press but there are a lot of variations such as incline/decline bench press, bench press done with dumbbells and others but that’s for other articles. Major muscle worked out chest and triceps – minor deltoids, traps and back.
Now let us move on to the right technique guide! This is vital because you can harm yourself really badly if the bench press is done wrong. I mean even separation from sports for life, so be careful with this one! But once you will master the technique with light weights you will think: ’’how can someone do this wrong?!’’ So start slowly in order to get best results and rocket up in weights and size of your chest!
First. Understand that this is NOT some kind of joke or some dance movement! This is serious exercise – do it slowly and stay concentrated in all periods of exercise. This exercise seems easy at first, but when you will find yourself under the barbell with shaking hands, you will change your mind very fast. So – lie down, find yourself a comfortable position under the barbell (nose facing the barbell.. this can be individual, but it should be about that way). When you feel ready for the lift, place your hands on the barbell a bit wider than shoulder width (there are a few more positions but I will explain them in other articles) and WRAP your palm around the chest, place your thumb AROUND the barbell – if you won’t do that you will find the barbell falling on your chest faster than you can say: ‘’United States of America’’. Do as said above and you can feel safe on the bench press bench. Next thing to do is to take out the barbell from the rack, do it slowly and concentrated even with light weights. Then follows the bench… lower down the barbell to your chest at the nipple line and then press it straight up after the bar touched your chest. Do not forget to breath… correctly – inhale, hold your breath on the way down – exhale moving the bar up. Legs.. feet .. keep them FLAT on ground – do not move them around as a dancer in some club.
So let us move on to the common errors in Bench Press.
- Bouncing the weight off the chest. DO NOT DO THAT!!! You can hurt yourself badly! And do not rest the bar on your chest. Do the exercise under control, let it touch your chest and then lift it up. Simple as that!
- Inhaling, then hold it while lowering the bar and exhale on lifting up – your lift should be explosive!
- Feet. Leave them in the same position. Stay rooted.
Some myths about bench press.
- Maxing out very often. Many thinks that doing the one rep max often will increase it – no. Only working out the right way and eating the right food and supplements will maximize the maximum.
- Doing the chest exercises more than twice a week. Wrong. Every muscle needs to rest ( approx. 48 hours and after that it starts to grow! ). If you will do too much bench it can even go down not up.
- Do not compete with your friends at gym.. Sometimes it is interesting but you should not do that, because if someone can lift more than you – you can try too hard making some mistakes in your way and ending up with injuries.
- Wrong warm-up. You should do a full body warm-up + a warm up set with the bar.. light weight, slow motion.. all as it should be.
- Do not hold your hands too close! Always hold your hands on the grip and try to hold them closer to those no-grip O areas.
- Shaking on the bench. Stay hard as steel! You are not some kind of techno dancer! You are an athlete so act as one!
