Bench Press (touch bar to chest or not?)

[longford]

when the bar touches your chest its harder to lift back up specially after a few reps ,therfore puting your muscles under more preasure witch is best.

[Ironlife]

Lol so many of these threads around, and my answer is always the same. Go as low as YOU feel comfortable and get the best results from Just because a textbook tells you to touch chest with bar doesnt apply to every single person who lifts..

If someone has trained for years or more and is always 3'' shy of touching his chest with bar when benching, then if this guy is getting great results from his chest sessions and is keeping injury free.. then why not let him keep doing what his doing.

[zildjian_4]

LOL, unfortunately the bench press is not a whole body lift. So your arms being longer is a distinct disadvantage.

EDIT: I do touch my chest, just saying short people have an advantage. My cousin is about 5'10" and benches like 365, while I only bench 225. However I deadlift way more than him. Different bodies are better at different things naturally. Not saying I couldn't surpass him with a lot of work, but your body is naturally inclined towards certain things.

im meaning the distance between shoulders is bigger too! like i said earlier, take a picture of a guy who is 5' tall benching, now blow it up 1.5x, so hes 7'6 now. no angles have changed..why?because everything is bigger!!if it were only his arms that were longer THEN it would make a difference.

on another note, you contradict yourself in the second part of your port.
saying your cousin has an advantage on bench becauase hes shorter(im assuming you mean because he doesnt have to push the bar as far) but then you go on and say you deadlift way more than him. you know you pull the bar further than he does right lol.

[jawadams]

im meaning the distance between shoulders is bigger too! like i said earlier, take a picture of a guy who is 5' tall benching, now blow it up 1.5x, so hes 7'6 now. no angles have changed..why?because everything is bigger!!

Um, no. A person who is 1.5 times as tall as someone else does not mean that he is exactly 1.5 times his size in every way! If that were true, every tall person would have a thicker waist and broader shoulders...

[nerd_power]

im meaning the distance between shoulders is bigger too! like i said earlier, take a picture of a guy who is 5' tall benching, now blow it up 1.5x, so hes 7'6 now. no angles have changed..why?because everything is bigger!!if it were only his arms that were longer THEN it would make a difference.

on another note, you contradict yourself in the second part of your port.
saying your cousin has an advantage on bench becauase hes shorter(im assuming you mean because he doesnt have to push the bar as far) but then you go on and say you deadlift way more than him. you know you pull the bar further than he does right lol.

Zildjian, do you have biometric data representing a statistically significant portion of tall people and short people to back up your claim that they are generally proportionally identical? Here are a few generalizations that I believe to be correct, which you are not taking into account:

1) Taller people have a longer limb length to torso length ratio than shorter people.

2) Taller people have a longer limb length to body width ratio than shorter people.

3) Taller people have a longer humerus length to pectoral muscle length ratio than shorter people.

4) Taller people have a longer femur length to gluteus muscle length ratio than shorter people.

If these generalizations are correct, then your whole premise (height cancels out because the proportions are identical) is false. And I believe these generalizations are correct.

-Andrew

[zildjian_4]

Zildjian, do you have biometric data representing a statistically significant portion of tall people and short people to back up your claim that they are generally proportionally identical? Here are a few generalizations that I believe to be correct, which you are not taking into account:

1) Taller people have a longer limb length to torso length ratio than shorter people.

2) Taller people have a longer limb length to body width ratio than shorter people.

3) Taller people have a longer humerus length to pectoral muscle length ratio than shorter people.

4) Taller people have a longer femur length to gluteus muscle length ratio than shorter people.

If these generalizations are correct, then your whole premise (height cancels out because the proportions are identical) is false. And I believe these generalizations are correct.

-Andrew

i believe as a generalization that the entire body is in fact proportionally larger. this is a generalization! i realize theres some short guys with long arms, or something weird like that, but im talking general.
i have a 36" waist, my buddy who is 5'10, avg looking, has a 32" waist...this is the way it usually is. shorter guys just look wider because theyre short.
there is just no reason why a tall guy cant touch his chest, the angles are all the same, same stretch on the muscles etc.

[GreenWave1]

Lol so many of these threads around, and my answer is always the same. Go as low as YOU feel comfortable and get the best results from Just because a textbook tells you to touch chest with bar doesnt apply to every single person who lifts..

If someone has trained for years or more and is always 3'' shy of touching his chest with bar when benching, then if this guy is getting great results from his chest sessions and is keeping injury free.. then why not let him keep doing what his doing.

^^^This.

There is no single right answer for everyone. Figure out what works for you and do it.

[Rsardinia]

If you don't touch your chest, it doesn't count.

[Blindead]

I've always touched my chest but from now on, until I can see the athletic trainer at least, I'm not touching. Gotta treat my shoulders like children.

[dkfan9]

i do touch, yes. well maybe upper abs/solar plexus region sometimes and not chest.

[Oskar98]

I think you should stop when the bar is just shy of touching your chest. That way, you will have full control of the bar on the negative and you'll put more stress onto the muscles since you're stopping the bar with your own force rather than just letting it hit your chest. This doesn't mean you should sacrifice ROM, you should stop the bar when it is just a hair above your chest or let it touch your chest lightly while still making sure you have control of the bar and avoiding anything that even slightly resembles bouncing. You're not gonna get a big chest from bouncing 405 off of it, bodybuilding is not about the weight, it's about stretching and squeezing the muscles while progressivly overloading them with more weight over time.

[mr.average]

Thanks for resuscitating this thread.
If you think someone who is capable of bouncing 405 off their chest has no chest development then you really have no idea.
I don't train with sloppy form but if you can get 405 back up by any means, your chest isn't small.
To all that don't touch the chest because of shoulder issues, it's not through touching the chest. It's because your shoulder girdle is imbalanced, go bring up your rear delts & train the rotor cuffs.

[MinMaxMuscle]

Thanks for resuscitating this thread.
If you think someone who is capable of bouncing 405 off their chest has no chest development then you really have no idea.
I don't train with sloppy form but if you can get 405 back up by any means, your chest isn't small.
To all that don't touch the chest because of shoulder issues, it's not through touching the chest. It's because your shoulder girdle is imbalanced, go bring up your rear delts & train the rotor cuffs.

^This. Also, everyone has a different structure and can grow from varied methods of training (some what we consider "wrong")

[GeneralSerpant]

Thanks for resuscitating this thread.
If you think someone who is capable of bouncing 405 off their chest has no chest development then you really have no idea.
I don't train with sloppy form but if you can get 405 back up by any means, your chest isn't small.
To all that don't touch the chest because of shoulder issues, it's not through touching the chest. It's because your shoulder girdle is imbalanced, go bring up your rear delts & train the rotor cuffs.

Just to let you know, this is an old thread. The Op, or whoever you are responding to, will probably not read what you're posting, and they are probably not posting anymore.

Thanks though .

[BOME]

I used to always touch the bar with my chest, until I realized it slightly helps as it adds momentum. So now what I do is I lift the bar as it's about to touch my chest.

[mr.average]

Just to let you know, this is an old thread. The Op, or whoever you are responding to, will probably not read what you're posting, and they are probably not posting anymore.

Thanks though .

I was replying to Oskar not the OP who dug this up yesterday, thanks

[TheHaggis]

I stop a bit short. Also at the top I dont go to full arm stretch, stop with a bit of a bend in my arms. Keep the tension on the muscle. Its how I get the biggest burn.

Everyone is different, you need to do what works for you and what makes you feel the burn more. My chest is very hard to 'activate' for me. I never get any soreness the days after. I've worked out with guys who compete, who have won national titles etc, who told me they guaranteed that my chest would be sore the days after. Still got no pain.

The only way for me to get any remote form of soreness (and its very minimal) is to stop just an inch short of the chest and to not fully lock out at the top. Constant tension is what works for me. If that means shorter reps but I grow, then so be it.

[LadyLore420]

my chest is small ... no chest touching for me

Problem. Cause of problem.

Touching bar to chest makes the boobies bigger.

Do it for the love of boobies, if nothing else.

[LinuxJon]

Prior shoulder injury = no lateral lifts + no touching chest.

As my chest gets bigger, it's getting closer and closer. I'm definitely less than 1" away now (and do pause here to make up for it). Occasionally it'll even make it all the way down to touch-but not always. I'm way more worried about preserving my shoulder now than that last inch.

[bl1tzkr13g]

ALWAYS TOUCH YOUR CHEST... unless you have an injury that does not allow you to.

Check your ego at the door... If you can't put the weight to your chest, you need to decrease it. Period.

[JimmyMcQuaid]

I always touch the chest. And pause it there for a second or two. And I have really long arms.

[LinuxJon]

ALWAYS TOUCH YOUR CHEST... unless you have an injury that does not allow you to.

Check your ego at the door... If you can't put the weight to your chest, you need to decrease it. Period.

To be honest, I see WAY more people cheating by bouncing the bar off their chest than I do people cheating by stopping short on flat bench.

So yes, if you can, touch your chest. But don't bounce it off either!

[devilsrule61287]

If you don't touch your chest, it doesn't count.

Nonsense. Sure, to a powerlifter, it doesn't "count", but to someone who is just trying to get stronger or grow some muscle, its not a matter of "counting" vs. not "counting. Its the difference between 90% benefit of the exercise and 100% benefit, not the difference between 100% and zero.

[devilsrule61287]

I used to always touch the bar with my chest, until I realized it slightly helps as it adds momentum. So now what I do is I lift the bar as it's about to touch my chest.

THats what I do as well. I was bouncing a bit too much, so now I stop just a bit short of the chest. Also, I now do bench press in a power cage with the safety pins, and they are set so that the bar sort of has to stop just short of the chest.

[bennmuz]

I was under the impression that it didn't count unless you touch your chest.

[NicktheStick]

I think you should stop when the bar is just shy of touching your chest. That way, you will have full control of the bar on the negative and you'll put more stress onto the muscles since you're stopping the bar with your own force rather than just letting it hit your chest. This doesn't mean you should sacrifice ROM, you should stop the bar when it is just a hair above your chest or let it touch your chest lightly while still making sure you have control of the bar and avoiding anything that even slightly resembles bouncing. You're not gonna get a big chest from bouncing 405 off of it, bodybuilding is not about the weight, it's about stretching and squeezing the muscles while progressivly overloading them with more weight over time.

Next time you see someone "bounce" 405 off their chest why don't you go try correct their form. I'm sure they would be happy to have some skinny teenager tell them they're not benching correctly.

Anyone handling 405 has a big chest... and they're probably warming up with your max.

[devilsrule61287]

I was under the impression that it didn't count unless you touch your chest.

What does that even mean? THat it doesn't "count"? When you go to the gym, are there powerlifting judges who stand next to you and say you get zero credit for the lift? I would assume that most people don't lift for the purpose of getting credit from judges, but to instead get a certain level of benefit from an exercise. And saying "you aren't getting the full benefit" is a far cry from saying "you get no benefit at all". It isn't like a squat, where stopping short can actually put your knees in a compromised position. Its just a matter of it not being quite as effective in the aggregate.

[skinny2buff6]

I used to go slightly more than halfway down, and had quite a bit of shoulder pain. I went back, corrected my form and began touching my chest. Although sometimes I will still get a bit of shoulder pain, I feel more stable when I bench press and feel like I have actually gained quite a bit more strength.

[LinuxJon]

Next time you see someone "bounce" 405 off their chest why don't you go try correct their form. I'm sure they would be happy to have some skinny teenager tell them they're not benching correctly.

Anyone handling 405 has a big chest... and they're probably warming up with your max.

pwned.

[NicktheStick]

I used to go slightly more than halfway down, and had quite a bit of shoulder pain. I went back, corrected my form and began touching my chest. Although sometimes I will still get a bit of shoulder pain, I feel more stable when I bench press and feel like I have actually gained quite a bit more strength.

If you still get some pain you should try a Slingshot... they let you work in a full ROM but help save your shoulders quite a bit. They also let you overload up to 10%