Bench Press (touch bar to chest or not?)

[SlipshodDread]

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.

This was going to be my point... Outside of hardcore powerlifting/strongman gyms you pretty much never see anyone able to handle 400lb+ on benchpress. Anyone who does has spent time developing and strengthening their chest.

And yes, I agree, if a 143lb teenager came up to me telling me how to lift I'd laugh in their face. Funnily enough at my work there's a guy similar to that except he weighs less than 135lbs, who believes he is the fountain of knowledge of body development. I really enjoy hearing about his 120kg shrugs and 20kg single arm front raises (which when I challenged him to lift something weighing 27kg in front of him with 2 arms suddenly turns into "my shoulders are ****"). Not to mention how awesome kickbacks are for triceps and how it has aided the development of his 11 inch cannons. Although the piece de resistance was "The burning sensation you get when doing crunches is the fat being burnt away".


@Oskar98: Please inform us of your max bench, so that we can get pecs like yours....

[bl1tzkr13g]

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!

I agree whole-heartedly. Its a touch or a pause... Same way the people attempt to bounce during deadlifts...

I've attempted to offer some polite advice to a few individuals with bad form and/or bouncing. Most get a straight bro-titude and get angry that they have an inflated ego. Therefore, I've stopped offering advice to people during a workout, unless they come ask.

[Justin93]

I usually do full ROM, but with heavy weight I go about an inch or so from my chest. Being 6' 4" I've got some really long arms so I definitely feel some stressful tension being put on my rotator cuff when I do full ROM with really heavy weight. I think it depends on the individual, but for most people I would say all the way to the chest is the way to go.

[YolkedPinoy]

Touch chest with no bouncing! Fk half benching

[veggie530]

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.

quoted for truth.

people are so concerned over whether or not other people are touching their damn chest. Do I? Yeah. I'm 5'9" and have a 69 inch wingspan, why wouldn't I? But my buddy who's 5'10" and has a 76" wingspan doesn't because it ****s with his shoulders. He gets good results, so do I. To each his own!

[Exdee]

Always. Using a full range allows me to record progress properly since i always go to the same spot. When people dont touch, there range of motion tends to change every rep so its hard to track weight increases.

Came to post this

[Lolzords]

soo..ill explain this for the 3 rd time today now./
whether your 5', or 9', it doesnt matter, its the same range of motion, the ratio to size is still the same!
sure, the bar goes higher on the guy who is 9' tall, but hes also got longer arms and everything to push it that far. the entire body is longer, not just your arms. same goes for squatting. doesnt matter how tall you are.

Most people have arm spans = to body length, some have arm spans many inches greater than body length aka long ass arms. Some people have shallow chests others have deep chests. A person with short arms relative to body height and a deep chest relative to body height has a shorter range of motion when benchpressing than someone with long arms and a shallow chest relative to body height. Some people have greater sternal angles aka a convex chest and others a shallow sternal angle or a chest that is flat or very slightly concave. Not everyone can comfortably get the bar to the chest without placing the glenohumoral joint in a hyper extended weak position to press from. Over stretching a muscle also reduces it's ability to contract because it reduces the surface contact of the myosin and actin fibers creating a very weak initial starting point for the muscle to contract.

[zezi25]

IMO, unless you have any injury that prevents it, if you are not touching your chest then you can't call it a bench press, just name it a "bend elbows press". Unless you have a absurdly large arm span, if you do the bench press properly (shoulder blades retracted, leg drive, etc etc) you'll most likely aways touch your chest.

[beartendon]

Touching the best is much safer. If you stop before the bar touches the chest, you are exposing your shoulders to much more stress from completely stopping the momentum of the barbell. There are assistance exercise like the floor press/board press where the barbell stops midway, but the bar is stopped by something like a board on the persons chest.