Bench Press Grip Width

[jones137]

Quick question on how wide my grip should be on bench press. I've been putting my pinkie finger on the ring and it's been hurting my shoulder pretty bad. If I narrow my grip up a lot I don't have any problems. I'm 6'3" with some really long arms and really wide shoulders....wingspan of a little over 7". How narrow can I go before I lose the reason for doing bench press?

[speedjason]

pinky on the ring? I assume the bars are all the same?
a rule of thumb you want to bend your elbow less than 90 degrees when you are all the way down.

[LiftingSteve93]

I'm same height and have long arms but I like to use a grip in between the rings and the end of the knurling. So it's almost a close grip, but not quite.

[mobikwa]

You want your forearms to remain vertical throughout the movement, find a hand position that allows this.

[jones137]

I'm same height and have long arms but I like to use a grip in between the rings and the end of the knurling. So it's almost a close grip, but not quite.

That's exactly what I did tonight and it felt perfect and put my forearms and elbows in the correct spot. Thanks brah.

[matjusm]

pinky on the ring? I assume the bars are all the same?
a rule of thumb you want to bend your elbow less than 90 degrees when you are all the way down.

All bars are not the same. A standardized IWF bar (Olympic weightlifting bar) is 91 cm from ring to ring. However the non weightlifting or powerlifting specific 20kg barbells can have all sorts of distances between the rings. I've seen ones that were the same as the IWF bar, I've seen some that were narrower. Unless you know precisely what specifications your bar was built to, this is not something you can always rely on.

One simple test I've found is to simply measure the distance from the collars of the bar to the rings with the palms of your hand.