First off lets fix the rounded shoulders. This is really common in unbalanced routines. I'd stop benching and put a bunch of emphasis into upper back work. I tried to continue benching and do twice as much pulling as pushing and it took me a year to fix the imbalance. This should help.
As for keeping your shoulders back. I found this the hardest out of all the form aspects of bench. "Bending the bar" helps. Start with just the bar and focus on keeping it all pulled back for each rep. Over the course of 6-8 weeks you should get it down pretty good.
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Thread: The Bench Form Thread
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04-03-2014, 12:28 PM #61
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Experience, not just theory
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04-03-2014, 12:37 PM #62
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Not sure if you train alone, but personally I also find it 10x easier to keep my shoulder blades retracted when I get a liftoff. It's hard to get that tightness and retraction back once it's gone.
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04-03-2014, 01:32 PM #63
Yeah, before I actually got on a real routine (allpro, then ICF with a few substitute exercises,) I just did whatever I felt like whenever I felt like it.
Naturally, it has a hell of a lot of pushing exercises, only one row, which was pretty rare, and no legs.
Stop benching completely? Can I just reduce the volume, or do any other chest exercise in the mean time? Cable flys?
Thank you very much for the advice and that video, I really like scooby and his video has a lot of good info!
yes, i do train alone.
and i always prefer the spotter to not touch the bar, not even to help with a lift.
i might just practice with the bar only and slowly add weight and focus on that every time until i get it right
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04-03-2014, 03:42 PM #64
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04-03-2014, 06:05 PM #65
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04-03-2014, 10:11 PM #66
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05-05-2014, 03:49 PM #67
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This response is under the assumption you are trying to adopt more of a PL style of press.
The arch looks great for a first time trying to emphasize it. If you continue to work on flexibility it will continue to improve. It is hard to see any form breakdown with such light weight. You rocked those out pretty easy. There are only three things that jumped out at me. You've clearly got all the basics down. Just a few minor changes and you'll be looking pretty legit.
Negatives
1. Your wrist position slowly rocks back over the course of your set. The last rep shows them fairly bent. Not a huge deal as it only showed up under fatigue.
2. Your bar path is very high leading to flared elbows. This isn't always wrong, but something to be mindful of. With high reps I don't have a problem with this, but a 1RM attempt wouldn't be shoulder friendly. The easiest way to fix this is the lower your bar path down to the highest point on your sternum. It will feel weird at first, but will result in a stronger press once your triceps learn to pull their own weight. Due to the high bar path and narrow grip I also suspect your elbows don't remain under your wrists. Hard to tell from the angle. You may consider widening the grip just a bit.
3. I can't see your setup.
Positives
1. You aren't moving around much
2. Your shoulders didn't facilitate the liftoff
3. Your reps are fairly consistent in nature.
Setup is a pretty important part of setting an arch, maintaining tightness and proper positioning. Here are the two most popular methods.
Most widely used setup I think
This is another method to consider shown at 2:10 of this video.
Experience, not just theory
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05-05-2014, 05:55 PM #68
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Those are both good set-ups, but you have to be gawd damn flexible to use the first one. I know the woman in that video and she is a very, very technical lifter with tremendous mobility.
The 2nd one is money for most people IMO. You don't necessarily have to mimic the foot positioning and arching (he possesses very good flexibility/mobility as well), but it's a great way to set the shoulders.
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05-05-2014, 06:02 PM #69
Yo bench experts, gimme a form critique on my bench bridge:
My shoulder is bad and I can only bench with flared elbows without it clickin and hurting and stuff, so don't be hollerin bout my friggin elbows. Anything else is kay.Gym lifts: 260/130/285
Meet lifts: 245/130/285
Coming back after injury journal: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=169273893
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05-05-2014, 07:25 PM #70
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Her foot positioning shows extremely good flexibility. I linked the video just to show the "plant the feet and swing through" method.
Lore, I guess you deleted your post and reposted it. My critique wouldn't change, just remove the portion about elbow flare. I'd still widen your grip a tad.Experience, not just theory
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05-05-2014, 07:40 PM #71
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05-06-2014, 06:45 AM #72
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05-06-2014, 06:54 AM #73
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Davis in that second video, what's your take on how wide he grips the bar? Seems crazy wide. It seems like everyone has a different style on grip width.
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05-06-2014, 03:43 PM #74
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05-06-2014, 04:22 PM #75
It really helps a lot when you arch your back, but only when you struggle on the final rep...still a bad habit though
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05-06-2014, 06:37 PM #76
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05-12-2014, 01:23 PM #77
Just dropping in to see if I got that leg drive down.
Gym lifts: 260/130/285
Meet lifts: 245/130/285
Coming back after injury journal: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=169273893
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05-12-2014, 03:59 PM #78
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Can't watch on mobile. I'll check it later
I'm gonna post it in your log.Last edited by davisj3537; 05-12-2014 at 05:52 PM.
Experience, not just theory
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05-20-2014, 07:59 AM #79
I can nip my shoulder blades together when upright but I can't when im laying down with the bar in my hands.
any tips?
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05-20-2014, 08:23 AM #80
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05-20-2014, 08:47 AM #81
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04-24-2015, 08:06 PM #82
Well It doesn't talk much about where the bar lands on the chest.
Untrained Looking to get back to Novice| 5'7 173 pounds and down from 213 and 30% BF | 1500 cals crew | forever in deficit mode crew
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04-25-2015, 06:17 AM #83
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When your elbows are directly below your wrists/fists in the bottom position and your arms are flared appropriately (45' approx) the bar lands where it lands. Is that simple.
The touch point moves down with a closer grip and up with a wider grip and with your own personal leverages and limb lengths. So it's entirely unique to you. We can't tell you exactly but could give a rough estimate.. Which is almost always between sternum and nips.
So Once you have your arm flare worked out for how you like it, keeping your forearms vertical will drop the bar the same spot every time..
Just use and empty bar, work out your grip width so your arms flare 45' ish, lower the bar, check your forearms are lined up over your elbows
... Your that's you sorted for your touch point..
Now all you have to do is burn in that motor pattern and your set.
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04-26-2015, 07:18 PM #84
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04-28-2015, 11:17 AM #85
Post is still as good as it was 2 years ago. Good form is the key to great gains, you've probably helped so many people with this. Personally I'm use to have my heels on the bench, now that's the only way I can do it. Not sure if it'll affect me in the long run though if I decide to switch up haha.
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04-28-2015, 12:31 PM #86
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04-28-2015, 03:38 PM #87
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Just read through the whole thread. Great info Davis. I've watched lots of vids on bench, but the way you showed how to look for the correct and incorrect positioning was really easy to understand. Will have to take a vid and see if I can utilise some of this without posting a form check vid for all to see.
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04-29-2015, 10:52 AM #88
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05-06-2015, 11:01 PM #89
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How much bench press i should do from beginning of my workout? I am just a newbie and want to shape my body perfectly. What would you suggest me?
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05-08-2015, 10:01 PM #90
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