Quit doing your own bench liftoffs!!!

[davisj3537]

I can agree that the lift off does in fact put a lot of stress on the shoulders due to where you are positioned BUT (and this is just my opinion from what I have experienced, so i'm not saying what you are saying is incorrect by any means) if you receive a lift off it's extremely hard to keep the squeeze in your shoulders and scapula and keep it retracted in order to keep your shoulders in a healthy position. I figure that if you can't do your own lift off comfortably, smoothly and pain free, then you shouldn't being doing the weight, you're just asking for injuries.

If the guy doing your liftoff doesn't know what he's doing then it would be impossible to keep your shoulders in place. They aren't supposed to lift it above your lockout. When that happens (frequently) then they literally pull your shoulders out of place and mess up all kinds of other stuff as well.

I don't agree with your second point though. J hooks make self liftoffs very difficult to do by yourself without compromising your shoulder integrity. I can't do liftoffs with 135 without pain from j hooks, but was benching 315 for sets of 8 just a few months ago.

An L style rack would be a different story since you can use your lats to pull it off with a little practice. All I have at my disposal are J hooks so I just bought a monolift and all my liftoff problems are solved.

[SlowAnSteady]

@davis

That sounds pretty interesting, do you have any videos I could watch, I'm more of a visual person. You could be dead on about the person not doing the lift offs properly, that's something I would be interested in seeing done properly and trying; that way I could give some feedback and let you know what I think about it right.

[davisj3537]

I've been meaning to put together another video showing liftoff styles, but I never got around to it and now my shoulder isn't gonna have it. There are really sharp guys that have written about it and I'm sure there are videos on it, but after some searching I'm not finding any good ones.

The only thing I can do for you is explain it in better detail.

Bad Liftoffs- Examples make this easy. Let's say that when the bar sits on the hooks it is 3 inches from your lockout when you are properly setup to bench. A bad liftoff would be if someone lifts the bar (in a jerking motion typically) higher than the 3 inches to your lockout. When this happens they literally pull your shoulders out of place or pull you off the bench. This is quite common. A good liftoff is when someone barely lifts the bar over the hooks (not above your lockout) and helps steady it over your chest before letting go.

Using lats to do your own liftoff- Imagine doing straight arm lat pulldowns like seen below. To liftoff the bar for bench you'll do exactly this. You don't really push the bar upward a lot. The majority of the liftoff is done with your lats and you actually pull the bar off the hooks instead of pushing it up. You can imagine how this doesn't work with J hooks since you HAVE to push up to get over them.

[SlowAnSteady]

@davis

I ran into someone I trusted at the gym and explained the technique to them and I'll be honest it worked very well. I was able to have consistent power as well as my first and second reps felt extremely explosive compared to before.

[davisj3537]

@davis

I ran into someone I trusted at the gym and explained the technique to them and I'll be honest it worked very well. I was able to have consistent power as well as my first and second reps felt extremely explosive compared to before.

Good deal man.

[fulloffat]

Sucks about your surgery, hope it all goes well. personally I have stopped flat benching about 2 months ago because it was just hurting my left shoulder way to much, strictly doing DB bench and the shoulder is no longer hurting when I bench.

I came across this sticky wondering if my left shoulder had been bothering me because a change in routine a few weeks ago. One thing was I had dropped doing db bench and started on flat benching, and the last couple of weeks after it started up. I'm going to take it off my routine. I personally thought I was sitting too close to the bar and causing bad form.

Anyway thx guys. Good info ITT.

[seabiz]

I've been in and out of numerous ortho offices the past 6 months trying to rehab a myriad of shoulder issues. A posterior labral tear being the root issue. I was unsure of the exact cause of the tear until I saw a surgeon that really understood bench form and how it relates to shoulder health. I learned more in 10 minutes than I did with all the previous ortho "specialists" combined.

He explained how doing your own liftoff for bench can significantly increase your risk of a posterior labrum tear. The rack is far enough behind your "groove" (where the bar is during an actual press) that it is fairly rough on your shoulders.

I used to think getting a liftoff was stupid. I had the mindset that if I can bench it then I can lift it off by myself. I was in the habit of lifting off anywhere from 350-425 on a weekly basis. I'm certainly paying for my ignorance now. I'll be having surgery in a week or so and the rehab is 6 months:/

Obviously with lighter weights this isn't nearly the issue it is with heavy weights, but it isn't something to mess around with. I won't be doing it again and hopefully this will help to prevent some labrum tears in people reading this.

How can this be avoided if you don’t have a training partner?

1. Setup higher on the bench. Many people advise to setup with your eyes under the bar (really low.) If you setup with your chin under the bar you’ll drastically reduce the risk of injury. This will take some guess and check on your part. You’ll want to setup as high on the bench as possible but low enough that you don’t hit the rack on the way up.

2. Using your legs to lift your butt as high as you can during liftoff. This rotates your upper body and slightly changes the directional forces on your shoulder. As you bring the weight over your chest you should lower your butt back to the bench. A combination of 1 & 2 is probably enough for most people to avoid injury.

3. Floor pressing from the bottom position. With safety bars set at the right height you can load the bar up on them, slide under, arch and then bench without getting a liftoff at all.

4. Use a monolift to bench.

Wow, I just learned something!

[JustABeginner10]

This was the reason why i was having shoulder pain specialy on my right one. As soon as someone lifted me the weight up, no problems at all.

[EllieJohn8]

I really enjoy simply reading all of your post.

[Gatorjak]

Great post! I've been powerlifting for long time. Never heard this. Makes total sense, and, explains the shoulder pains after heavy sessions!

[stingray72]

Im sorry to hear you hurt your shoulder but i have been benching coming up on 28 years straight (with one 6 month layoff) and always took my own liftoffs and havent hurt my shoulders doing it but I cant plant my feet because of my disability so maybe that makes a difference. Being as far up on the bench as you mentioned has been pretty much always been the way ive done things because I wanted the least risk for balance issues. Not constantly going heavy and warming up is key as well. And I NEVER did skull crushers because I heard right away how many guys had elbow issues from it I believe because its so easy to do improper form and I dont have any elbow issues either.


edit...(I also tried close grip benching recently and quit for the same reason)

[davisj3537]

Im sorry to hear you hurt your shoulder but i have been benching coming up on 28 years straight (with one 6 month layoff) and always took my own liftoffs and havent hurt my shoulders doing it but I cant plant my feet because of my disability so maybe that makes a difference. Being as far up on the bench as you mentioned has been pretty much always been the way ive done things because I wanted the least risk for balance issues. Not constantly going heavy and warming up is key as well. And I NEVER did skull crushers because I heard right away how many guys had elbow issues from it I believe because its so easy to do improper form and I dont have any elbow issues either.


edit...(I also tried close grip benching recently and quit for the same reason)

Not everyone will have these issues. Just something to think about.

If you have L hooks then sliding the bar out instead of pressing it out makes a massive difference. It seems I'm always stuck with J hooks so that isn't an option for me.

[SabrinaMarie91]

good stuff... will deff use this

[sherrypro123]

First of all I know I am very late to the party Anyhow, I would agree to your opinion to an extent.However if you Squeeze Your Shoulder blades properly and raise your chest while tightening your upper-back there are very less chances of injuries.

[davisj3537]

First of all I know I am very late to the party Anyhow, I would agree to your opinion to an extent.However if you Squeeze Your Shoulder blades properly and raise your chest while tightening your upper-back there are very less chances of injuries.

I don't disagree with you. Done correctly, liftoffs don't have a high correlation to injury at all; however, I can count on one hand the amount of people I've seen do it right in all my years in the gym. You won't see many people with the bench setup and the knowledge so they can't literally slide the weight off the safety "L" with their lats like it's supposed to be done.

[fluidZ]

this is unbelievable to me that i haven't heard about this from the dozen or however many 'how to / improve your bench' videos I've seen.. even the ones by PTs...

My bench is still miserably low compared to my other lifts (at best it's half my squat, or 80% body weight), but I've honestly been considering just pushing off from the safeties to begin with... so that way people wont try to rush over every time I start grunting xD, and I can push that much harder to get another rep...

I'm already struggling with form and tightness (I haven't even started with leg drive yet!!!) so complicating things more doesn't sound appealing... Should I just go ahead and start pushing from safeties, or should I just do a regular liftoff until I'm at a certain poundage / can work on #1 + #2?

(I've just reset to 120lb btw ;[ )

[DrMarcPT]

I really like this post because you discuss an important topic that will help so many people. It's been a while since this post. How was your rehab process after your surgery?

Did you end up having the posterior labrum repaired?

[SilvanaWilliams]

I just gave my lifting partner the business for not getting a lift off for her work weight. Not only is it safer, it improves performance.

[davisj3537]

Sorry, somehow both of these posts slipped past me.

(I've just reset to 120lb btw ;[ )

I wouldn't push from the safeties. Do what you can for now, but eventually work towards a proper liftoff.

I really like this post because you discuss an important topic that will help so many people. It's been a while since this post. How was your rehab process after your surgery?

Did you end up having the posterior labrum repaired?

Rehab was alright. I got all my range of motion back. Had several labral tears repaired, but still having some issues. Had a second exploratory surgery and they cleaned up some stuff, but it's still not great. It is what it is...that's what I get for trying to bench 2.5xbodyweight for so long.

[alexincabo]

Very interesting, now it's just a matter of lifting with a partner or making some gym buddies lol

[HeavyIron8]

If you have a home gym power rack from Titan, Sorinex, Rogue.. etc various other gym equipment dealers, you can buy a monolift attachment for your power rack. I strictly use the monolift attachment for incline and flat bench presses. Shoulder injuries are no joke.

[MajorTendonitis]

I wish I knew about the potential for damage to your rotators years ago, as I think it didn’t help .
I am much more aware of the bar position now , and keep it above my eyes for lift off .
Ideally a spotter would be better yet,but we all know how that goes .

I’d like someone their for re racking the bar also , as your still putting unnecessary stresses on your rotators

[superman704]

Why bench when you can dumbell press?

[walterpcarlisle]

useful information

[Scitronprotein]

When performing a bench press, the liftoff is the initial motion of lifting the barbell from the rack or starting position. This can be a challenging movement, especially if you are lifting heavy weights, and having a spotter can make the liftoff easier and safer. A spotter can also help you complete your final repetitions when you are fatigued and may struggle to lift the weight on your own.

If you don't have a workout partner to act as a spotter, you can use a power rack or squat rack with adjustable safety pins or set the barbell on supports that are just below chest height to assist with the liftoff. It is always important to prioritize safety during your workouts and never attempt to lift weights beyond your capability.

[kaigreeneer]

@davis

That sounds pretty interesting, do you have any videos I could watch, I'm more of a visual person. You could be dead on about the person not doing the lift offs properly, that's something I would be interested in seeing done properly and trying; that way I could give some feedback and let you know what I think about it right.

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[PaulSDelk]

Bar path can be an issue, in my opinion. You can also ask for a lift-off.

Personally, I rarely get a lift-off for my working sets on flat bench, usually only for warm-up sets, which can still get quite heavy.

Recently, I injured my shoulder getting a lift-off during an incline set. Since then, I've switched to more incline DB work to avoid the problem.

But not everyone at the gym is skilled enough for a proper lift-off, and some may touch the bar on every rep. Find regulars who understand your needs and instruct them.

Stay safe during your workouts!