The bench press, crowned the king of all chest exercises by bodybuilders, primarily works your chest muscles, with plenty of emphasis on your shoulders and triceps too. You may want to try to get a modified version of this exercise—or avoid it altogether—if you have lower back, shoulder, or elbow problems.
Now, let’s get ready. Lie on the bench with your feet flat on the floor or up on the bench if the bench is too tall. Grip the bar so your arms are evenly spaced a few inches wider than shoulder-width apart. Your upper arms should be slightly above parallel to the floor. Tuck your chin toward your chest and pull your abdominals in tight, but don’t force your back into the pad, or overarch it. Lift the bar off the rack and push it directly up over your shoulders, straightening your arms without locking your elbows.
Bench pressing the wrong way
Some weightlifters think that anything they do to pile on the poundage—including arching their back and squirming around is fair game. In reality, how much weight you hoist above your chest isn’t necessarily related to how strong your chest muscles are. When you arch your back, you simply increase your mechanical advantage (and your injury risk); and more muscles pitch in to move the bar upward. We know one guy who convinced himself that arching was an essential part of the bench press. We produced several anatomy textbooks before we convinced him that we hadn’t fabricated this bit of information.
Bench pressing the correct way
Keep your back in contact with the bench throughout the exercise. You don’t need to force your back into an unnatural flat position—it’s okay to have a small, natural arch under your lower back. If you can’t plant your feet flat on the floor because the bench is too high, place your feet on the bench itself.
Lowering your arms the wrong way: Also, many weightlifters have the bad habit of lowering their elbows way too far. I hate to pick on this chest exercise again, but they’re often the victims of multiple mistakes. This mistake applies not only to the bench press, but the dumbbell chest press and the chest fly.
When doing bench press, some people drop their elbows so low that they practically touch the floor. The resulting stretch in your chest muscles may feel good, but at this point, your chest muscles and your shoulder ligaments are in danger of snapping. When you lower your arms too fat, you shove the humerus bone way up into your shoulder socket.
The rotator cuff muscles and tendons have to turn and twist themselves to accommodate for this unnatural position. You may not feel pain immediately, but sooner or later, all this twisting may catch up to you and result in shoulder pain and injury to your shoulder joints.
Lowering your arms the right way: While performing the bench press, don’t let your arms drop any further slightly below chest level. Depending on the build of your body, the bar may touch your chest on the bench press.
The Do’s and Don’ts
- Do remember to breathe. Exhale as you press the bar up, and inhale as you lower it.
- Do not cheat. In other words, if you have to wiggle around or arch your back in order to hoist the bar, you’re not doing much for your chest, but you’re asking for lower back injuries.
- Don’t press the bar up too high; keep your elbows relaxed and your shoulder blades on the backrest throughout the exercise.
