thank u…
Hi @dt79
Thanks for the above tips. I tried them during the bench setup and found that when I descend the bar I feel my lats working and the bar is just below the nipple line at the bottom, but during the ascent my mid back and traps come into action and the bar ends above my face. The arm motion is automatically elbows tucked during descent and flared during the ascent.
Also I feel like loosing lats tension during the ascent and traps tension during descent, Am I missing something?
Besides, I read Jim Wendler saying that
“With a shirt bench, the bar begins far out over the chest/stomach area. The lats need to be held very tight to keep the bar path strong and correct. With a raw bench, the bar is lowered much higher, thus the upper back is taking much of the weight. That’s why raw benching is cooler – it gives you a good excuse to do a ton of upper back and trap work.”
Am I translating it right for the bench set up as detailed above?
This is something you should probably ask Thibs or at least someone who uses the powerlifting style of benching as what you are describing are things that I don’t really think about when benching lol. The OP basically had a problem with not flaring his elbows on the way up, which lead to shoulder pain since the bar path was too far away from his shoulders, and lack of chest recruitment but he couldn’t understand what I was telling him because of the language barrier so I had to post those vids.
Ok, I get your point. I was just interested in your opinion about setting up the shoulder girdle during the bench press. My real concern was from the shoulder health point of view not for powerlifting performance. Please excuse me if I sound like too anal about bench set up, I’ve a previous history of shoulder problems with bench press.
No, not at all. I thought you were asking about a powerlifting style bench since the emphasis on lats looks crucial to maintaining a big arch and I’m not qualified to give my opinions on it.
My advice, in this case, would be to just don’t bench lol.
If you want my thought process while I bench since I can’t really tell if you’re doing anything wrong from your description, this is how it goes. I create tension in the lats by rotating my elbows inwards(like a lat pulldown) on the way down. This also loads my triceps. On the way up, I don’t think about the lats, just keeping the chest up while flaring the elbows and flexing the chest. At the same time, I will squeeze my shoulder blades together while pushing my shoulders down.
Hope that makes sense.
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so i shuld rotate elbow on lat pull down…? so this right or this
rmember dt? u said i am okay to follow ben right? now u got me lost brother…
I said I was relieved you were watching his stuff instead of getting your info from the beginner 5x5 parrots you see all over the internet.
Now, I don’t see what you are confused about. He’s not telling you to pull the bar towards the body. He’s saying pull the bar down in a vertical motion. This requires you to rotate your elbows in.
Regarding the post you quoted, I was simply describing how I create tension in the lats.
elbowe to the side he saide… and pull outside thingy… i did it without moving and it like a activite my back i see it…
First, I told you to ROTATE your elbows, not tuck them excessively. Rotation is enough to create tension in the lats.
Second, your elbows cannot possibly be out to the sides unless you are directly under the bar or you are pulling the bar towards you, in which you will be hitting the TERES MAJOR(“upper lat”).
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