Bench Form Check - What am I Doing Wrong

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

This is me playing around with form after reading an article on how to bench by Dave Hoff (think that’s his name).

Background is I’ve gone from around 290 max to 335 in about 2.5 months. Then, in the past 3 months or so, I’ve gone from 335 to 325. Bench just doesn’t feel comfortable anymore.

I usually bench with a very wide grip, my middle fingers on the rings. This has never been an issue, makes the lift very short, and I gained strength fast. This also feels comfortable. However, it tends to cause some elbow pain, all be it nothing bad, and 100% tolerable. Also, everywhere I read says this is bad. So, I started the path of changing my style, and all I’ve received is a 10 lb negative. I have long arms, am fat, so the combo of wide grip and big chest seemed like a no brainer, and it is comfortable.

Currently, I cramp up when I bench (lower back, glute, hamstrings) on heavy weights. This is a big deal to me missing weight, and on this video at 325, I cramped terribly, but fought through it. I posted another thread on that, but this has only happened for about 3 weeks now, not the full 3 months.

So, take a look, and let me know if I should go back to what is comfortable, or if I should pursue what I’m doing here and fix what I’m doing wrong.

I do understand sticking points, and you need to go back to go forward, and I plan to do so, I just want to go forward with the right form for me.

Do I stop reading and go what is natural, combining in the normal key points like elbow tight, straight wrists, etc?

2

If you’re a raw bencher don’t take advice from Dave Hoff. Not hating, he’s a great geared lifter but benching geared and benching raw is totally different. Perhaps you meant Dave Tate? If you haven’t already look up “So you think you can bench” on youtube, its a great series.

As far as hand placement, go with whatever lets you lift the most weight while staying healthy. If the pain isn’t too bad and you lift more weight wide, go wide and if the pain gets worse then switch over. Maybe it’ll go away or at least not get any worse. Where is the pain in your elbow?

Your form could use some work. Mainly it looks like you’re not nearly as tight as you could be. I find that when I’m not tight enough my hamstrings tend to cramp. I don’t know if there’s any merit to that finding but that’s been my personal experience.

3

[quote]tylerkeen42 wrote:
If you’re a raw bencher don’t take advice from Dave Hoff. Not hating, he’s a great geared lifter but benching geared and benching raw is totally different. Perhaps you meant Dave Tate? If you haven’t already look up “So you think you can bench” on youtube, its a great series.

As far as hand placement, go with whatever lets you lift the most weight while staying healthy. If the pain isn’t too bad and you lift more weight wide, go wide and if the pain gets worse then switch over. Maybe it’ll go away or at least not get any worse. Where is the pain in your elbow?

Your form could use some work. Mainly it looks like you’re not nearly as tight as you could be. I find that when I’m not tight enough my hamstrings tend to cramp. I don’t know if there’s any merit to that finding but that’s been my personal experience.[/quote]

It was Hoff, and come to think of it, his program is a lot of 3 qnd 2 board benching.

That is a vid of me benching natural, or at least natural to me. I do see the sloppiness of me moving around a lot, but I’m trying so many different things right now, need to get back to what is natural.

Is my bench too narrow also? It feels so small when I lay on it, a wider bench will help with tightness, but I don’t want anything that won’t be in a meet.

When I tighten my lower body, that’s when I cramp.

Elbows are on the inside for pain, doc calls it golf elbow, opposed to tennis elbow, which is on the outside. It affects nothing when I bench, and only really hurts in the morning as I have my left arm taken up by a 3 year old, and my right arm is always bent, generally my hand is under my head in a sense, so in the morning they are sore.

When I did 335, it just felt natural. One thing I noticed from today’s bench session is it did feel better hitting the bar of the bench to around my belly button, opposed to the bottom of my sternum. And, being a fat guy helps with a belt as it pushes all the fat up, meaning, less to push, found that out today and had a little silent chuckle when I realized it.

I think if I can figure out how to stay tight without cramping, bench to my belly button, and the rest as is (straight wrists, elbow tucked etc), then i’ll get back up to 335 in no time, if not more. I also think I need to incorporate some rep work to get back to remembering how to bench.

4

ditto what the above comment said as well you may wanna try pulling you elbows in tight as you can and not flaring them bodybuilder style

5

I’ve been trying to focus on the elbow flare, and from a couple months ago, it seems I was better, and weights were easier to push. It’s hard to keep em in with a wide grip though, but it needs to be done

6

For what it’s worth Dan Greed says flaring the elbows on the way up is fine. He also advocates letting the bar comes towards your head instead of driving it away.

7

[quote]dzirkelb wrote:

[quote]tylerkeen42 wrote:
If you’re a raw bencher don’t take advice from Dave Hoff. Not hating, he’s a great geared lifter but benching geared and benching raw is totally different. Perhaps you meant Dave Tate? If you haven’t already look up “So you think you can bench” on youtube, its a great series.

As far as hand placement, go with whatever lets you lift the most weight while staying healthy. If the pain isn’t too bad and you lift more weight wide, go wide and if the pain gets worse then switch over. Maybe it’ll go away or at least not get any worse. Where is the pain in your elbow?

Your form could use some work. Mainly it looks like you’re not nearly as tight as you could be. I find that when I’m not tight enough my hamstrings tend to cramp. I don’t know if there’s any merit to that finding but that’s been my personal experience.[/quote]

It was Hoff, and come to think of it, his program is a lot of 3 qnd 2 board benching.

That is a vid of me benching natural, or at least natural to me. I do see the sloppiness of me moving around a lot, but I’m trying so many different things right now, need to get back to what is natural.

Is my bench too narrow also? It feels so small when I lay on it, a wider bench will help with tightness, but I don’t want anything that won’t be in a meet.

When I tighten my lower body, that’s when I cramp.

Elbows are on the inside for pain, doc calls it golf elbow, opposed to tennis elbow, which is on the outside. It affects nothing when I bench, and only really hurts in the morning as I have my left arm taken up by a 3 year old, and my right arm is always bent, generally my hand is under my head in a sense, so in the morning they are sore.

When I did 335, it just felt natural. One thing I noticed from today’s bench session is it did feel better hitting the bar of the bench to around my belly button, opposed to the bottom of my sternum. And, being a fat guy helps with a belt as it pushes all the fat up, meaning, less to push, found that out today and had a little silent chuckle when I realized it.

I think if I can figure out how to stay tight without cramping, bench to my belly button, and the rest as is (straight wrists, elbow tucked etc), then i’ll get back up to 335 in no time, if not more. I also think I need to incorporate some rep work to get back to remembering how to bench.
[/quote]

Apologies for my late response. I graduated last week and have been crunched for time between celebrating, recovering from celebrating and doing the sad excuses for workouts I’ve been doing. So I’m just now getting to my computer again.

Not knowing how big of a guy you are I can’t really tell if your bench is small, my advice would be to find a local fed that you’ll one day be interested in competing in and take the measurements based on their rules. Most feds are pretty consistent with dimensions but maybe there’s one thats especially different out there and I don’t want to give you wrong information.

I unfortunately don’t have any helpful experience with golf elbow. I asked because I’ve recently been helping my dad with a case of tennis elbow and realized that it wasn’t actually from benching at all but rather his recent change to low bar squatting which I remember you did recently as well. I’d suggest looking into KT Tape, it works pretty well for helping dull aches.

Touching the bar around your navel seems not ideal unless you have extremely long humeri, especially with a wide grip bench. Is it actually that low or was that an exaggeration?

8

yeah i flare on the way up raw or geared, but from touch to coming off the chest i got my elbows tucked tight as i can,raw my elbows will be touching the sides of my rib cage this is because i’m using a pinky inside the rings grip and i get good explosiveness off the chest like that and i use that momentum to cruise through the middle of the lift until i flare and the tris take over at about three boards high,this works for me YMMV,equipped the grip is much wider and the elbows dont come in as far but thats another tread.

9

Some things that jumped out at me. You wobble all over the bench. You are not tight and you are leaking energy from this. Maybe widen your feet out to get a bit more stable platform. Also when you are benching light weights your elbows are tucked appropriately. When you get upwards of 305 the arms shoot out like a gym rat, especially the left arm.

You also look side to side. just stare at a spot on the ceiling and push the bar to that spot. You also seem to be pushing slow. I don’t know if you were intentionally going slow but you may want to consider some form of speed work to get the bar moving off the chest. I am fond of benching with chains or even mini band reverse band bench. Lastly, most folks kill the pressing muscles. Make sure you are rowing your ass off. This will give you great stability on the bench, and other exercises. I’ve never seen a guy with a back too big or thick.

Hope this helps.