Bench Press to the Neck: Bad or Good?

Training Bodybuilding
1

I’ve read various feedback to this exercise…what do you think about it? bad for the shoulder, useless, fantastic exercise ecc ?

2

It’s a good exercise assuming you can do it safely, rather like behind-the-neck presses. If you have any kind of shoulder or rotator cuff issues, then I doubt it would be a good idea.

3

And regardless of weight, a spotter is needed; If something causes that bar to come down, your chest can take a 135 lb bar, your neck, not so much.

4

Thank you!!

5

i have given it a go on incline, for me its a good exercise for the upper peck. But the safer and best alternative is the smith machine version, it lets you focus on the negative portion of the lift letting you feel and slow it down more because you don’t have to focus on balancing the bar (presses respond well to slow eccentrics). Great exercise but yes as the others said get a spot encase your shoulders buckle.

6

Ive done it on the smith machine before when I did a push-pull routine prescribed on here a while back. It definitely hits the spot in terms of targeting your pecs. It does eventually start to wear on your shoulder a little bit though. I didnt use a spotter, and never felt as if my shoulders would give way. Ive been working out without a spotter pretty much my entire time lifting weights though, so maybe Ive just become accustomed to trying not to kill myself on my own.

7

i would never reccomend it, u could drop the weight and it would hit ur throat, shatter ur trachea and larynx, and guess who would be dead? and always do any benchpresses with a spotter, actually do all workouts with a spotter.

8

^ you suck

9

there may be benefits, but are they worth the risks.
this is sad reading ¿Strongman¿ gym boss dies in freak accident when weightlifting bar falls on his face | Daily Mail Online

10

I always liked it, and felt that it really hit the upper pecs in a way that incline benching just didn’t seem to. Obviously if you’re a spaz and need someone to spot you on every rep of every exercise there’s a chance that you might ‘ding’ your throat. Personally it’s never happened to me because IMO you’ve got to be a real idiot to try to do a typical ‘bounce press’ off of your neck -lol. Still, (as has already been said) if you’ve got shoulder issues definitely be careful and avoid going for the extreme stretch at the bottom (shoulders in a bad position)

S

11

i dont do it. most people have enough problems with their rotator cuffs, why aggrevate them further? or initiate aggrevation… plus i think there are far more effective exercises. stick to basic compounds or/and add in cables to hit the muscle in different angles or whatnot since it seems like your looking for a different stimilus

12

The guillotine press… good exercise, really hits the upper pecs.

13

I used a variation of this a year back to bring up my upper chest, except with an HS bench instead. Hurt my shoulder terribly until:

  1. I learned how to warm up correctly for it, including reverse flies with the pec deck in between sets.
  2. I found a power groove of sorts for the movement.
  3. I got someone I trusted to help me with the liftoff after I trained it for a while.

So yes, if it doesnt hurt and you’re able to find your power groove, its a great movement. Like everything else.

14

We often use it as a finisher after we’ve bombarded the chest with heavy flat and incline work. We generally use a lighter weight as light as 135 pounds and hit it for two finishing sets for as many reps as we can. You really feel the pain when done to failure even with that light weight.

D

15

I’m an old-school Vince Gironda proponent. He was very much against traditional barbell benching, as it targets the delts more than the chest. So Vince suggested doing bench-to-neck, wide grip (perhaps index fingers on the collar mark). To address the OP’s question about shoulder pain, if you bench-to-neck correctly (and it doesn’t take alot of weight), it shouldn’t aggravate the shoulders at all.

For what it’s worth, Vince wasn’t against dumbell presses for chest, just barbell. But he preferred doing bench-to-neck and his strange-looking 45-degree bar dips for superior chest development. One of his star pupils, Mohammed Makkawy, built his chest primarily with these 2 exercises…

16

its a great excercise for chest, sadly you won’t see many people do it though because they like to brag about how much they bench and will be using significantly less weight.