Elbows Tucked or Flared for Bench?

Can anyone point me in the direction of some vids exemplifying properly retracted upper back vs not at all?

I feel as though I am retracting really hard in set-up but then a lot of that goes when un-racking the bar. But I’m not sure if it has totally gone or if I am retracting too much to begin with or what.

tucking the elbows does a lot more than just protect the shoulders. it also allows one to activate the lats.

also, to the above poster, if you are unracking your own weight you will lose a lot of the retraction. i get a liftoff on all my sets. and the liftoff should be out away from the hooks not UP and out like most people do.

[quote]maraudermeat wrote:
tucking the elbows does a lot more than just protect the shoulders. it also allows one to activate the lats.

also, to the above poster, if you are unracking your own weight you will lose a lot of the retraction. i get a liftoff on all my sets. and the liftoff should be out away from the hooks not UP and out like most people do. [/quote]

Interesting, I’ve always unracked my own weight to get the feeling of ‘control’ over the weight–if that makes any sense. Maybe I’m getting bad spots, like you described, I dislike suddenly feeling the brunt of the weight after it’s off the rack.

[quote]Chi-Towns-Finest wrote:

[quote]maraudermeat wrote:
tucking the elbows does a lot more than just protect the shoulders. it also allows one to activate the lats.

also, to the above poster, if you are unracking your own weight you will lose a lot of the retraction. i get a liftoff on all my sets. and the liftoff should be out away from the hooks not UP and out like most people do. [/quote]

Interesting, I’ve always unracked my own weight to get the feeling of ‘control’ over the weight–if that makes any sense. Maybe I’m getting bad spots, like you described, I dislike suddenly feeling the brunt of the weight after it’s off the rack.[/quote]

yeah… you’ve probably had bad liftoffs. you CAN"T stay tight without a liftoff. also, i always unrack and hold the weight for a moment to allow the shoulder joint to collapse some. that shortens the ROM and lets the body prepare for the lift.

most guys lift off buy pulling the bar straight up and then out with the bar. all that does is flatten out the lifter’s upper back. the bar needs to go straight out to the starting point.

Dave Tate talks about unracking and upper back tightness starting at 1:20.

[quote]maraudermeat wrote:

[quote]Chi-Towns-Finest wrote:

[quote]maraudermeat wrote:
tucking the elbows does a lot more than just protect the shoulders. it also allows one to activate the lats.

also, to the above poster, if you are unracking your own weight you will lose a lot of the retraction. i get a liftoff on all my sets. and the liftoff should be out away from the hooks not UP and out like most people do. [/quote]

Interesting, I’ve always unracked my own weight to get the feeling of ‘control’ over the weight–if that makes any sense. Maybe I’m getting bad spots, like you described, I dislike suddenly feeling the brunt of the weight after it’s off the rack.[/quote]

yeah… you’ve probably had bad liftoffs. you CAN"T stay tight without a liftoff. also, i always unrack and hold the weight for a moment to allow the shoulder joint to collapse some. that shortens the ROM and lets the body prepare for the lift.

most guys lift off buy pulling the bar straight up and then out with the bar. all that does is flatten out the lifter’s upper back. the bar needs to go straight out to the starting point. [/quote]

Interesting, perhaps this is what’s been the hidden cause of my recent RC discomfort. Now that I’m working with 80-90% of my max 3x a week I’ll have to start getting liftoffs. It’s kind of a pain when you’re doing over a dozen sets with a weight you can throw around easily.

[quote]Blaze_108 wrote:

Dave Tate talks about unracking and upper back tightness starting at 1:20.[/quote]

Great video, I was laughing my ass off at the end when he talks about the saying “my bad.”

MM, CC and some of the bigger guys, what do you think about CT’s method of retracting the scapula and shrugging the traps up rather than pulling them down? I haven’t heard of this before but he said even though it goes against the grain both his and his partner’s bench went up ~20lb the first time doing it. I tried it and didn’t notice a strength increase.

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
MM, CC and some of the bigger guys, what do you think about CT’s method of retracting the scapula and shrugging the traps up rather than pulling them down? I haven’t heard of this before but he said even though it goes against the grain both his and his partner’s bench went up ~20lb the first time doing it. I tried it and didn’t notice a strength increase. [/quote]

If you shrug your shoulders up, how are you going to keep your lats tight?
You sure you understood CT correctly, and that he didn’t simply mean to sort of build a plateau with your scaps? (take wide reverse grip on bar when setting up, row yourself into bar somewhat, bring scaps together, should automatically make you arch and all that… Then switch to regular grip before the lift).

Now lying high on your traps (if that makes sense) is sort of part of that… Hard to put into words for me.

I’d like a more detailed description on CT’s version.

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
MM, CC and some of the bigger guys, what do you think about CT’s method of retracting the scapula and shrugging the traps up rather than pulling them down? I haven’t heard of this before but he said even though it goes against the grain both his and his partner’s bench went up ~20lb the first time doing it. I tried it and didn’t notice a strength increase. [/quote]

If you shrug your shoulders up, how are you going to keep your lats tight?
You sure you understood CT correctly, and that he didn’t simply mean to sort of build a plateau with your scaps? (take wide reverse grip on bar when setting up, row yourself into bar somewhat, bring scaps together, should automatically make you arch and all that… Then switch to regular grip before the lift).

Now lying high on your traps (if that makes sense) is sort of part of that… Hard to put into words for me.

I’d like a more detailed description on CT’s version.

[/quote]

This is from the livespill:

captaincalvert: I just watched the assistance work vid, and noticed you saying that “the traps should be shrugged in the bench press”. I was always taught that the scapulae should be depressed. I seem to recall that Dave Tate among others teach that. What is you reasoning for elevating them

Christian Thibaudeau: @ Captaincalvert: It’s something I stumbled upon and yes it goes against the grain. The first time I did it my bench went up 20lbs and my partner had the same increase. It also decreased shoulder tension a lot. I think that the traditional powerlifting technique might better be suited to those lifting with a bench shirt.

So it seems like what I was saying before unless there’s another way to interpret that. Thoughts?

Might just be a misunderstanding there… With the reverse-grip row kind of setup I do contract my traps of course… (bar hits me somewhat below the nipple line/at the solar plexus or so… You could also set up so that the bar would hit you a bit above the belly button but that would actually mean bringing your shoulders a little forward/up towards the ceiling when lying down while also flexing the lats hard, and that would mean relaxing the traps… That’s not what I do and I don’t think powerlifters do that either usually, unless maybe someone misunderstood the whole setup thing… Or maybe people really do it when lifting in gear, I dunno).

Thing is, these little intricacies about shoulder position etc are hard to put into words (at least for me) exactly.
You can keep your shoulder blades together and still have that look completely different for several people, not everyone is even doing what they think they’re doing when setting up.

I hope meat can explain this better.

Thing is though, might be that what Thib’s doing is exactly the same thing we’re doing… Hard to say.

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Might just be a misunderstanding there… With the reverse-grip row kind of setup I do contract my traps of course… (bar hits me somewhat below the nipple line/at the solar plexus or so… You could also set up so that the bar would hit you a bit above the belly button but that would actually mean bringing your shoulders a little forward/up towards the ceiling when lying down while also flexing the lats hard, and that would mean relaxing the traps… That’s not what I do and I don’t think powerlifters do that either usually, unless maybe someone misunderstood the whole setup thing… Or maybe people really do it when lifting in gear, I dunno).

Thing is, these little intricacies about shoulder position etc are hard to put into words (at least for me) exactly.
You can keep your shoulder blades together and still have that look completely different for several people, not everyone is even doing what they think they’re doing when setting up.

I hope meat can explain this better.

Thing is though, might be that what Thib’s doing is exactly the same thing we’re doing… Hard to say.

[/quote]

Yea it is difficult with words. Even in video it can be hard. I’ve seen Dave Tate’s “so you think you can bench” series but even now I’m sure if I were to bench in person with you, dave, MM, etc… there would be a lot to teach me. Unfortunately there’s no one really like that at my college gym. It does seem like Thib is doing something different though because he explicitly says it goes against the grain and he has trained with Tate so he knows what the typical powerlifting set up would be.

I’ve never done the whole pull yourself up to the bar thing, usually I just arch my back without pulling myself up. I tried it once and it felt wrong, maybe I’ll try again next time I bench.

[quote]AimHigh wrote:
I personally come down about an inch from my chest (use DB’s anyway) and squeeze up just before lockout. I don’t have a flared or a very narrow grip (somewhere in between I think).

Thoughts?

I have had no shoulder injuries and wanna keep it that way, I guess DB’s are better anyway for shoulder health on benching?

Thanks[/quote]

if i can suggest something ^^^^

why dont you try a neck press. Normal bench presses put emphasis on front delt and is usually not a great chest builder for most (key word for most)

search it up. Its also known as a Gironda Press. It will help isolate the chest, remove much of the delt involvement and build that monster chest your aiming for.

+++ itll give you a variation to your dumbbell press

[quote]antonio_zeus wrote:

[quote]AimHigh wrote:
I personally come down about an inch from my chest (use DB’s anyway) and squeeze up just before lockout. I don’t have a flared or a very narrow grip (somewhere in between I think).

Thoughts?

I have had no shoulder injuries and wanna keep it that way, I guess DB’s are better anyway for shoulder health on benching?

Thanks[/quote]

I’d like to know if anyone actually does these neck presses – it looks like it would be hell for my shoulders. Perhaps it would have to be done with lighter loads… CC care to chime in on this?

if i can suggest something ^^^^

why dont you try a neck press. Normal bench presses put emphasis on front delt and is usually not a great chest builder for most (key word for most)

search it up. Its also known as a Gironda Press. It will help isolate the chest, remove much of the delt involvement and build that monster chest your aiming for.

+++ itll give you a variation to your dumbbell press[/quote]

I prolly can push more weight tucked but ill be damned if I don’t like the way benching with flare elbows hits my chest.

[quote]optheta wrote:
I prolly can push more weight tucked but ill be damned if I don’t like the way benching with flare elbows hits my chest. [/quote]

I would echo this.

I know that I can move more weight by tucking my elbows in and arching my back, but this just becomes mostly a shoulder and tricep effort. Dave Tate may have valuable advice on injury prevention or pushing a lot of weight if that style works for you, but personally I DON’T tuck my elbows in, DON’T arch my back, and DON’T obsessively keep my shoulder blades pinned down to the bench (in fact… besides it doing nothing to benefit my pecs, keeping my shoulders completely immobile while trying to bench has caused me pain and injury in the past).

Looking at rows… we can do both elbows-in for emphasizing lats, and elbows-out for emphasizing rear delts…

So why do we not bench both ways?

Also: do we get injured during a push up if we do not retract our scapulae? Is that because they can move freely due to no weight on them? Does that mean putting a lot of your weight on your scapulae during a push up is bad if it might interfere with it, like a weighted vest?

[quote]tyciol wrote:
Looking at rows… we can do both elbows-in for emphasizing lats, and elbows-out for emphasizing rear delts…

So why do we not bench both ways?
[/quote] ?
I don’t flat bench with elbows out because no matter the setup it seems to overstretch my shoulder capsule or something… Also bothers other areas. Always has.
I just use the flat (CG really) bench as an ego movement and to help overall pressing strength… Other movements have always worked much better for my chest without bothering tendons or anything.

[quote]

Also: do we get injured during a push up if we do not retract our scapulae? Is that because they can move freely due to no weight on them? Does that mean putting a lot of your weight on your scapulae during a push up is bad if it might interfere with it, like a weighted vest?[/quote]

You can definitely get hurt doing push-ups… In various ways.

FWIW I can Incline bench with flared elbows (and with bar hitting me very high on the pecs) just fine. I still tend to tuck a bit there though.

I take a handoff with every set above 185lbs. It doesnt make sense not to. The spotter should be lifting the bar just high enough so it clears the hooks. Basically the bar should barely move vertically at all.