i just started flat BB benching again for the first time in almost a year and my setup is no where close to where it used to be
would putting the bar on the low-hooks be better for keeping upper-back tight?
havent tried yet, but plan on doing so tomorrow
God, what’s a bench press and how do I do it?
[quote]austin_bicep wrote:
God, what’s a bench press and how do I do it?[/quote]
then explode on way up
nvm my question… did the wide grip row set up and my top set went up 20 pounds
thank you CC
[quote]MAF14 wrote:
nvm my question… did the wide grip row set up and my top set went up 20 pounds
thank you CC[/quote]
Glad it’s working for you.
a buddy of mine has been tucking elbows for a long time, now he has minor wrist and shoulder problems, and a weak chest. but pretty strong triceps. Based on that i would say go for flared out elbows, no wrist problems and get a better developed chest.
[quote]ultralars wrote:
a buddy of mine has been tucking elbows for a long time, now he has minor wrist and shoulder problems, and a weak chest. but pretty strong triceps. Based on that i would say go for flared out elbows, no wrist problems and get a better developed chest. [/quote]
Yeah, people who bench scarecrow style don’t usually develop wrist or shoulder problems… WHAT?
Seriously?
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
[quote]ultralars wrote:
a buddy of mine has been tucking elbows for a long time, now he has minor wrist and shoulder problems, and a weak chest. but pretty strong triceps. Based on that i would say go for flared out elbows, no wrist problems and get a better developed chest. [/quote]
Yeah, people who bench scarecrow style don’t usually develop wrist or shoulder problems… WHAT?
Seriously?
[/quote] how does flaring elbows give you wrist problems?
[quote]ultralars wrote:
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
[quote]ultralars wrote:
a buddy of mine has been tucking elbows for a long time, now he has minor wrist and shoulder problems, and a weak chest. but pretty strong triceps. Based on that i would say go for flared out elbows, no wrist problems and get a better developed chest. [/quote]
Yeah, people who bench scarecrow style don’t usually develop wrist or shoulder problems… WHAT?
Seriously?
[/quote] how does flaring elbows give you wrist problems?
[/quote]
How does tucking them give your wrist problems, unless you are using a super-wide grip? Which would also bother you with flared elbows?
You’re likely going to get wrist issues from not holding your wrists straight (i.e. keeping them extended). Simple. Usually that has nothing to do with elbow position (again, unless you are going super wide with your grip).
Very heavy weights also tend to bother people’s wrists no matter what, hence so many people using wrist wraps when pressing heavy.
Shoulder problems are far more common with flared elbows, even with perfect setup. developing shoulder issues with tucked elbows would usually require some other factor to be involved, shitty setup, overuse, whatever. The difference is that with elbows flared all the way, unless you’re lucky in the shoulder department, there’s a good chance of messing things down the line up no matter what you do.
Bicep tendon injuries, supraspinatus injuries and torn pecs are fairly common after all…
What is likely is that your buddy messed up in some other way…
C_C, maybe you can answer this.
I know that the shoulder joint sublaxates (partial dislocation) when you get to a certain depth on bench press (supposedly around the level you reach your chest at), is there a specific difference in sublaxation between tucked versus flared? It seems that flared might exaccerbate the problem, but I’m just looking for some input from someone who would know.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
[quote]ultralars wrote:
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
[quote]ultralars wrote:
a buddy of mine has been tucking elbows for a long time, now he has minor wrist and shoulder problems, and a weak chest. but pretty strong triceps. Based on that i would say go for flared out elbows, no wrist problems and get a better developed chest. [/quote]
Yeah, people who bench scarecrow style don’t usually develop wrist or shoulder problems… WHAT?
Seriously?
[/quote] how does flaring elbows give you wrist problems?
[/quote]
How does tucking them give your wrist problems, unless you are using a super-wide grip? Which would also bother you with flared elbows?
You’re likely going to get wrist issues from not holding your wrists straight (i.e. keeping them extended). Simple. Usually that has nothing to do with elbow position (again, unless you are going super wide with your grip).
Very heavy weights also tend to bother people’s wrists no matter what, hence so many people using wrist wraps when pressing heavy.
Shoulder problems are far more common with flared elbows, even with perfect setup. developing shoulder issues with tucked elbows would usually require some other factor to be involved, shitty setup, overuse, whatever. The difference is that with elbows flared all the way, unless you’re lucky in the shoulder department, there’s a good chance of messing things down the line up no matter what you do.
Bicep tendon injuries, supraspinatus injuries and torn pecs are fairly common after all…
What is likely is that your buddy messed up in some other way… [/quote]
without thinking about it, flaring the elbows out will makes your wrist straight while the opposites will automatically happen tucking your elbows. why? because it’s more natural and you lift more weights that way. my friend knows that the wrists problems derives from how he holds the bar but he still does it at the last 2 reps when it becomes to heavy to not.
it might have more to do with the fact that he holds a pretty close grip when i think about it…
how does flaring the elbows out cause shoulder problems?
Your supraspinatus lack space and basically get slowly… eroded if that is the right word… between two bones.
(again, depends on shoulder structure, but it’s a fairly common way of getting injured).
You may not feel this at all… There are people with torn supraspinatus muscles who don’t feel any pain or noticed the tear happening, and only notice it when they can’t raise their arms past a certain point or so for example…
The bones grinding the muscle/tendon can also cause irriation, which will likely end up with the muscle swollen and that means even less space is available for it… That could get quite painful and accelerate the tearing process, but I’m not a doc myself so better ask someone like bushidobadboy for proper explanations.
Constant irritation might also cause some sort of calcification of the tendons, but again, I don’t know the specifics here.
You can also overstretch your shoulder capsule, at least if you don’t have short arms…
Now benching at an incline with flared elbows seems to work better, upper arm will travel at a different angle relative to the shoulder then…
There’s more stuff that can happen of course, I’m not familiar with all of it.
Benching primarily with your chest can be quite risky with heavy weight, torn pecs are very common… Actually, those don’t just happen with heavy weight… And they’re one of those injuries that seem to be unpredictable… You can do everything right and still tear a pec, and some people on the other hand seem to be virtually immune to that… I believe it’s the most common when flat bb benching because of the stretch applied…
having your shoulders come off the bench/rounding them at the top of a rep (so many people do this) can cause bicep tendon (crossing the shoulder) issues by restricting space for the tendon there… Similar to the sup spin. problem. That is of course not always related to elbow position.
[quote]Blaze_108 wrote:
C_C, maybe you can answer this.
I know that the shoulder joint sublaxates (partial dislocation) when you get to a certain depth on bench press (supposedly around the level you reach your chest at), is there a specific difference in sublaxation between tucked versus flared? It seems that flared might exaccerbate the problem, but I’m just looking for some input from someone who would know.[/quote]
Better ask BBB that. Probably the angle at which the upper arm bone moves, I guess if you tuck there’s less in the way? 
Sorry man, that particular subject is not one I’ve educated myself about… My knowledge is limited to stuff I’ve discussed with my father and other docs of sports medicine etc based on what I’ve seen happen to people in my area and so on… Someone like BBB will know much more about this.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Your supraspinatus lack space and basically get slowly… eroded if that is the right word… between two bones.
(again, depends on shoulder structure, but it’s a fairly common way of getting injured).
You may not feel this at all… There are people with torn supraspinatus muscles who don’t feel any pain or noticed the tear happening, and only notice it when they can’t raise their arms past a certain point or so for example…
The bones grinding the muscle/tendon can also cause irriation, which will likely end up with the muscle swollen and that means even less space is available for it… That could get quite painful and accelerate the tearing process, but I’m not a doc myself so better ask someone like bushidobadboy for proper explanations.
Constant irritation might also cause some sort of calcification of the tendons, but again, I don’t know the specifics here.
You can also overstretch your shoulder capsule, at least if you don’t have short arms…
Now benching at an incline with flared elbows seems to work better, upper arm will travel at a different angle relative to the shoulder then…
There’s more stuff that can happen of course, I’m not familiar with all of it.
Benching primarily with your chest can be quite risky with heavy weight, torn pecs are very common… Actually, those don’t just happen with heavy weight… And they’re one of those injuries that seem to be unpredictable… You can do everything right and still tear a pec, and some people on the other hand seem to be virtually immune to that… I believe it’s the most common when flat bb benching because of the stretch applied…
having your shoulders come off the bench/rounding them at the top of a rep (so many people do this) can cause bicep tendon (crossing the shoulder) issues by restricting space for the tendon there… Similar to the sup spin. problem. That is of course not always related to elbow position.
[/quote]
wait dude, that first thing sounds pretty serious, i could be damaging my shoulder by benching flared without noticing it at all?
by the way, i have gotten kind of sloughing shoulders, which means that it’s hard for be to hold my hands together straight over my head, or hold my hand at my thighs like an army guy would do.
does this have anything do with my bench press form?
this is my form :
i pull my shoulder blades back and keep them there for the entire lift
my hands are at about average width, a little longer than shoulder length.
i bring it down to my upper chest, which makes me flare my elbows out.
feet flat on the ground
straight wrists
i have never felt any pain anywhere else than in my hamstrings( for some reason) bench pressing
i keep a good arch
Sometimes when it gets very heavy i bring the bar closer to my face as it becomes easier for me to lift it from that position. you know when the bar stops at the last rep of the set
so is there anything here that might make me get injured or give me posture problems like the one i mentioned?
lars, from what I’ve been told it is possible… It also happened to a German bencher champion I’ve met several times… He barely felt it and once he went to the doc after he finally tore a bicep tendon during competition in the U.S., the diagnosis showed an awful lot of other shit was degraded/destroyed inside his shoulder, including his supraspinatus… Doc gave that explanation I gave you, though better worded of course.
My father has seen the same thing a lot among local bodybuilders and other strength trainees. That is, guys much smaller and weaker than me on average… The supraspinatus thing doesn’t require any really heavy weight to occur… Just enough repetition and at some point your tendon goes I guess.
does the same thing apply to dumbbell press?
[quote]ultralars wrote:
does the same thing apply to dumbbell press? [/quote]
Yes if you mean flat DB press. Different lifts but same plane, of course throwing heavier DBs up does tend to lose tightness in upper back - which won’t happen if you get a good hand-off.
[quote]plateau wrote:
[quote]ultralars wrote:
does the same thing apply to dumbbell press? [/quote]
Yes if you mean flat DB press. Different lifts but same plane, of course throwing heavier DBs up does tend to lose tightness in upper back - which won’t happen if you get a good hand-off.[/quote]
You’re behind in the discussion I think. ultralars is referencing what C_C is talking about, flared elbow benching putting stress on shoulder joints, muscles, and tendons. They’re not discussing stability and back tightness at the moment.
[quote]Blaze_108 wrote:
[quote]plateau wrote:
[quote]ultralars wrote:
does the same thing apply to dumbbell press? [/quote]
Yes if you mean flat DB press. Different lifts but same plane, of course throwing heavier DBs up does tend to lose tightness in upper back - which won’t happen if you get a good hand-off.[/quote]
You’re behind in the discussion I think. ultralars is referencing what C_C is talking about, flared elbow benching putting stress on shoulder joints, muscles, and tendons. They’re not discussing stability and back tightness at the moment.[/quote]
Flat bench form same form as bench press. For same reasons CC gave. 1st sentence of last post not clear to you?
More from CT: I will film a video on this… Here is a quick explanation:
For as long as I can remember every time I started to get really strong on the bench press, my shoulder started hurting. I did everything right, but it still ended up hurting. Until I adopted a benching technique that is almost the polar opposite of what is taught in powerlifting circles.
And this is not a dig at the top powerlifters. But I learned that what is applied to equipped powerlifting technique, training and exercise selection-wise is not always adapted to raw lifting.
In powerlifting you are taught to depress and retract the scapula and spread the lats when benching. This technique takes advantage of the bench shirt, and the bench shirt itself stabilized the shoulder joint, decreasing the risk of injury.
But I found that this technique didn’t help me avoid shoulder issues.
What did help is the technique I developed which consists of powerfully contracting (shrugging) the traps when setting up to bench and maintaining that contraction during the whole set. This action stabilized the shoulders A LOT. This helped me to keep my shoulders healthy, even though I’m at my strongest ever, and boosted my bench almost instantly. It did the same with my training partner Nick and all who I’ve taught it to.
The technique is simple:
This technique has the advantage of protecting your shoulders and making it easier to set up. With the traditional powerlifting bench, when you unrack the bar it is hard to keep the lats tensed and the body in the proper position, not so with my technique.
In my experience this method is optimal for the raw lifter, especially if he has shoulder issues.