Right Shoulder Rolls Inward w/ Bench

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
1

Hi guys I’m new to the forum but have been reading T-Nation articles for a while, I have been having problems with my bench press so I thought I would consult the forums.

The main reason I am bench pressing is to improve my strength on the football (Gridiron) field. I am in the off-season and am doing a westside template.

Here is a video of me benching 125 kg. My 1rm with very bad form and an absolute grinder is 130 kg, unfortunately I don’t have this on film. When I benched 130 kg it seemed to stall an inch off my chest then the bar travelled back across my face and I somehow managed to lift it.

The main issue I have when attempting weights above 95% is my right shoulder seems to roll forward kind of, and the weight travels back over my face. When this happens I can complete the lift. Its like I have to do this to complete lifts of 125kg and above.

To try and combat this I shifted my grip in 2 finger lengths, the video shown is me doing 125 kg with a closer grip. The grip is 2 fingers in from the rings. It is hard to see but the right shoulder still came forward while lifting this 125kg.

Should I try shift the grip in further. I have also been hammering the upper back work, my brother thinks this will help but hes an olympic lifter so I’m not sure if I should listen to him.

thanks guys and sorry in advance if I didnt follow one of the forum rules like posted in the wrong section

2

You need to try to push yourself through the bench instead of trying to push the bar away from you.

3

For some simple things to do before anything, i would get under the bar more during your set up. It appears you are starting with the top of your head under the bar. Try getting further up on the bench so your chin is under the bar, almost a full 6 inches towards the spotter. Second, have the spotter do more work. Make sure he works the bar over your chest to where you begin your decent. By him just lifting the bar out of the rack, you have to use your shoulders to work the bar out, and loose tightness in your back, which affects shoulder stability.

At about the 5 sec. mark, after you take all that time setting up and getting a tight arch, you flop your arms open as you reach for the bar. This basically throws away all upper back, scapula and shoulder tightness needed to generate power. If you are going to bridge your arch that way, you should not take your hands off the bar, and focus on pulling your shoulder blades together, and driving them towards your tailbone. tight and down. Also, at about the 12 to 13 second mark, you take your very large breath when the weight is already at your lockout.

This breath needs to be taken before you de-rack the bar. By not having a full breath earlier, you are not as stable as you should be. This lack of stabilization leads to loosing tightness in your shoulder as well. The decent of the bar appears appropriate, but the moment you begin your eccentric phase, your first move is flaring your elbows. This shows you have are lacking upper back and lat strength when controlling the weight down and beginning the press transition.

You also drive the bar up to your face, and attempt to rack and lockout in move. This is not only showing insufficient technique, but is also dangerous. Lock the weight out, then rack it. do not do both. Pick a grip where you feel the most powerful, and work on your technique. Find a program, and work it. To get stronger benching, you need to bench more.

4

[quote]dwfox wrote:
For some simple things to do before anything, i would get under the bar more during your set up. It appears you are starting with the top of your head under the bar. Try getting further up on the bench so your chin is under the bar, almost a full 6 inches towards the spotter. Second, have the spotter do more work. Make sure he works the bar over your chest to where you begin your decent. By him just lifting the bar out of the rack, you have to use your shoulders to work the bar out, and loose tightness in your back, which affects shoulder stability.

At about the 5 sec. mark, after you take all that time setting up and getting a tight arch, you flop your arms open as you reach for the bar. This basically throws away all upper back, scapula and shoulder tightness needed to generate power. If you are going to bridge your arch that way, you should not take your hands off the bar, and focus on pulling your shoulder blades together, and driving them towards your tailbone. tight and down. Also, at about the 12 to 13 second mark, you take your very large breath when the weight is already at your lockout.

This breath needs to be taken before you de-rack the bar. By not having a full breath earlier, you are not as stable as you should be. This lack of stabilization leads to loosing tightness in your shoulder as well. The decent of the bar appears appropriate, but the moment you begin your eccentric phase, your first move is flaring your elbows. This shows you have are lacking upper back and lat strength when controlling the weight down and beginning the press transition.

You also drive the bar up to your face, and attempt to rack and lockout in move. This is not only showing insufficient technique, but is also dangerous. Lock the weight out, then rack it. do not do both. Pick a grip where you feel the most powerful, and work on your technique. Find a program, and work it. To get stronger benching, you need to bench more. [/quote]

thanks for such an in-depth and helpful response

I will try all these things, also for the issue of my right shoulder rolling forward during heavy attempts is this also an upperback weakness

I have benched to a 1 rep max 4 weeks in a row for my max effort day so I have to focus on a new lift next week, I was going to try floor press for 3 weeks so I can just focus on correcting the upper body without worrying about the low body or arch, do you think that is a good idea or should I just do a reverse band bench press, or 2-board bench press.
Thanks again

5

Based on the video you posted, it is hard to even determine why you are truly having an issue with your right shoulder. As you are working at such high %'s, your strongest muscles are limited by your weakest muscles. Kind of a Golgi Tendon response. I see that you are working with a Westside Template. If you have access to boards and bands, that is great. Personally, if you keep sticking to the template, it doesnt matter too much what your next cycle is (boards or bands). What is critical is that your technique is flawless before you move up in weight. Just because you can reverse band press 125% of your 1RM doesnt mean you should. If you are carrying over flawed technique between movements, you are not training for maximal strength and are more than likely inviting injury.

What i would recommend is working to heavy triples or higher. Working to a heavy single in any movement while also trying to retrain technical aspects of the lift is too difficult. You will miss weights that you have hit before, and go back to poor technique to hit weights you should not be under. At 3 reps or more, you can reinforce proper technique while still improving strength. I would also make this my emphasis on my Dynamic Effort day. Every single rep with absolutley perfect technique. There is a why it is supposed be 55% of your 1RM on this day.

Just try to have three pull movements for every push on the same plane. If you bench for at total of 12 reps (4 sets of 3) hit at least a total of 36 reps in horizontal pull movements (barbell rows, t-bar rows, cable rows, etc.)

6

[quote]dwfox wrote:
Based on the video you posted, it is hard to even determine why you are truly having an issue with your right shoulder. As you are working at such high %'s, your strongest muscles are limited by your weakest muscles. Kind of a Golgi Tendon response. I see that you are working with a Westside Template. If you have access to boards and bands, that is great. Personally, if you keep sticking to the template, it doesnt matter too much what your next cycle is (boards or bands). What is critical is that your technique is flawless before you move up in weight. Just because you can reverse band press 125% of your 1RM doesnt mean you should. If you are carrying over flawed technique between movements, you are not training for maximal strength and are more than likely inviting injury.

What i would recommend is working to heavy triples or higher. Working to a heavy single in any movement while also trying to retrain technical aspects of the lift is too difficult. You will miss weights that you have hit before, and go back to poor technique to hit weights you should not be under. At 3 reps or more, you can reinforce proper technique while still improving strength. I would also make this my emphasis on my Dynamic Effort day. Every single rep with absolutely perfect technique. There is a why it is supposed be 55% of your 1RM on this day.

Just try to have three pull movements for every push on the same plane. If you bench for at total of 12 reps (4 sets of 3) hit at least a total of 36 reps in horizontal pull movements (barbell rows, t-bar rows, cable rows, etc.)

[/quote]

Thanks for taking the time to make another reply

I read your feedback about flopping my arms out and starting further up on the bench down in my notebook and have been doing 10 triples with just the bar every night before I go to bed improving on these points. What you wrote about losing my upper back tightness was dead-on I actually have doms in my rear shoulder/lat insertion area at the moment that I think is caused by the accumulation from all these bar reps and my speed day on Monday. My body feels significantly more stable and pinned to the bench when I press now.

When I did my speed day on Monday I did 60 kg but with a slow eccentric because I used to disregard the bar path and just smash out 3 reps with really fast eccentric and concentric and the bar would touch 3 different spots on my chest. Because I was moving the weight slower the bar stayed in a consistent groove that I have practised with the empty bar. This form felt much much better and I will continue to do this until I can keep the bar in a groove every rep.

The triples idea sounds great I will try it on Thursday with floor press. I have been taking a deep breath before unracking as you instructed previously but after 3 reps with just the bar it feels like my head will pop off. Is this something that I will get used to or should I complete 2 reps, exhale then inhale and try to regain my tightness.

My training days consist of:

Dynamic Effort Day (Monday)

-Speed bench : 9x3 - 3 close grip sets, 3 medium grip sets, 3 wide grip sets
-Seated DB Press with a pause or Bradford Press: 4x6-10
-Chest supported Rows: 5x5
-Dumbell Powercleans: 4x20 supersetted with Neck Curls: 4x10 (Neck curls are a safety precaution my Gridiron coach reccomended)

    Max Effort Day (Thursday)

-Max Effort bench press variation working up in 20 kg increments, then 10 kg increments at 80%, then 5 kg increments at 90%)
-Bench press back off sets usually involves me doing triples with about 70-80% for a few sets
A friend at the gym also owns a ‘slingshot’ that he bought from Mark Bell’s website, he reccomended I use it for my backoff sets to encourage myself to tuck my elbows in
-Pullups 5x5
-Face Pulls: 4x15-20
-Tricep Extensions: 3x10-15 supersetted with Hammer Curls: 3x 10-15

On Saturday I do some band pullaparts before I go to bed as well.

I did a routine that had no rowing prior to this template so I think you are spot on that I need more rowing, I also had heaps of flat and incline dumbbell bench press as assistance when I first started. But I’m not sure where I should put all the extra rowing. Would it be viable to come in on Saturday to the gym and do a full session of rowing E.g 5x5 T-bar Rows and 5x5 Kroc Rows. Or would I risk over training. I also do 3 days a week of Olympic lifting and was hoping this would aid my upperback strength. I am currently on holidays from Uni so I can sleep all day and eat heaps of food to facilitate recovering from a lot of volume.

The help you have provided so far is very much appreciated, any further help would be a bonus.
Kind Regards
Jack

7

First question first: Your head will not explode. But if you need to exhale and regain your breath, that is fine. As long as you refill your breath fully and maintain tightness before you BEGIN your third rep. This carries over to whatever amount reps you are doing. Do not begin the concentric without being 100% tight.

Other than that, the top half of your post sounds good. Continue in that direction and you will start seeing technical improvements that WILL carry over once you move back to singles.

I am not going to negatively critique your program. I do not advocate recommending something different just for the sake of change, or because I would do something different. What I will do is recommend you look up and read two people who have articles on this site that have influenced me (and my shoulder health) dramatically. In the search box at the top of this page, look up Joe DeFranco and Jim Wendler. Read everything they have written, especially focusing on shoulder health. DeFranco recommends training your front (push) like a power lifter and your back like a bodybuilder. Jim believes in a similar concept, but using pull ups to get the reps in your pull moves at that 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. The key difference in their lifting philosophies is the overhead press. DeFranco advocates totally removing it from your program, while Jim believes it is a keystone of any solid lifting program. Personally, I tore my rotator cuff and labrum and had to have surgery to repair it. Overhead pressing creates a lot of pain in my shoulder, so I do not do that move. But that is a personal decision I have learned through training. If you look at how they build their programs, they utilize and push and pull in movements in the same workout, and incorporate a lot of reps via pulls throughout the week. This was the a-ha moment I had in breaking barriers. Not having a designated, full scale back day but instead having many back days throughout the week. Christian Thibideau does a good job on this site explaining why push muscles need to be trained ‘explosively’ while pull muscles need to be put under stress through increased time under tension.

As for the final part of your post: Every day I have a horizontal push, I would follow that with a horizontal pull. You can be creative with this, and pull heavy on your light push day or pull heavy on your heavy push day. This gives you freedom to alternate exercises and add interest to your program. I would not add an extra day to pull. It seems your lifting schedule is pretty full. I also do not use any Olympic lifts, so I cannot have an opinion how these movements have an effect on anything. As I said before, I am not going to blow-up your program, but to offer my opinion, here are a couple comments I would make:

-do not alternate your grip on speed day (yet). Just use the grip you traditionally bench with. As you get your technique locked in and your confidence up, then you progress towards different grip positions.

  • Chest supported rows: I would increase the amount of reps to 12-15, and only do 4 sets, focusing on the contraction at the peak of the movement where you are most similar to the bottom of the ROM in the bench.

  • DB Power cleans and Neck Curls are at your discretion, though I personally like finishing with DeFranco?s ?Shoulder Shocker? presented in the article on this site.

  • Max Effort: Find a program and run it all the way through. Most programs will not advocate working to heavy a single more than once every 4-8 weeks. There is a reason for that.

  • Pull ups: You should be doing way more pull-ups. Try to get 50 in on both press days, however you can. Wendler has a good advice on this.

  • Face pulls ? another move I would recommend on both press days.

  • Band pull aparts ? Micro-mini band, 4 sets of 25 every day you lift. I do these M-F at work. Do them with different grips at different angles.

  • You mentioned Kroc Rows at 5x5, which is not a Kroc Row. A Kroc Row is 1 set of 20+ reps with the heaviest DB you can use. It is a max rep movement, but I do recommend these highly. I have also commented on another thread about these where I talk about them in greater detail.

So in summation, I would say on your DE day I would add facepulls, pull-ups, and increase my rows to about 50 reps. On your ME day, I would add pull-ups, keep doing facepulls, and add a barbell row, T-Bar Row, or a seated cable row, and do a weight that puts you at about 4 set of 12-15 reps. Depending on how long these workouts take, on the shorter day I would add Kroc Rows.

Besides this, I would recommend your diet is on point, but with this level of work and you training for sport, you need to have a substantial caloric intake. When in doubt; eat. And then eat some more. The most straight-forward way to pack on strength is to pack on size. Get big by getting big.

Hope this helps.

8

[quote]dwfox wrote:
First question first: Your head will not explode. But if you need to exhale and regain your breath, that is fine. As long as you refill your breath fully and maintain tightness before you BEGIN your third rep. This carries over to whatever amount reps you are doing. Do not begin the concentric without being 100% tight.

Other than that, the top half of your post sounds good. Continue in that direction and you will start seeing technical improvements that WILL carry over once you move back to singles.

I am not going to negatively critique your program. I do not advocate recommending something different just for the sake of change, or because I would do something different. What I will do is recommend you look up and read two people who have articles on this site that have influenced me (and my shoulder health) dramatically. In the search box at the top of this page, look up Joe DeFranco and Jim Wendler. Read everything they have written, especially focusing on shoulder health. DeFranco recommends training your front (push) like a power lifter and your back like a bodybuilder. Jim believes in a similar concept, but using pull ups to get the reps in your pull moves at that 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. The key difference in their lifting philosophies is the overhead press. DeFranco advocates totally removing it from your program, while Jim believes it is a keystone of any solid lifting program. Personally, I tore my rotator cuff and labrum and had to have surgery to repair it. Overhead pressing creates a lot of pain in my shoulder, so I do not do that move. But that is a personal decision I have learned through training. If you look at how they build their programs, they utilize and push and pull in movements in the same workout, and incorporate a lot of reps via pulls throughout the week. This was the a-ha moment I had in breaking barriers. Not having a designated, full scale back day but instead having many back days throughout the week. Christian Thibideau does a good job on this site explaining why push muscles need to be trained ‘explosively’ while pull muscles need to be put under stress through increased time under tension.

As for the final part of your post: Every day I have a horizontal push, I would follow that with a horizontal pull. You can be creative with this, and pull heavy on your light push day or pull heavy on your heavy push day. This gives you freedom to alternate exercises and add interest to your program. I would not add an extra day to pull. It seems your lifting schedule is pretty full. I also do not use any Olympic lifts, so I cannot have an opinion how these movements have an effect on anything. As I said before, I am not going to blow-up your program, but to offer my opinion, here are a couple comments I would make:

-do not alternate your grip on speed day (yet). Just use the grip you traditionally bench with. As you get your technique locked in and your confidence up, then you progress towards different grip positions.

  • Chest supported rows: I would increase the amount of reps to 12-15, and only do 4 sets, focusing on the contraction at the peak of the movement where you are most similar to the bottom of the ROM in the bench.

  • DB Power cleans and Neck Curls are at your discretion, though I personally like finishing with DeFranco?s ?Shoulder Shocker? presented in the article on this site.

  • Max Effort: Find a program and run it all the way through. Most programs will not advocate working to heavy a single more than once every 4-8 weeks. There is a reason for that.

  • Pull ups: You should be doing way more pull-ups. Try to get 50 in on both press days, however you can. Wendler has a good advice on this.

  • Face pulls ? another move I would recommend on both press days.

  • Band pull aparts ? Micro-mini band, 4 sets of 25 every day you lift. I do these M-F at work. Do them with different grips at different angles.

  • You mentioned Kroc Rows at 5x5, which is not a Kroc Row. A Kroc Row is 1 set of 20+ reps with the heaviest DB you can use. It is a max rep movement, but I do recommend these highly. I have also commented on another thread about these where I talk about them in greater detail.

So in summation, I would say on your DE day I would add facepulls, pull-ups, and increase my rows to about 50 reps. On your ME day, I would add pull-ups, keep doing facepulls, and add a barbell row, T-Bar Row, or a seated cable row, and do a weight that puts you at about 4 set of 12-15 reps. Depending on how long these workouts take, on the shorter day I would add Kroc Rows.

Besides this, I would recommend your diet is on point, but with this level of work and you training for sport, you need to have a substantial caloric intake. When in doubt; eat. And then eat some more. The most straight-forward way to pack on strength is to pack on size. Get big by getting big.

Hope this helps.
[/quote]

Thanks for another great response, following your reccomendation I altered my routine to this

DE bench (Monday)

Speed bench : 9x3
Chest Supported Rows: 4x12-15
Seated DB Press with a pause 3x8
Pullups: 5x10 Bodyweight
DeFranco’s shoulder shocker: 4x20 / Neck Curls: 4x10
Facepulls: 4x20

ME Bench (Thursday)

ME Movement: 3RM
Back Off sets: 3x3 at a sub maximal weight
Pullups: 5x6 weighted
Seated Cable Rows with a wide grip bar: 4x12-15 supersetted with Face Pulls: 4x15-20
Tricep Extensions: 3x10-15 supersetted with Hammer Curls: 3x 10-15

Also adding band pull aparts everyday for 100 total reps

After completing my max effort day last week I had some doms in my lats and upperback from all this volume, I feel bigger already lol. Im also reading the louie simmons Westside Barbell book of methods and a have been reading articles by Jim Wendler on his blog and going through the ‘Ask Joe’ section on Joe Defranco’s website. Thanks for all this help man I feel you have really set me in the right direction.

9

I didn’t read any of the responses above so that my opinion wouldn’t be influenced in any way so If this has been said already apologies but it’ll lend credence to that advice as well.

You need to get more under the bar. You are way off the end of the bench. This makes you lose your set up by having to pull the bar way out there. You more or less push straight up so you don’t need to be too far from the uprights ( a good thing) this also unpins your shoulders. You also have a great arch but it would seem that you are touching at nipple level. Try touching at the sternum / upper belly if you are going to arch that much. I also noticed that you flare your elbows right off the chest. This tells me that you need to work on your triceps. I only flare for the last 4 inches of bar travel or so.

I’d recommend that you do some 3-5 board presses for reps of 3-5. Go heavy as you can on those. Being American, my Metric system sucks but is would seem that is around 245# or so. With the 3-5 board press you should be able to quickly build up to 275-295 which will make that 130kg feel light off the chest. Since you said you are doing a westside routine, board presses can be a great ME movement- 3-5 reps, then do some illegally wide benches for an accessory movement, 3-5 sets of 8-12 reps, then maybe some incline DB presses for accessory. Hope this helps. Of course, don’t forget your back. Big benches have big backs. Gotta have a bomb proof foundation to move heavy things.

10

[quote]StrengthDawg wrote:
I didn’t read any of the responses above so that my opinion wouldn’t be influenced in any way so If this has been said already apologies but it’ll lend credence to that advice as well.

You need to get more under the bar. You are way off the end of the bench. This makes you lose your set up by having to pull the bar way out there. You more or less push straight up so you don’t need to be too far from the uprights ( a good thing) this also unpins your shoulders. You also have a great arch but it would seem that you are touching at nipple level. Try touching at the sternum / upper belly if you are going to arch that much. I also noticed that you flare your elbows right off the chest. This tells me that you need to work on your triceps. I only flare for the last 4 inches of bar travel or so.

I’d recommend that you do some 3-5 board presses for reps of 3-5. Go heavy as you can on those. Being American, my Metric system sucks but is would seem that is around 245# or so. With the 3-5 board press you should be able to quickly build up to 275-295 which will make that 130kg feel light off the chest. Since you said you are doing a westside routine, board presses can be a great ME movement- 3-5 reps, then do some illegally wide benches for an accessory movement, 3-5 sets of 8-12 reps, then maybe some incline DB presses for accessory. Hope this helps. Of course, don’t forget your back. Big benches have big backs. Gotta have a bomb proof foundation to move heavy things. [/quote]

Hi sorry for such a late reply, been busy with exams ><

Thanks for a helpful response, somone did already mention that I was too far down but the fact that you noticed this without reading prior posts just shows that this is definitely something I need to work on.

Ill add in some 3-5 board presses cheers

11

[quote]dwfox wrote:
First question first: Your head will not explode. But if you need to exhale and regain your breath, that is fine. As long as you refill your breath fully and maintain tightness before you BEGIN your third rep. This carries over to whatever amount reps you are doing. Do not begin the concentric without being 100% tight.

Other than that, the top half of your post sounds good. Continue in that direction and you will start seeing technical improvements that WILL carry over once you move back to singles.

I am not going to negatively critique your program. I do not advocate recommending something different just for the sake of change, or because I would do something different. What I will do is recommend you look up and read two people who have articles on this site that have influenced me (and my shoulder health) dramatically. In the search box at the top of this page, look up Joe DeFranco and Jim Wendler. Read everything they have written, especially focusing on shoulder health. DeFranco recommends training your front (push) like a power lifter and your back like a bodybuilder. Jim believes in a similar concept, but using pull ups to get the reps in your pull moves at that 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. The key difference in their lifting philosophies is the overhead press. DeFranco advocates totally removing it from your program, while Jim believes it is a keystone of any solid lifting program. Personally, I tore my rotator cuff and labrum and had to have surgery to repair it. Overhead pressing creates a lot of pain in my shoulder, so I do not do that move. But that is a personal decision I have learned through training. If you look at how they build their programs, they utilize and push and pull in movements in the same workout, and incorporate a lot of reps via pulls throughout the week. This was the a-ha moment I had in breaking barriers. Not having a designated, full scale back day but instead having many back days throughout the week. Christian Thibideau does a good job on this site explaining why push muscles need to be trained ‘explosively’ while pull muscles need to be put under stress through increased time under tension.

As for the final part of your post: Every day I have a horizontal push, I would follow that with a horizontal pull. You can be creative with this, and pull heavy on your light push day or pull heavy on your heavy push day. This gives you freedom to alternate exercises and add interest to your program. I would not add an extra day to pull. It seems your lifting schedule is pretty full. I also do not use any Olympic lifts, so I cannot have an opinion how these movements have an effect on anything. As I said before, I am not going to blow-up your program, but to offer my opinion, here are a couple comments I would make:

-do not alternate your grip on speed day (yet). Just use the grip you traditionally bench with. As you get your technique locked in and your confidence up, then you progress towards different grip positions.

  • Chest supported rows: I would increase the amount of reps to 12-15, and only do 4 sets, focusing on the contraction at the peak of the movement where you are most similar to the bottom of the ROM in the bench.

  • DB Power cleans and Neck Curls are at your discretion, though I personally like finishing with DeFranco?s ?Shoulder Shocker? presented in the article on this site.

  • Max Effort: Find a program and run it all the way through. Most programs will not advocate working to heavy a single more than once every 4-8 weeks. There is a reason for that.

  • Pull ups: You should be doing way more pull-ups. Try to get 50 in on both press days, however you can. Wendler has a good advice on this.

  • Face pulls ? another move I would recommend on both press days.

  • Band pull aparts ? Micro-mini band, 4 sets of 25 every day you lift. I do these M-F at work. Do them with different grips at different angles.

  • You mentioned Kroc Rows at 5x5, which is not a Kroc Row. A Kroc Row is 1 set of 20+ reps with the heaviest DB you can use. It is a max rep movement, but I do recommend these highly. I have also commented on another thread about these where I talk about them in greater detail.

So in summation, I would say on your DE day I would add facepulls, pull-ups, and increase my rows to about 50 reps. On your ME day, I would add pull-ups, keep doing facepulls, and add a barbell row, T-Bar Row, or a seated cable row, and do a weight that puts you at about 4 set of 12-15 reps. Depending on how long these workouts take, on the shorter day I would add Kroc Rows.

Besides this, I would recommend your diet is on point, but with this level of work and you training for sport, you need to have a substantial caloric intake. When in doubt; eat. And then eat some more. The most straight-forward way to pack on strength is to pack on size. Get big by getting big.

Hope this helps.
[/quote]
Hi I just had one more query and I’m not sure if I should start a new thread for this but I have been working on improving my forma lot lately and after watching the Westside barbell bench press index DVD by Jim Wendler several times and practicing sets everyday with an empty bar, I have improved my technique to this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M82y0WrPmA8&feature=youtu.be

after viewing this video of mt form though I noticed I do a large arc from chest to lockout and a friend of mine tried to convince me that benching this low on the chest with such an arc is for a geared lifter and it will be more efficient and easier to bench in a straight line

I was looking at a few lifters with long arms like myself who bench in more of a straight line like the Glen Chabot, but I also read a post by Tim Henrique while searching other threads that lifters with longer arms tend to have a more pronounced arc.

Would you recommend I begin benching in a straighter line closer towards the chest or remain benching with my current arc?

thanks again