how do I row the bar down to my chest? Don’t quite get it
Unless you are in a bench shirt, you don’t. You do engage your lats, and pull the bar out of the rack rather than try to press it up though.
I actually just thought of a neat ME type workout to try.
First do reverse band rows, pulling down for a 1 second hold. Add bands, repeat. Repeat adding small amounts of bands until you can’t get it down to your chest. Now start adding plates and doing reverse band “presses”. Add plates to a max effort press.
That sounds like something fun to do once, and then never do again. Like reverse band good mornings.
Its just a cue to help you engage your lats in the bench, on a strong paused rep you should feel like you are almost bringing your chest up to meet the bar
so essentially bring bar down slowly to chest for every rep…under control…?
[quote]phatphit wrote:
so essentially bring bar down slowly to chest for every rep…under control…?[/quote]
Every rep should be lowered under control…Yes. As to the speed, that depends. A faster lower develops more kinetic energy in the bar, thus requiring more force to stop it at the bottom. A slower descent requires more time under tension, draining energy better spent on the concentric.
I find squeezing the bar and trying to bend it to be better cues.
Controlled and slow aren’t the same thing.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I find squeezing the bar and trying to bend it to be better cues.
Controlled and slow aren’t the same thing.[/quote]
Squeezing the bar is great for me. Trying to bend never worked, for some reason. I do better with trying to meet the bar with my chest like cparker said.
[quote]mertdawg wrote:
I actually just thought of a neat ME type workout to try.
First do reverse band rows, pulling down for a 1 second hold. Add bands, repeat. Repeat adding small amounts of bands until you can’t get it down to your chest. Now start adding plates and doing reverse band “presses”. Add plates to a max effort press. [/quote]
But what exactly would be the point of this for a raw lifter?
I cue “rowing the bar to my chest” but also the squeezing and bending the bar into a horseshoe. For me, it helps engage my lats and keeps my elbows more tucked on the eccentric.
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I find squeezing the bar and trying to bend it to be better cues.
Controlled and slow aren’t the same thing.[/quote]
Squeezing the bar is great for me. Trying to bend never worked, for some reason. I do better with trying to meet the bar with my chest like cparker said.[/quote]
My cue is to try to squeeze my elbows down into my pockets.
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I find squeezing the bar and trying to bend it to be better cues.
Controlled and slow aren’t the same thing.[/quote]
Squeezing the bar is great for me. Trying to bend never worked, for some reason. I do better with trying to meet the bar with my chest like cparker said.[/quote]
It sounds weird, but I actually Try to smash my shoulders into the bench instead of pressing the bar. That makes me stay tight, press from my legs and tighten my lats.
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
[quote]mertdawg wrote:
I actually just thought of a neat ME type workout to try.
First do reverse band rows, pulling down for a 1 second hold. Add bands, repeat. Repeat adding small amounts of bands until you can’t get it down to your chest. Now start adding plates and doing reverse band “presses”. Add plates to a max effort press. [/quote]
But what exactly would be the point of this for a raw lifter?[/quote]
Muscles can help you by contracting, or they can help you by being compressed. Basically reverse band rows teach you to make your lats hard on the way down which cushions the load at the bottom by compression of the lats. Hard flexed lats will actually put the humerus stable pointing straight down to the feet or even slightly forward of the feet, and in either case, maximally flexed lats will occur with a bar OFF the chest.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I find squeezing the bar and trying to bend it to be better cues.
Controlled and slow aren’t the same thing.[/quote]
Squeezing the bar is great for me. Trying to bend never worked, for some reason. I do better with trying to meet the bar with my chest like cparker said.[/quote]
It sounds weird, but I actually Try to smash my shoulders into the bench instead of pressing the bar. That makes me stay tight, press from my legs and tighten my lats.[/quote]
That makes sense to me. I don’t think about pushing the bar “up” I think about pushing my back into the bench…
[quote]mertdawg wrote:
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
[quote]mertdawg wrote:
I actually just thought of a neat ME type workout to try.
First do reverse band rows, pulling down for a 1 second hold. Add bands, repeat. Repeat adding small amounts of bands until you can’t get it down to your chest. Now start adding plates and doing reverse band “presses”. Add plates to a max effort press. [/quote]
But what exactly would be the point of this for a raw lifter?[/quote]
Muscles can help you by contracting, or they can help you by being compressed. Basically reverse band rows teach you to make your lats hard on the way down which cushions the load at the bottom by compression of the lats. Hard flexed lats will actually put the humerus stable pointing straight down to the feet or even slightly forward of the feet, and in either case, maximally flexed lats will occur with a bar OFF the chest. [/quote]
I’m not a anatomy/ physiology professor, so is what you’re saying basically that it’ll help you flex your lats in the bench so your tricep sits on it in the bottom? So it’s essentially a tool for if you’ve been using cues for someone(or yourself) but they just don’t get it
[quote]tylerkeen42 wrote:
[quote]mertdawg wrote:
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
[quote]mertdawg wrote:
I actually just thought of a neat ME type workout to try.
First do reverse band rows, pulling down for a 1 second hold. Add bands, repeat. Repeat adding small amounts of bands until you can’t get it down to your chest. Now start adding plates and doing reverse band “presses”. Add plates to a max effort press. [/quote]
But what exactly would be the point of this for a raw lifter?[/quote]
Muscles can help you by contracting, or they can help you by being compressed. Basically reverse band rows teach you to make your lats hard on the way down which cushions the load at the bottom by compression of the lats. Hard flexed lats will actually put the humerus stable pointing straight down to the feet or even slightly forward of the feet, and in either case, maximally flexed lats will occur with a bar OFF the chest. [/quote]
I’m not a anatomy/ physiology professor, so is what you’re saying basically that it’ll help you flex your lats in the bench so your tricep sits on it in the bottom? So it’s essentially a tool for if you’ve been using cues for someone(or yourself) but they just don’t get it[/quote]
Its not just a tool to cue you, it actually makes the lats stronger cushions. But yes, the lowering of the humerus will be resisted by the presence of a contracted or large muscle in the same way that big biceps can cushion you on a dip.
While we’re talking about that lats, they actually will directly ‘push’ the bar up at the very bottom of the bench press. The lats will pull the arm to your body. Because of where your lats attach on your upper arm, that also means that when your upper arm is behind your shoulders, your lats are actually pulling your arm forward to your shoulder. Once the upper arm is at/above your shoulder on a bench press your lats still play a role in stabilizing and supporting the bar but they aren’t moving the bar directly anymore.
[quote]mertdawg wrote:
[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
[quote]mertdawg wrote:
I actually just thought of a neat ME type workout to try.
First do reverse band rows, pulling down for a 1 second hold. Add bands, repeat. Repeat adding small amounts of bands until you can’t get it down to your chest. Now start adding plates and doing reverse band “presses”. Add plates to a max effort press. [/quote]
But what exactly would be the point of this for a raw lifter?[/quote]
Muscles can help you by contracting, or they can help you by being compressed. Basically reverse band rows teach you to make your lats hard on the way down which cushions the load at the bottom by compression of the lats. Hard flexed lats will actually put the humerus stable pointing straight down to the feet or even slightly forward of the feet, and in either case, maximally flexed lats will occur with a bar OFF the chest. [/quote]
But what you are proposing above is a concentric contraction of the upper back to pull the bar down. When lowering a bench, the prime movers are still doing the work to lower the bar eccentrically. The upper back ( traps) is most important to guiding the bar because those muscles actually attach to the scapula, while the lats contribute as secondary stabilizers. What you are saying is nice in theory, but that cushion you’re talking about isn’t going to do anything to move the weight and is very low on the importance scale.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
While we’re talking about that lats, they actually will directly ‘push’ the bar up at the very bottom of the bench press. The lats will pull the arm to your body. Because of where your lats attach on your upper arm, that also means that when your upper arm is behind your shoulders, your lats are actually pulling your arm forward to your shoulder. Once the upper arm is at/above your shoulder on a bench press your lats still play a role in stabilizing and supporting the bar but they aren’t moving the bar directly anymore. [/quote]
This is always presenting as the pro argument for the lats, but doesn’t really apply to how most people bench…the elbows don’t get past the midline much if at all.