Or shall I write inflexibility. Any thoughts on this are greatly appreciated. Doing benches for too many years has me to internally rotated. I’m trying to doing full snatches and have been doing overhead squats to prepare for them. However, even with the bar, the lower I go the more my arms keep wanting to go forward. That’s the major problem… ANy suggestions are much appreciated!
Nick
Stretch your lats, and other internal rotaors by using pnf techniques, and get some deep tissue work done such as rolfing or try ART…
You’ve been benching too long, right.
The pecs and anterior delts are main movers in bench press, right.
Flexibility is compromised by contraction without relaxation, right.
Over time your pecs and anterior delts have gotten shorter and shorter, right.
stretch em.
It would be easier for you to find what stretches your pecs and anterior delts than for me to type it all up.
Be sure to stretch your anterior chain (quads, hip flexors, gut). Tightness in these muscles cause anterior rotation more than you think. besides, if you have been benching to much then you probably have a sucked in gut too.
I had the same problem, but I can full snatch now.
“However, even with the bar, the lower I go the more my arms keep wanting to go forward. That’s the major problem… ANy suggestions are much appreciated!”
Here’s a tip I learned from Dan John - let the weight stretch. Basically, the heavier the weight, the easier it is to do overhead squats – up to a point, of course. When you hold a heavy load overhead, two things happen. First, your arms won’t be strong enough to let the weight move forward and the sheer weight of the bar will force your arms to stay back. Second, the weight will push down on your hips and ankles to help stretch those joints as well. It is actually easier for me to OH squat with 135 than with an empty bar.
Now, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you to work up to this gradually. Make sure your are good and warmed up, especially your shoulders. I’ve found that snatch-grip behind the neck presses work well for this purpose - start with an empty bar. Start with a lighter weight and focus on keeping the arms back in the OH squat position. Then add weight gradually. When I first OH squatted with 135, I think this whole process from warm up to getting 135 on the bar took 20-30 minutes.
Good luck.
My thoughts on this topic mimic Boss14?s.
I would also add lots of deadlifts and rows to your program, put those two movements at the beginning of the week. Forget about benching until you postural abnormalities are corrected.
Read or reread the Neanderthal articles for some very useful info.
Stretch your pecs to.
Since the lats are internal rotators, rowing isn’t going to help it’s just going to add to the problem. The stretch you need to do is to is with your arm out to your side and bent 90 degrees at the elbow place your palm and elbow against a wall and stretch your pec. You can move your arm up and down to stretch different parts of the muscle.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Since the lats are internal rotators, rowing isn’t going to help it’s just going to add to the problem. The stretch you need to do is to is with your arm out to your side and bent 90 degrees at the elbow place your palm and elbow against a wall and stretch your pec. You can move your arm up and down to stretch different parts of the muscle.[/quote]
Lets see he said: ?Doing benches for too many years has me to internally rotated.? Which probably means he has a strength imbalance making the movements I wrote about above correct. Rows/deadlifts WILL not exacerbate his condition, instead will help correct his muscular imbalances inquired from the bench press movement.
I admit there is a lack of info provided by this trainee, and without being able to do a full battery of postural tests my info is general.