First thing that stands out to me is your hand spacing is too close. At the chest your hands are closer to your body than your elbows. This puts you at a mechanical disadvantage, making you rely more on tricep strength than pectoral recruitment.
I would agree with the guys above. You need to watch some video and adjust the way you set up. Tuck your feet. Load your traps and arch your back. Drive the upper back into the bench. Squeeze the bar and pull it apart. Leg drive. Also, you probably need to lower the weight further down your body just a few inches more toward your waist will make a huge difference, that will semi adjust itself with a proper set up.
[quote]cparker wrote:
There is really no setup or leg drive or anything to your bench at all. Dig your shoulders into the bench, create a small arch in your upper back, find a good foot position and keep it the entire time while pushing the floor away form you. A lot can be changed with your bench[/quote]
Ok, for the life of me I can’t figure out what people mean by “dig your shoulders into the bench.” Dig in against what? And upper back arched in which direction? When I start screwing around with how my shoulders are planted on the bench I start fidgeting, and feel like I can’t get myself even on it, like it’s too narrow. The white bench behind me in that video is wider, but the rests are so short that with my arms fully extended I’ll go completely over them and don’t feel comfortable racking/unracking with heavier weights.
How can you tell I have no leg drive? I realized after I saw that video that you can’t see below my knees, but I am planting my feet when I pull up on the bar and then driving my heals down trying to maintain a reasonable arch in my lower back, not like a powerlifting competition arch, but reasonable (you can’t tell with the shirt I’m wearing but you can probably stick my closed fist between me and the bench there). II have had issues with the muscles across the front of my left hip (hip flexors possibly) cramping trying to bench, but that usually only happens when I try to bench after I’ve done another work out first (it may have happened then if I tried putting some weight on the bar). I’ve never successfully figured out how to stretch it.
I’m starting to notice that I have tons of issues on my left hand side…
[quote]Antman517 wrote:
First thing that stands out to me is your hand spacing is too close. At the chest your hands are closer to your body than your elbows. This puts you at a mechanical disadvantage, making you rely more on tricep strength than pectoral recruitment.[/quote]
I was expecting that. I can probably put my at least my middle, maybe my pointer fingers on the rings and my hands still won’t be outside my elbows (wider if I square off and do a bodybuilding type bench press with elbows out, but my grip has been migrating inward since I found that I can go heavier like that without it hurting my shoulders (usually my left one), I just can’t keep my elbows tucked going much wider.
I’ve found that if I do some reverse grip benches first I can keep my elbows tucked longer, but I haven’t found anything that will keep them in just regular benching with a wider grip
Is that the bench you normally use?
Learning to dig into the bench may help reduce your shoulder problems because of the added stability. Leg drive also provides stability and you have to keep your entire body tight to transfer the force efficiently.
I think of digging into the bench as turning the movement into a slight decline bench. For my setup I dig my traps into the bench and push against the bar during the entire setup all the way to lift off. I push with enough force that the bar is close to unracking (maybe 150-200 lbs of force when working with around 215). So far this method has provided me the most consistent setup to stay tight.
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Is that the bench you normally use? [/quote]
Yes, there’s 2 of them like that in the gym, and then the shorter one in the background of the video.
Occasionally I’ll use a bench in the smith machine or with dumbells, but if anything they’re narrower, and the pad is sort of humped in the middle
[quote]Grizzly_Mark wrote:
So I finally shot a video… This was after my workout, and I just walked over and did a few reps with what was on the bar. I’d just finished some heavy T-bar rows and it felt like I was coming down maybe slightly higher on my chest than normal, but it might have been my imagination.
FWIW, I normally won’t wear gloves but i sprained my left wrist just after I started this thread and the padding in the gloves is just enough to take the pressure off the spot in my hand that is still sore.
That person in the video cannot OHP 205x22.
Kgs, right? Not lbs…
I was expecting someone in shape. You said you look like johnny bravo, not seeing that. You look more like a slightly more muscular louis ck
[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
That person in the video cannot OHP 205x22.
Kgs, right? Not lbs…
[/quote]
kgs? No way, that’s like 450#…
[quote]Grizzly_Mark wrote:
[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
That person in the video cannot OHP 205x22.
Kgs, right? Not lbs…
[/quote]
kgs? No way, that’s like 450#…[/quote]
Lol. No kidding. But that guy (if indeed was you), in no way shape or form can do what we consider a standard OHP with 205 for 22 reps.
And a dude that’s 6’4" with long arms to boot??? Do you realize what type of individual with that build (6’4, 235) would be like???
There is a guy in my gym who does 225 for 10. Strict standing OHP. He’s less than 6 foot, maybe 250… No abs whatsoever…, how would I describe him? One word- SCARY.
The dude in that vid ain’t scary.