bench press form

[Ross86]

Haha I know. I was just messing with ya

[Eric3237]

So your saying, Monsta, that you don't want to have the 'advantage' of good form? To me, whatever short term mental advantage you may get is outweighed by the long term disadvantages. With either technique, as long as you are consistent and steadily progress, then the difference in the weight used is cancelled out. Given the choice, it is better to go with a somewhat safer technique and let the natural laws of progressive overload do their job. Anything else is overthinking it, imo.

[MONSTAFACE]

well i always looked at it like................ ok you know when you do curls standing against a wall. you can do less amount or less reps opposed to just standing. when your just standing straight up once you begin to struggle you can just swing with the weight and you can just swing to get it up. im sort of trying to do the same with the bench. if i struggle i dont want to put a whole bunch of arch in my back.

well i guess the best way to say it, is that i do it to stay strict. i guess that should have been the way to say it. i just want to be strict as possible so when i do put my feet down and i am lifting with heavy weight or doing a lot of reps i know i dont have to put the crazy arch in my back to lift the weight

[hrdgain81]

^^ if you can do that and keep pushing heavy wieghts more power to ya monsta, I personally dont bench without my feet on the ground for safty reasons. I wouldnt want to lose balance with any decent wieght in my hands. I've been hurt enough, I dont need to take chances.

[Eric3237]

Totally, agree. That picture you have up...i can just imagine what would happen if you suddenly lost strength in one side. You wouldn't have a stable position from which to recover and you could really end up getting hurt.

Well, I agree. That excessive arching, or basically lifting the butt off the bench can put a lot of compression on the discs and be very bad for the back. But you are taking something that is mental and making it more important then actual biomechanical considerations. Frankly, anyone, if they are disciplined can learn to avoid that reaction of the butt rising. It's hard, I admit because when the weight gets heavy the body just naturally seeks a mechanical advantage and that gives it one. But it can be overcome with discipline.

Let me go at it another way. I actually read one guy with a bunch of letters after his name talking about feet up benching just now. He brought up some of the points I already discussed about lower back problems and how it may be advantages for some. But then he brought up a point about how the upper body stabilizers will be more engaged with feet up benching because you take out the lower body. He didn't actually give his opinion on it though (so fuck em).

As soon as I read it I thought it was ludicrous. Your "upper body" stabilizers were not built to be "isolated". We are connected from head to toes and things going on at the hips can affect things going on at the shoulders. Ask youselve if your body was ever meant to bench press. Maybe if a rock fell on you and your hands were in the right position you may press it off, lol. But do you think isolating the upper body stabilizers would be a good idea? Course not. You would just be less stable and more prone to injury, most likely from being squashed by the rock.

First of all, you are not well anchored to the bench. Second of all, there are two types of stabilizers, active and passive. You don't want to overwhelm one to the disadvantage of the other.

It would be one thing if we were actively training 'stabilizers'. You know, like the bench pressing on a ball? But that is light weight dumbells, not heavy barbells. When you are benching even somewhat heavy, it is not a time to make yourself less stable and definitely not a time to put your shoulders in a more stressful position. But the only way you can properly set your upper back with the feet up, at least from what I have experienced is....to create an excessive and unnatural arch in the lower back.

But you are benching with your lower back flat, your upper back rounded and your chest down. You are basically unstable in a myriad of ways. Your body was meant to work as a unit. There is not any real disadvantage to allowing it to do so. You just have to control the pitfalls of anything you choose to do.

[MONSTAFACE]

hhhhmmm. well spoken. cant argue with it. it def makes sense. ill rock out with my legs down from now on. i go with what makes sense and you def do. so i guess there is no need to keep them up.

[hrdgain81]

^^ yeah, but dont you wish he could do it with less words

j/k eric

[Eric3237]

I edited out about 200 words .

[Sleazy]

Wow never seen anyone have their legs up in the air like that for a bench press...but shit if its works for you more power to you.

I prefer to have my legs on the ground for safety reasons like hrdgain said and I feel that I get a much better push from my legs with them on the ground. I think a lot of people ignore how important the legs are for heavy benching. Unless you have short legs I personally don't see the point in putting them up on the bench, but I do see more and more people doing it in the gym. Most of them however aren't putting up very much weight unlike Monsta.

[Darkhorse]

Good call Sleazy.. Legs are extremely important!