close grip bench

[HSfootball16]

when doing close grip bench are you still supposed to touch your chest or is 2-3 inches away acceptable? becasue ive been told by my old line coach that 2-3 inches away is fine but some guys are telling me to touch my chest on the close grip.

[Johan]

I woudlnt say you HAVE to touch your just. 2-3 inches should be fine. Thats about where mine stop.

[_Wolf_]

tough ur chest

[hrdgain81]

I would use a full range of motion, that being said, its much "easier" to bounce the wieght off your chest then it is to touch your chest, pause and press. I would go with the latter.

[Darkhorse]

Touch and go, tuck your elbows in upon decent. Same exact thing with flat bench. I always see people stopping a few inches off their chest. I tell them you might as well throw a few boards under there because it's the same thing. One time for fun I actually did let him try a few boards and I asked if he felt a lot of load on his pecs.

[TALO]

I have always touched the chest, but like you some guys say not too. There reason is because it would increase the risk of a peck tear due to going past the point.

[HSfootball16]

alright, ill lower the weight a little and touch my chest. thanks again guys.

[Riddick2112]

I would say use as full a ROM as possible within the limitations of your equpiment, spotters etc. In my case, i train alone so any pressing movement on a flat bench ends up about 2-3 inches from my chest because any lower and i hit the safety pins.

[Eric3237]

If there is a way to set it up so that the pins are about an inch lower or so from where the bar would be when it contacts you poked out chest that is how to eliminate it. What I had to do to achieve this perfectly is to place thin plywood under my bench for a platform. This way if I get stuck I roll the bar toward my feet so that it comes off my chest and onto the pins and I carefully slide out from under. Really, all I have to do is relax my chest and I am free of the bar. Of course I experimented getting "stuck" with light weights before I arrived at this set up.

[Riddick2112]

Originally Posted by Eric3237

If there is a way to set it up so that the pins are about an inch lower or so from where the bar would be when it contacts you poked out chest that is how to eliminate it. What I had to do to achieve this perfectly is to place thin plywood under my bench for a platform. This way if I get stuck I roll the bar toward my feet so that it comes off my chest and onto the pins and I carefully slide out from under. Really, all I have to do is relax my chest and I am free of the bar. Of course I experimented getting "stuck" with light weights before I arrived at this set up.

tonight i set up the flat bench with some 5 lb plates under each corner and it gave me enough of a lift to get the bar just a hair shy of touching me before hitting the pins. This is fine because i have a nasty old shoulder injury that i need to keep tabs on. another bonus was that the slight extra height gave me a bit more room to play as far as racking and unracking the bar. Normally with locked elbows i would just clear the catches, but putting them a hole lower made it very uncomfortable unracking the weight so this works out well. thanks for the tip!

oh, and i couldnt believe how much harder the reps were with just that little bit of added ROM!