Lifting Form

[bruary17]

I'm constantly having a debate with people about benching technique, some say stop 2 to 3 inches short from touching your chest, where I say go for the stretch and touch your chest. Now I do realize bringing your arms and shoulders that far back with big weight on the bar IS performing an unnatural movement, still I believe your just not incorporating all the muscle fibers without it.

Same as standing rope extensions for triceps, some guys stop right when their forearm is parallel to the floor, I however, bring my hands all the way up to almost my shoulders, then bring them down for a full extension. Although bringing them parallel keeps constant tension on the muscle, I just don't feel I'm incorporating all the fibers.

What do you guys think?

[Bigd89]

I believe in touching your chest, especially for maxing out. Stoping short of touching just doesn't give you any bragging rights.

[LatissimusaurousRex]

I appreciate a large ROM.

[dec11]

depends on ROM, i know a guy with a huge well sculpted chest and he stops 2" short simply because his shoulders pain him to go right down

[bruary17]

Yeah, my PT told me to never touch the bar to my chest. But I still don't listen. Go hard or go home.

[BgMc31]

All the way down, IMO, unless you have shoulder issues. I've had a torn rotator cuff and a torn labrum, so I don't do a full bench very heavy (on my DE days, I do 315lbs with 90lbs of chain working on speed, then I do a 7th set of 315 to failure with no chains). But when I go very heavy, I usually do either floor presses or board presses. When it comes time to max, though, its a regular, full, bench press with a brief pause at the bottom. Whenever I hear someone's bench press numbers and I hear that they aren't going all the way down, I don't consider that a true bench. Hell I can do in the mid-high 500s on a 2 board press (approx 3" above the chest) but my actual bench (right now) is in the low 500s.

I'm speaking from a powerlifter/strongman point of view. So I would assume its different for that bodybuilder.