The Bench Press

Just some thoughts on the bench press.

Once again, if you compete in power lifting or bench press competitions, you need to train this lift.

But for most average guys, there really is no need to do this lift. Too many people bench press the wrong way and end up hurting their shoulders or creating other muscular imbalances. For most people there are better options. And in most sports, if you are lying on your back, you are losing.

Now, I realize the bench press can be beneficial, if it is performed correctly. If you want to bench press, go learn how to do it from a power lifter who has been benching for many years. The reason? If he is still bench pressing after 30 plus years of doing it, he probably has pretty good form. Just be sure to have him scratch the back of his head first, before you have him teach you how to bench press.  

If he can do that with his elbow pointing straight out from his side with the same hand he is scratching his head with, he still has pretty good mobility in his arm and knows what he is doing in his training. If he can’t do that, he has a severe musculature imbalance and shortened ligaments from years of improper training. Stay away from him.

And stay away from having some goofy bodybuilder in the typical gym teach you how to bench. If you do, you will kill your shoulders and create many problems that may bug you the rest of your life.

For most people, get strong first with push ups. Not the sloppy ones most people do. Get so you can do push-ups in good form for 50 reps or so in one set. No hips up in the air or sagging gut.

You should be able to do them well holding your body stiff and straight like a plank or board. Tuck your butt under and keep the glutes tight. Keep the elbows in closer to your sides. Flaring the elbows way out and doing push-ups with the hands way out to the sides is OK for young dudes (at least until they blow a shoulder out) but for anyone over 30 (or anyone who wants to keep having healthy shoulders) I would say keep the elbows close to your sides with hands under you so your shoulders will at least touch your thumbs in the bottom position.

Pause at the top of the push-up and hold it at the bottom for a second. Take about 2 seconds to go up and 2 seconds to go back down. Pull yourself down, don’t just drop down. Do them strong, with control and power; and do not do them as fast as you can pump them out. You will find them much more challenging this way. Once you can knock off several sets of 50 this way, then you can begin to explore the many other forms of push-ups.

Next,  work up to doing feet elevated pushups. Then pushups with your hands on some suspended rings (like gymnastics rings). There are a lot of variations you can learn, but get the basics down first. Get strong with them and then the more challenging variations will be easier and you will benefit from them much more. Trying harder variations too soon (before you have a solid foundation of strength and control) will only frustrate you and possibly create an injury.

From there you can start working on doing one arm push-ups. But be sure you do them as out-lined in the book: “The Naked Warrior” by Pavel Tsatsouline. No other form of one-arm-push-up is acceptable if you want to get strong and protect your shoulders at the same time.

Once you can do that I would start adding in one arm bench presses (1ABP). Use either a kettlebell or a dumbbell. I think the KB is better. The mass of the KB hangs outside the arm and is not balanced so it forces you to use more muscle to control it, especially if you keep the forearm vertical during the entire range of movement.

Look for a new article on the 1ABP soon. I will lay out the proper way to do them.

If you are looking for further chest development, dips are another good exercise. But please don’t do them the way typical mullet heads do in a gym. If you go as deep as you can, “going for the stretch” you will definitely screw up your shoulders. Don’t go anywhere near that deep and you can get, not only stronger, but also keep your shoulders much healthier.

You may also mix in some crush curls with a rock or KB. Basically you pick up a KB by the bell, with both hands flat on the KB or rock, palms facing each other. Crush the object like you are trying to literally crush it to dust. Now simply straighten out your arms and re-bend them as if doing curls.

You will soon find you have to exert a very strong crushing power on the object to keep it between your hands as you curl it. At the botton position be sure to lock your arms out and really squeeze your triceps hard. Curl back up and keep the squeeze on the object. Of course the bigger the rock or KB the heavier it will be and the harder it will be to crush curl it. Do these for lower reps 3-8 and not too many sets. These are tough so do them sparingly, not too often and not too much volume or you may cause elbow problems. Start light and gradually build up in weight. If it bothers your elbows at all: don’t do them.

Once you can do 10 reps per arm in the one arm push-up and several sets of 1ABP’s with 100lbs or so, you will have all the chest strength you need for almost anything. If you want a further challenge, start stacking two KB’s on top of each other in one hand and bench press them. Try two 53 pounders, holding both handles in the one hand. Have fun! Just be carful you don’t drop a KB on your face.

You will find that when you are using a heavy KB in the 1ABP the weight on one side of your body will try to roll you off the bench. You will have to get all-over tight to prevent that. You will build great stabilizing power in your body as you build your chest/shoulders and upper back with this move.  I’ll touch on this more in a future article, laying out the finer details.

So, stick with these exercises for a while and you  will probably find you don’t even need to get near the regular barbell bench press. You will get plenty strong and tough and be able to handle your body way more athletically than someone who just does bench presses all the time.

Very few heavy bench pressers have the strength and control of their body to be able to do one arm push-ups.

Using the above training exercises will create a tough, flexible and powerful upper body without the typical bench pressing injuries that come from trying to bench hundreds of pounds. It may take you several years to master all the push-up variations, but at the end of that time you will be one lean strong, tough dude.

So, to sum up this three-part series on the squat, deadlift and bench press:

 Sure, weighing 350-400 pounds and squatting 1000 lbs, deadlifting 800-900lbs and bench pressing 600-800lbs is cool, but not realistic for the majority of people. And not very healthy either.

So, when it comes to training, emulating what top powerlifters or body builders (who are not anywhere near as strong as they look) do is not the best course to follow if you are after a strong, tough, flexible and injury free body that can do nearly anything at anytime.

Specificity rules in the competitive sporting world, but in the real world outside the ring, the toughest men have many well rounded qualities physically. They are not one-trick ponies.

If you want to be a thoroughbred race horse train for that. After years of training you may find you don’t have the gentics to reach the top. Certainly the race horse will be faster on the track, but take him out of his element and what then?

I would rather train to be the mixed-breed gnarly-looking horse that can cover hundreds of miles in any kind of weather, pull and carry nearly anything and tough out any situtation, than some sheltered race horse that only shines when the track is groomed and the weather is fair.

Decide what your goals are and train for that.

Walter