Why the bench press and the deadlift suck

So this girl benches 240 lbs.  I'm not jealous of her first of all, and I'm not trying to take anything away from her.  But let's be honest here.  She's arching her back almost a foot off the bench and the distance the bar travels down to her chest can't be more than eight or nine inches.  Are you going tell me that's a real test of front deltoid, pec and tricep strength? 



This is why I hate the bench press with a straight bar.  The back arching severely limits the distance the bar travels because your chest gets in the way and takes the pecs and front deltoids out of the lift.  That's why I use the cambered bar bench press because it allows for full activation of the pectoral muscles, triceps, and front deltoids.  Arching your back while benching with a cambered bar will not help in the press except for providing for a stable position to lift from.

Now for my second biggest pet peeve: the deadlift.  Some say it's a test of true overall body strength.  That may be true for some.  But for me it's a bastardized hybrid movement made up of several accessory lifts.  What do I mean by bastardized?  Let's take a look at the Olympic lifts.




The Olympic snatch lift represents to me an amalgamation of accessory movements that sum up to one compound movement.  I've watched on youtube the way people train the snatch.  They break the movement down into smaller lifts which they train individually and they occasionally practice the goal lift, namely the snatch, to instill a muscle memory pattern and perfect technique.  Look at the video below:


This kind of training, this breaking up of the goal lift into smaller accessory movements, is the exact same kind of training you have to do if you want increase your bench press or deadlift.  The bench press and the deadlift by themselves should be trained sparingly and then only to accomplish instilling a muscle memory pattern and to perfect technique.  Click on my total body workout training post on the right hand side to see how I train to accomplish gains in the bench press and the deadlift.