Thoughts on bench press: glute drive or leg drive?

Mark Bell talks about glute drive in one of his videos on YouTube.

Basically before you push the bar off your chest in the bench press, you pretend like you're trying to crush a walnut stuck between your butt cheeks.  When you do this, the bar seems to according to Mark Bell "magically levitate off your chest".

The legs and feet are just there to stabilize you while you press, and there is a significant amount of arch applied to the lower back when applying a rock hard contraction to your butt so be mindful of that and keep your lower back as flat as possible. Otherwise you do risk suffering a sore lower lumbar region after you workout.

Thoughts on bench press: how to look like a moron

You wanna look like a moron at the gym? Do these bench press accessory movements:

The first one is my invention and I'm copywriting it here.  Anybody laying claim to it is stealing from me and will be appropriately dealt with.

I don't know what to call it. It's some weird hybrid suicide bench press mixed with a decline press and to really screw with your front deltoids I added a drag to it where you let the bar slide down your chest until it barely reaches your wind pipe just below the Adam's apple and then you push drag it on your chest and back up to your belly button whereby you decline press it back up to a locked elbow position.

Use a sit up bench set at the steepest angle setting and make sure the squat rack safety bars are positioned just above your throat unless you feel like crushing your wind pipe in case you miss the lift.  Sometimes I miss and have to turn my head to the side to get my head out from under the bar.

This kind of movement will severely stress your front deltoids and will flare up any shoulder injuries, but hey it works getting you out of any bench press plateaus.

The second movement is the close grip bench press everybody tells you not to do, so if some sh"t-for-brain know-it-all tells you you're doing it wrong tell him to go f"ck himself and mind his own motherf"ckin business.  

Once again position the safety bars barely above the arc of your gut just in case you miss.

You do both of these accessory movements on one day and then after rest and eating protein, for your next workout you do bench press and shoulder workout to keep your shoulders healthy and strong.

Thoughts on the bench press: triceps

Do this as an experiment:

Get on the floor and bang out some push-ups.  Now take your hands and position them close together so that your palms and fingers and thumbs form a triangle of empty space.

Now do pushups with your hands in the position above.

The point I'm trying to prove is you should be weaker with your hands in the triangle position than with your hands spread out in a regular normal pushup.

Now apply this principle to your bench pres training. Get underneath a bar in a bench press position and take both of your hands and move them close together in the middle of the bar.  Now bench press. 

You should be significantly weaker in this hand position than in the position with hands spread wide on the bar.  If you believe in the mantra "you're only as strong as your weakest link", you will notice if you have weak triceps you can't bench press much weight. This kind of close grip bench pressing will hit your weak triceps and stimulate them to their full potential.

Bench pressing in this close grip position will also adress weakness in the wrists as well.  Because the wrists take on an unnatural bent inwards and backwards position, they get taxed as well due to the awkwardness of the hand placement on the bar in this style of close grip bench press.

Since this style of close grip emphasizes the triceps, you will have to incorporate a front deltoid exercise such as the decline bench press. The decline press taxes the front deltoids for the simple fact no leg drive is activated in this movement because your feet are bound underneath the foot holder on the sit up bench. Additionally, it's best to angle the sit up bench to its highest position to deemphasize leg drive and provide the opportunity for the front deltoids to take on the brunt of the work in the decline press.

If you're going to do accessory work, the triceps and front deltoids and pectorals should all be worked at the same time.  This is why so much frustration is experienced when expecting gains in the bench press when all you're doing for accesory work is cable tricep pushdowns.  This type of movement is useless to bench press gains because it misses the front delts and pectorals.  The successful strength trainer and strength gainer will know that the only accessory conducive to bench pressing strongly is one that involves triceps, pectorals and front deltoids simultaneously.

Thoughts on the bench press: wrists

Sure, you can look at any explanation of bench press form on YouTube and think you got it all figured out.  But the one thing they always miss is the wrists.

If you look at the bench press as a kinetic chain, you will notice the movement involves the triceps, front deltoids, pectorals and legs.  But the weakest link in that chain are your wrists.

If you bench press without wrist wraps, you are setting your wrists up to fail and consequently you miss the lift.  When you unrack the bar and bring it over your face and then lower it down to your chest, your wrists take on a folded over backwards position with your knuckles pointing to your face.  If you begin your press in this wrist position you are going to miss your lift.

To remedy this malady of weakness and to fully engage your triceps and pectorals and front deltoids, you have to literally flip your wrists to a perpendicular position relative to the bar when the bar is laying on your chest. There should be a ninety degree angle formed by your wrists connected to the bar via your hands to assume the right angle position in order for you to explode your arms away from your chest. That flip will greatly enhance your bench pressing ability.


To train this flip I decline bench press, and
when the bar reaches midpoint between chest and stomach I let the bar slide down towards my neck right below my Adam's apple and try to slide the bar on my chest back towards my stomach and then push my arms away from my body.  Of course you need to do this in a squat rack with safety bars situated above your windpipe to prevent the bar from choking you if you miss. This movement emphasizes the front deltoids and wrists.

I am a bitch

 2018/03/18 12:17

Gym
10 up 15 bottom Bench press    195-.2, 205-.1, 215-0


5 up 8 bottom Standing shoulder press 155-.2

5 up 8 bottom Standing behind the neck shoulder press 125-.2, 135- .1

One legged leg press
Left 100-.1, 100-.2
Right 100-.1, 100-.2




1in. Deficit deadlift 385-.1, 405-.1

Dumbbell finger grip 110-0


 2018/03/10 12:31

Close grip bench press 10 up 14bottom
135-1, 155-.1

11 up 16 bottom Decline bench press  195-0




Conventional deadlift   395-.2, 405-.1, 405-0



5 up 14 bottom Pause squat  285-. 2, 300-.1, 275-1


Stiff legged deadlift  385-0

One hand finger grip bicep curl
Left 75-0
Right  75-.1



 2018/03/05 14:26

Gym
10 up 15 bottom Bench press    195-.1, 205-0 205-0


5 up 8 bottom Standing shoulder press 145-.2, 125-1

5 up 8 bottom Standing behind the neck shoulder press 115-.3

One legged leg press
Left 85-.2, 100-.1
Right 85-.2, 100-.1

 2018/02/28 10:53

11 up 16 bottom Decline bench press  185-1, 195-0

Close grip bench press 10 up 14bottom 135-0, 115-2, 125-1, 135-.1


Conventional deadlift   395-.1



5 up 14 bottom Pause squat 285-.1,  285-. 2


Stiff legged deadlift 365-.1, 365-.2

One hand finger grip bicep curl
Left 75-0
Right  75-.1




1in. Deficit deadlift 365-.2, 365-.3

Dumbbell finger grip 100-.5, 110-.1, 120-0


 2018/02/24 12:58


Gym
10 up 15 bottom Bench press   180-.1, 180-.2, 180-1


5 up 8 bottom Standing shoulder press 145-.2

5 up 8 bottom Standing behind the neck shoulder press 115-.1

One legged leg press
Left 85-.1
Right 85-.1




1in. Deficit deadlift 345-1, 365-.1

Dumbbell finger grip 100-.1


 2018/02/16 14:07

11 up 16 bottom Decline bench press  185-.1, 175-1,


Conventional deadlift   395-.2, 395-.1



5 up 13 bottom Pause squat 265-1, 285-.1


Stiff legged deadlift 365-.1

One hand finger grip bicep curl
Left 70-.1,  75-0
Right  70-.1, 70-0

 2018/02/12 12:58


Gym
10 up 15 bottom Bench press  195-0,  185-.1, 180-1, 190-.1, 205-0


5 up 8 bottom Standing shoulder press 145-.2

5 up 8 bottom Standing behind the neck shoulder press 115-.3, 125-.1

One legged leg press
Left 85-.2
Right 85-.2




Deficit deadlift 355-1, 375-.1, 375-.2

Dumbbell finger grip 90-.3, 95-.2, 100-.1

 2018/02/08 16:50

11 up 16 bottom Decline bench press 195-.1, 185-.1


Conventional deadlift  365-1, 395-.1, 395-.2



5 up 13 bottom Pause squat 265-.1,


Stiff legged deadlift 345-1

One hand finger grip bicep curl
Left 65-.2, 70-.1
Right  65-0, 70-.1

  2018/02/04 14:11


Gym
10 up 15 bottom Bench press  175-1, 195-0


5 up 8 bottom Standing shoulder press 120-1, 135-.2

5 up 8 bottom Standing behind the neck shoulder press 105-1, 115-.1, 115-.1

One legged leg press
Left 85-.2
Right 85-.2




Deficit deadlift 325-1, 350-.2, 350-.2

Dumbbell finger grip 90-.3

 2018/01/31 08:32

11 up 16 bottom Decline bench press 195-.1
Conventional deadlift  345-1, 355-.1, 365-.1
5 up 13 bottom Pause squat 250-1, 260-0
Stiff legged deadlift 325-1, 345-.1
Pull up two handed
One hand finger grip bicep curl
Left 60-.2, 65-.1
Right 60-.2, 65-.1


 2018/01/27 08:36


Gym
10 up 15 bottom Bench press  185-.1,


5 up 8 bottom Standing shoulder press 120-1, 135-.1

5 up 8 bottom Standing behind the neck shoulder press 105-.4

One legged leg press
Left 85-.1
Right 85-.1



Deficit deadlift 325-1, 375-.2

Dumbbell finger grip 80-.9, 90-.2


Here's my weak bitch records.

Did know this strength training crap causes impotence?

That's why I go here.


I take about four of these at a time, and turn myself into a sex machine.

I suffered a shoulder injury and that prevented gains in the bench press.  My injury was caused by doing dips in fifteen degree freezing weather. Apparently your shoulders have to be really warmed up and loose before undertaking dips.  Otherwise  you risk ripping your rotator cuffs in your shoulder joints.

I've been trying to make a fool out of myself by eating whole chicken roasters and drinking diet coke at the gym as intra-workout nutrition to help me with my most sought after gains, but I always get a kick out of having a chicken drumstick in my mouth while the person next to me is changing into their gym shoes.

Bench press nags me with weakness and pain thanks to the previous mentioned shoulder injury. To rehab the shoulder I do the above movent with a ten pound weight instead of a stick.