Bench Presing 101- The ART of the ARCH

[CytoMel]

How many of you us an arch while bench pressing?

Arch baics:

According to the rules, you can arch your back as much as you can as long as your shoulders and butt are touching the bench.

The idea in arching is to roll your delts under then inch your butt towards your shoulders. Basicly your body looks like an upside-down U.

By arching like this you raise the height of your chest and the higher that you can elevate your chest relitive to yor arm distance then the less work i needed for a sucessful lift.

What do you think,how many arch?

 

[powerlifterjay]

For those that arch i think its a good way to bench. If you can. I personally cannot arch cause i lose my leg drive. I have to have my legs behind me and that causes me to be on my toes. Not good for my style. But there are a ton out there that utilize the arch very well. And it really seems to shorten the stroke. SO my advice is to experiment with both ways and pick which works best for you.

 

[Deciever]

i arch a little bit... nothing really extreme, just a little arch, so i can still attempt to use my leg drive(which i suck at).

http://boards.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=113898&highlight=bench+stroke heres a nice pic of the bench stroke

 

[brianmincher]

I don't arch with a shirt.

B.

 

[The mann]

i don't use much of an arch,i've seen those pics of big arches while benching.i also use a lot of leg,so i just try to dig my shoulders in the bench and drive with the feet.......

 

[k1401]

how exactly do you do that?!?!?!?

 

[bigokie]

Some can, some can't. I can't, messed up back. If I try to arch my back hurts for days. I feel that if you push your stomach out hard and drive with your legs that you can have almost the same stroke as someone with a moderate arch.

 

[Arioch]

Also, the longer your torso is, the easier it will be for you to arch, which is another reason why my bench sucks. To say nothing of the fact that the more you arch, the less work you have to do pressing the bar up, as your ROM is shorter. Somewhere I have an old picture of Lamar Gant that I will try to get scanned in sometime this week. He is arched like a rainbow.

The more you arch, the less your shoulders have to rotate assuming you are pressing the bar in a straight line from lower on your torso, which should help avoid injury and prolong your lifting career.

 

[Cubanito17]

I use to use a lil bit of an arch no where near the pic deciever posted, but ever since I hurt my lower back it really hurts to use it now.

 

[Grantsdu]

I would really like to if it would help. I have never tried it though so I don't know how it would go. I don't use any leg push unlike others, haven't got that figuered out yet. I say try it at least once, you never know!!