BENCH PRESS
Your pectoral muscles ("called "pecs") are developed with bench presses. It's potentially dangerous, so have a spotter close by at all times. NEVER bench press alone! Have your spotter help you lift the bar out of the uprights and to a position directly over your chest. Lower the weight to your chest and press it back up to arms' length again. Then, after performing the required number of reps, have the spotter assist you in placing the bar back on the uprights. You can emphasize your "pecs" more if your elbows are away from your sides (perpendicular to your torso) during the movement, and your front deltoids more if your elbows are kept close to your sides during the movement.
Much of the danger inherent in this exercise can be eliminated by using a "Monolift" machine. This new device allows you to position the bar directly over your chest BEFORE you unrack the bar. While bench pressing, special spotting platforms ensure that, should the bar be dropped accidentally or should you miss the lift, the weight will not come down on you. Then, rather than your training partner helping you rack the bar, he rotates the cradle hooks under the bar while it's still held over your chest.
There are two particularly troublesome techniques I see all too often among bench pressers. One is the dangerous practice of using a thumbless grip. The notion that a thumbless grip will somehow alter the angle or quality of stress you're delivering to your pecs is outrageously dumb. Keep your thumbs around the bar!
The second practice is just as outrageous. I've heard benchers say that by keeping your feet off the floor -- suspended over the bench or resting on the bench -- somehow improves the isolation of the pecs and therefore the adaptive overload being delivered to your pecs. The truth is that while your feet are off the floor, you're always slightly off balance on the narrow bench you're lying on, and various stabilizer muscles are attempting to keep you from falling off the bench. This superfluous muscular activity is detracting from the stress you can deliver to the pecs. It is certainly NOT improving it! Besides, being off balance while a heavy weight is hovering over your face and throat is downright asking for trouble!
But these two troublesome techniques pale in their potential for disaster in comparison to the design of the bench itself! Consider: Lying on your back with 300-400 or more pounds in your hands pressing your scapulae into the flat bench beneath. You lower the bar to your chest. But the scapulae are pinned to the bench and cannot slide inwards as you lower the bar. And neither can they slide outward as you raise the bar off your chest. This is not good! It causes undue stress on the tendons of the long heads of your biceps. The results?
· Nagging long-lasting pain from biceps tendinitis
· You can’t lift as much
· Far less strength is developed
· Poor sports performance.
On top of that, all benches are made to be 16 or more inches off the ground. Just because the rules of powerlifting dictate it. This is downright dangerous for shorter athletes who have to go into spinal hyperextension in order to keep their feet flat on the ground for better stability. The results?
· low back trauma
· less stability during training and therefore greater exposure to injury and less weight being lifted
· poor sports performance, or (worse)
· ruined sports career from unnecessary injury
Now picture this: Same weight, same bench. But with a little patented gizmo built into the bench that allows your scapulae to slide in as you lower the bar, and back out as you press it back upward. This is how Mother Nature intended for your shoulder girdle to operate. The results?
· Far less chance of biceps tendinitis
· 10 percent more weight lifted
· greater strength is developed
· no unnecessary trauma to the lumbar spine
· better sports performance, not only because you’re stronger but because you’re healthier!
You just won’t believe it until you’ve experienced it! You and your clients are gonna LOVE it!
DUMBBELL BENCH PRESS
I favor dumbbell bench presses over benching with a bar because you can achieve greater adaptive stress with dumbbells. Dumbbells will tend to force you to keep your upper arms perpendicular to your torso while lowering them. Many benchers will allow their elbows to drift inward toward their sides while using a straight bar. This happens because there's a natural tendency to use the anterior (frontal) deltoids to assist in moving the bar, thereby robbing the pecs of some stress.
Also, dumbbells allow you to employ a technique that will improve the adaptive stress being delivered to your pecs even more. By carefully (under total control) allowing the dumbbells to drift slightly off balance toward the outside, you will have to "fight" harder to raise them. This controlled outward drift allows you to use superior weight while getting the same benefits afforded by regular flyes. Regular flyes are done with very light weights, whereas modified dumbbell benches employ far heavier weight. Again, here's a little technique that tends to improve the quality of adaptive stress.
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