Open or closed grip on bench?

[goldenone]

I switched to a open grip and it feels like my tri's are more involved.

Anybody else have a preference?

 

[PowFit]

I am only comfortable benching with an open grip. It takes a lot of stress of the wrists and helps keep me in an ideal mechanical position for the press. The only down fall is if the weight falls out of the groove hard and dumps on your stomach or chest. Never happened to me before, knock on wood.

 

[The mann]

i prefer thumbless grip also,feel like i can keep my elbows in more and i also feel it more in my tri's.it's a dangerous grip though,and alot of people are against using it.

 

[natural-mike]

Personally I think a thumbless grip is suicidal, however someone mentioned at the begginning of this post you may feel it more in the tri's that is the case for me when I do JM presses or close grip bench I actually feel it more in my tri's. But I bench with my thumb locked around.

Although when you thiink of it, if you have a nice amount of weight on and the bar takes an odd roll towards your thumb there is only so much weight your thumb can hold.

BUt I'm still a soft beginner with a miniscule 345 bench.

Natural,
Mike

 

[Hannibal]

Most of my training is done with a thumbless grip...for more tri involvement. In a meet however I lock the thumb in.

 

[PowFit]

I have seen the weight drop out of the suicide grip about 10 different times over the last few years, but never heard of someone getting a serious injury. Garry Frank was the worst injury I know of and he still did the 2601 shortly after. I think it sounds more dangerous than it actually is. The potential is there though. Some organizations have a ban on the suicide grip, but don't always enforce it.

 

[powerlifterjay]

ya but gary frank doesnt use a sucide grip. That makes his accident that much worse.

 

[PowFit]

Are you serious? How can someone drop the bar when they are not using the suicide grip? How is that even possible? Normal grips would possibly drop toward the neck or face, but his went under his arms. It had to somehow get over his thumbs. Weird.

That would be the first that I have heard of actually dropping the bar under the arms with a normal grip. I would think it would be more sever if he was using the suicide grip because his arms could be still thrusting up while the bar is on the way down. It could also happen more suddenly since it does not have to go over your thumbs.

 

[spentagn]

I use the suicide grip and have had 245 roll out of my hands on the incline. People were running from all over to help. I racked the weight for 5 secs, brushed off my ego, and did a set of 8 real quick. Still scares me when I think about what could of happened.

 

[Exodus]

i used to use the thumbless....untill a got in my old gym dropped 225 from the top and shattered a few bones.

yeah, that sucked..... he went to the hospital