WTF has been up with my bench pressing lately?

[whateverdude]

When i've been doing bench pressing, dumbbell pressing, inclines and flat bench, on all these exercises my anterior deltoids have been fatiguing(sp?) well before my chest every time, and its been frustrating the hell out of me. Maybe my form got out of wack for some reason? Anyone have any ideas why my delts are getting worked so much during this exercise?

 

[HeavyDutyGuy]

For a lot of people bench presses stress anterior delts more, or triceps. Ken Waller was anexample. He did flyes and dips for pecs.

 

[edgecrusher]

Try playing w/ your grip on the bar a bit. I had a similar problem for a while, and found when I moved my grip in, the emphasis switched more to my chest, and less to my shoulders.

 

[WarriorPL]

yeah play with the grip, i too had that problem

~WizKid

 

[Cackerot69]

The delts will always fail before the chest in a press, and doing the press in the decline position will minimize this.

For the simple reason that weak links fail before the chest, a flye (or similar isolation movement) will cause more growth in less time than a bench press for the chest in specific.

 

[absolute hardgainer]

I agree that delts will fail before the chest muscles. Apart from changing your grip, where are you raising the bar or DB's? Perhaps you are raising them too close to your delts and need to lower them to your natural strength curve, always lower the bar just on your nipple line.

hardgainer (my $0.02)