[This message has been edited by BigT (edited September 24, 2000).]

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Train Intensely, Infrequently and Briefly

and at least, you don't have to ask on here whether the dumbells have to touch ur chest..
but on that note; BRING IT ALL THE WAY DOWN!

the reason is this: if the bar is touching your chest, then some of the weight is resting on your body and not on your muscles, relieving you chest muscles of some of the stress. If you want to tax your chest muscles to the max don't let the bar touch your chest and don't lock your arms at the end of the movement either.

as for the nice stretch you talked about, just hop to the cable crossovers and stretch that chest out (go very light if crossovers are not in your usual routine, you don't want to exaust your chest too much)

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"BITCH! You can't do this to me!" Silvio

Look, here's a simple solution:

"Topic: BENCH PRESS.......to touch your chest, or not to touch your chest"

If you don't touch your chest, then it's not a bench press.

So don't worry about deciding whether to touch your chest or not during the bench press, because if you don't, then you're not doing a bench press, so why should you worry about whether or not you should touch? It's not a bench press!

Do the exercise right people, thx.

quote:

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I think that touching your chest or locking out at the top of your movement is counter productive.

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When you touch the bar to your chest, do you completely relax all of your muscles and leave it sitting there? No way! Otherwise, you'd have a concave chest. When you lock out at the top of the movement, do you completely relax all of your muscles and leave it sitting there? No way! If you relaxed all of your muscles, the bar would come crashing down on you and decapitate you.

That being said, how can you possibly believe that touching your chest and locking out at the top is "counter productive?"

Studies have shown (sorry, I don't have any sources to cite off the top of my head) that a muscle is capable of performing with 135% efficiency when it is most stretched (i.e. your muscle is "stronger" at the point where it is fully outstretched). Now, if that is true, why would we bring the bar down to 2 inches above our chest, where, if we brought it down to our chest and TOUCHED it (NOT rested on it, NOT bounce off of it, just TOUCH) our pecs and triceps would be in a "more-stretched" position and be able to exert more force? Isn't the "idea of bodybuilding" performing exercises through a full range of motion as well? You wouldn't do barbell curls with a 90 degree range of motion, would you? No way... you're going for the full 180 degrees (or rather, as close as you can get to 180 degrees, my legs kind of get in the way of 180... hehe).

Now for the lockout at the top. Ever heard of the term "isometric?" Holding the bar in a locked out position at the top of the lift is an isometric movement (pardon the oxymoron). Your muscles are STILL under tension and they are STILL being stimulated while the bar sits there at the top and you "take tension off of your muscles (yea right)." If in fact leaving the bar up there did take the tension off of your muscles, that would mean that the World's Strongest Man competitors could do the Hercules Hold forever and never get tired. Can they do that? No way! Holding two cars that are on an incline and want to roll back down to the floor is going to take a toll on your muscles - just like holding the bar in lockout position.

Try holding a loaded bar in lockout position for a while. It might be easy at first, but then it'll get harder and harder and harder and harder and then you'll have to put it back. Just cause it's not moving doesn't mean that your muscles aren't exerting a force.

F=ma (Newton's Second Law of Motion). m = the mass of the bar & weights, a = the acceleration of the weight due to the Earth's gravity. So the Force that you are exerting on the bar & weights is equal to the mass of the weights times the acceleration due to Earth's gravity. So unless holding the bar in locked out position either a) turns off gravity, or b) makes the bar mass-less, then rest assured that you are NOT "taking tension off your muscles."

Bench right or don't bench at all.

and all the others that were flaming him and calling him a pussy, i dont think he "cheat benches" he was just trying to get some opinions from some experienced lifters.

Didn't mean that locking out would take all the stress off your muscles. Just a bit of a rest. Now if you were to stop just before locking out. Don't you think that you would be adding more tension to your muscles? Not locking your arms at the top would be adding more tension thus recruiting more muscle fibers thus building stronger & bigger muscles.

peace
fsuwarrior

[This message has been edited by fsuwarrior (edited November 21, 2000).]

I'm not here to disaggree and name call saying you are wrong because in weightlifting there is no right or wrong...there is effective/less effective and high/low risk exercises.

The funny thing is that about a year ago some specialty fitness program guy came to our school and did a presentation (advertisement)for all of the sports teams.The guy told everyone not to bring the bar closer than 7inches to their chests.After that all i saw was a bunch of guys putting on more weight that they could handle and only moving it like half way down.

bwaahahahahahaa

j/k kidden fellas, touch the chest, like a horny 18 yr old kid with a drunk passed-out girl, TOUCH THE CHEST!!!!!!!!!!

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"GOD MADE STEROIDS, STEROIDS MADE GODS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Thai's, it's what's for dinner!!!!!!"