Hi,

I hear different things. I wonder - How far down should you go with the barbell or dumbells when pressing? Until the upper arm is parallel with the chest or lower?

My feeling is that if I go low (with the weight itself almost parallel to the chest) then I am hitting the anterior delts (it seems that the movement between the two positions in question is what hits the anterior delts and not the pecs) more than I would like. It is, afterall, supposed to target the chest. And it makes a difference to the number of reps one can perform (that is not that important - I know). What is important however is the range of motion. Obviously that gets reduced quite a bit if you only lower until your upper and lower arm are 90 degrees. In that case the range of motion feels very short (which has a effect on time under tension).

Scott goes low. Maybe that is just a preference. Or maybe it has the reasons I mentioned.

Regardless of the other form issues when pressing: What do you think here?

Thanks

Sven,

You always want full range of motion in all exercises whether it is benching, squatting, curling, etc. It is best for the joint and best for full muscle development. In your question concerning benching, 80% of people bench incorrectly. The BB bench hits the chest but it also hits the triceps, anterior shoulders, lats, and traps. The challenge is your arms need to be at a 45 degree angle to your body and your upper body needs to be arched up with your shoulder blades pinched together and your butt against the bench to achieve this - leaving a small arc of space between your shoulder blades and your butt. Most people lie flat and put their arms out at 90 degrees to their body which not only is bad for the shoulder joint but also puts more of the stress on the anterior delts than the pecs the lower you go.

Scott has a video that shows you how to bench correctly. You can also try doing DB bench presses as these don't work the shoulders as much and stress more of the chest fibers when done correctly.

John

Spot on @jmboiardi, couldnt have said it better myself! #HTH

As John has stated full ROM is superior for hypertrophy. In regards to muscle stimulation when pressing you are correct in the sense that when you use full ROM you will feel it more in the anterior delts as you are putting them on a stretch and utilising them to create shoulder flexion when you press. This is where the pec mind muscle connection comes into play. You really must focus on keeping as much tension as possible on the pecs when pressing.

what these guys are saying is correct but im afriad im going to have to be the black sheep on this one, if you are using correct benching form your shoulders should not be stretching during the full range of motion, at the same time, the only time you should be able to feel a stretch in a muscle when you are fully warmed up is in the primary muscle being targeted, that being said you should only feel a stretch in your chest in the negative phase of the bench press if you are experiencing a stretch in your shoulders during benching then you have some fine tuning to do on your bench press technique, your delts your triceps heck even your lats are all secondary muscles in benching, it may be a compound but it is primerily for the chest, by tucking your shoulders back and your traps up without forcing a contraction, you will be able to not only hit the chest deeper but more efficiently, the only time you shoulders should fill up with blood... is in your warm up, from their they should remain at a constant to protect them from injury, a correct warm up to a bench press would be... to bench press, obviously before hand you do your cardio and stretching (non static) then you go into a 2 set warm up starting at 30% of your 1RM then upto 60% then you finally go into your work load of about 75-80% for your set rep range, guessing its for hypertrophy... so 75-80 will do just fine, next step is upto you, you can either press from your nipples or your collar bone level, all depends on how you would like your chest to develop, as for your mind to muscle connection you must place that above any records or weight you load onto the bar, even if you can only get a pump out of doing 100 reps of the bar do it... because if you go higher and your chest doesnt engage all you're doing is training your ego, so to sum everything up.

1. triceps delts lats are secondary and therefor should NOT get a pump.

2. full range of motion can vary from barbell flat on your chest or 3 inches above your chest depending on your ability, i.e total range of motion in your shoulder joint, at no point should you feel a stretch anywhere but your chest, if you wait more than 2 seconds for a pause at the bottom you are training for strength not size.

3. the rep range will vary person to person train for the pump not the marks on the white board, always stop 2 reps or so from failure, if you get to 10 reps and feel like you can throw out 5 more... do 3, if at that point it still feels easy and you feel like you can go to 20... put that barbell back youdidnt put enough weight on in the first place.

4. consider your current rest period, clock it remember how long it takes for your breathing and heart rate to return to its required zone before starting another set, pick a zone, between sets keep it towards the bottom end of the zone, during set keep it towards the top end, if it goes too high you are doing something wrong, i.e forgetting to breathe or barely breathing at all.

taking this all into account before anyone would try to disregard this information as broscience i STILL hold the record for under 18's and over 18's flat bench press record at Ringside gym, total fitness and CATT's gym weighing in at 83kg's when i made the record benching 396lbs or 180kg's for a total of 6 repetitions with a pause at the bottom of 4 seconds, i have been trained in bodybuilding type bench pressing and powerlifting type bench pressing, i did not use the power lifting method to press the 180, i had my back flat and pressed those 6 reps out with a full squeeze every rep.

best of luck to you i hope this helps you advance your bench press technique.

Thanks John. Full motion it is then :-) Another question: on DP - do you bring the dumbells together at the top or lift them straight up from the start position beside the shoulders?

Cheers Daniel. Another thing (should I be opening a new thread for a new question?) : On Barbell presses I have no trouble but when pressing dumbells (or dumbell flies) I cant seem to establish a proper mind-muscle connection.

I always pause at the l0west point and try to establish the connection but I seem to not be able to. Any suggestions? BTW: I loved the trick of pressing your hands together when lifting a barbell. Totally works. Much more tension. ANd I did the feeling in the pecs.

Cheers Daniel. Another thing (should I be opening a new thread for a new question?) : On Barbell presses I have no trouble but when pressing dumbells (or dumbell flies) I cant seem to establish a proper mind-muscle connection.

I always pause at the l0west point and try to establish the connection but I seem to not be able to. Any suggestions? BTW: I loved the trick of pressing your hands together when lifting a barbell. Totally works. Much more tension. ANd I did the feeling in the pecs.

Cheers Daniel. Another thing (should I be opening a new thread for a new question?) : On Barbell presses I have no trouble but when pressing dumbells (or dumbell flies) I cant seem to establish a proper mind-muscle connection.

I always pause at the l0west point and try to establish the connection but I seem to not be able to. Any suggestions? BTW: I loved the trick of pressing your hands together when lifting a barbell. Totally works. Much more tension. ANd I did the feeling in the pecs.

Wow Jake. Cheers for that super detailed answer. Its impressive that you are so young and so knowledgable on this stuff. I have to read your anwer again when I have more time.

I am not sure if the tip came from you or someone else but I loved the trick of pressing your hands together when lifting a barbell (in your mind that is). Totally works. Much more tension. ANd I did the feeling in the pecs.

When DB pressing you should really be thinking about the elbows moving in space. With this in mind in order to contract the pecs you need to forget about moving the DB in space and think about moving your elbow across your body. This will encourage less tricep activation. Another thing you can try is isometric DB presses, the description on how to do these is here on my chest article: http://scotthermanfitness.com/articles_viewer.php?rID=56 These are great as they require the pecs to work in a more shortened range which helps with activation. Also have you tried using Time Under Tension for DB presses? If all else fails and you are still struggling with DBs move onto cables and just focus on cable flye variations.

I bring them together and squeeze but I don't bang the weights together when I do :-)

John