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This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness, and today we're doing one of my favorite
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strength training exercises, the bench press. That's right, we're here in the
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studio doing chest on a Sunday, knowing full and well that Monday is National
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Chest Day. Anyway, this is one of our relatively stable chest exercises. Now,
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I'm not talking for necessarily a novice individual. A novice individual is still
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going to find the bench press to be fairly unstable, but for most of us this
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is going to be in that strength or max strength portion of our periodized
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program, and we're going to use a slightly lower rep range. I'm going to have my
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friend Laura come out to help me demonstrate some of the cueing and some
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little pointers to help you improve upon your bench press. Now, first things
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first, the most awkward part of the bench is actually the lift off. That puts the
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shoulder in kind of a weird position, where we have a fairly large amount of load
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over the face, it's not directly over the shoulder, scapula, thoracic region, so it's
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a little harder to stabilize. It is always a good idea to have a spotter. We
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want to make sure that when she sets herself up, she doesn't send her chest
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under the bar because that might lead to us tagging these hooks that are holding
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this bench up. So usually I tell people to get their eyes level with the bar so
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that when they pull the bar over their chest they have plenty of clearance room
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here. So, I'm going to have Laura go ahead and set up, grab the bar where
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she's comfortable. Comfortable should be a place where when you're at the
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bottom, throughout the majority of your motion, your forearm is perpendicular,
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straight up and down to the floor. Alright, so I'm going to help Laura off.
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I'm going to give her a little count off, so one-two-three. I'll have you push off, good.
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I'm then going to make sure that I align her so that she is over her chest. This is
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particularly important for people who haven't done bench before. I don't want
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her directly over her shoulder, I want more, not to be vulgar, but
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across the nipple line. So just a little lower than chest height, that will help
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keep us from any sort of impingement that may occur in the shoulder. She's
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going to go ahead and lower down to wherever she's comfortable, and then
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press right back up. I hear a lot of people talk about range of motion with
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the bench. Your range of motion is the largest range of motion that you can
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keep optimal form, and that is pain-free. So Laura, let's go ahead and show them
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that one more time. Good. Now let's talk about stabilization. I want her
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protracting as far as she can at the top, alright, so she's really pushing off.
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What protracting does is allows your scapula to tip up this way, and that
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gives some bony support to the humerus which is applying pressure this way. I
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know some people have cued retraction in a bench that allows for no bony support
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from the humerus that is pushing straight down. Alright so once again, go
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ahead and drop down, push up, protract all of the way in. Now, I have some people talk
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about stability progression where they put their feet up on the bench, or they
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put their feet up on the bench to try to protect their back. If you find that you
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feel more comfortable putting your feet up on the bench it is probably a good
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idea to stretch your hip flexors and start working on some glute activation.
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Putting your feet up on the bench is not necessarily a fix-all for somebody
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with lower back discomfort. Besides, there's another benefit to keeping your
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feet on the floor. If Laura has her feet on the floor I can make her kinetic
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chain far more stable which should contribute to better bench performance.
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I'm going to have her push her feet through the ground. By pushing her feet
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through the ground, this is going to activate her glute max which is a hip
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extensor, but also one of the primary stabilizers for the lumbo-pelvic hip
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complex. If she has her glutes tight and I then asked her to draw-in, her lumbar
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spine now has something stable, being her pelvis, to rely on. If her spine is stable
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her scapula will be more stable. So now we have glute lumbo public
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hip complex to spine to scpular thoracic stability, to hopefully - go ahead
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show us one more time - a nice strong bench. I know, like I said, some
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people feel more comfortable with their feet up. Have them stretch their hip
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flexors and activate their glutes and see if you can't turn that around. I have also
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seen this as a stability progression. It is more unstable to put your feet up. I
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have personally backed away from that because I would rather reinforce
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optimal stabilization mechanics throughout my kinetic chain. Now, the last
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thing I might hint on is breathing. This is one of those exercises where people
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hold their breath and that's not totally inappropriate, as long as they don't hold
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their breath for an entire set. So what I usually have people do is
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breathe in on the way down, if they need to hold their breath as they're turning
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force around, so they went from eccentric and now they're going to concentric, that's
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the hard part, that's okay, but then breathe out either on the way up, or at the top
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of the movement. So have them breathe in, get nice and stable, hold, push. Good. If that's
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comfortable, great. What I do see more often than not is people tend to over
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cue breathing. You don't need to get into all of those breathing mechanics if
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somebody's breathing naturally. Only cue those mechanics if you
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see somebody who's turning red, and holding their breath for an entire set.
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Now, I hope you can also see this nice line that she's got going on here. Go
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ahead and drop down, and back up, and then when we rack it, once again, you want a
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nice spotter there to make sure that she doesn't miss the rack and catch her face
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on the way down. I'm going to just have her put this back, I'm going to help her through it.
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Now, last but not least, this is a dangerous exercise to do without a
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spotter if you're going to risk and do heavier weights. Obviously this is a
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weight that Laura is very comfortable with which allowed me to walk
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around, which allowed me to cue her through all of this movement, which
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allowed me to create this educational video. If we were doing, let's say, a heavy
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day, I would not be standing over here. I would be cueing her between sets,
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giving her verbal cues from this position, and let's just show them one
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more time, I would make sure that she is one-two-three, that I have my hands
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underneath this bar, and that I am
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following her through a good squat, so that if she gets in trouble I could lift this
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bar, or at least help her lift this bar off her chest. The problem with bench, unlike a lot of other
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exercises, you can't drop the weight and get it out of your way. So there you go,
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stable kinetic chain, make sure you watch your line, protract through the top,
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safety first, make sure you get a spotter when you need one. I hope you
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enjoy this chest exercise, even though we did this video on a Sunday, we had a lot of