0:02 This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness, and today we're doing one of my favorite 0:07 strength training exercises, the bench press. That's right, we're here in the 0:12 studio doing chest on a Sunday, knowing full and well that Monday is National 0:18 Chest Day. Anyway, this is one of our relatively stable chest exercises. Now, 0:23 I'm not talking for necessarily a novice individual. A novice individual is still 0:27 going to find the bench press to be fairly unstable, but for most of us this 0:31 is going to be in that strength or max strength portion of our periodized 0:35 program, and we're going to use a slightly lower rep range. I'm going to have my 0:39 friend Laura come out to help me demonstrate some of the cueing and some 0:44 little pointers to help you improve upon your bench press. Now, first things 0:48 first, the most awkward part of the bench is actually the lift off. That puts the 0:56 shoulder in kind of a weird position, where we have a fairly large amount of load 1:00 over the face, it's not directly over the shoulder, scapula, thoracic region, so it's 1:07 a little harder to stabilize. It is always a good idea to have a spotter. We 1:12 want to make sure that when she sets herself up, she doesn't send her chest 1:16 under the bar because that might lead to us tagging these hooks that are holding 1:21 this bench up. So usually I tell people to get their eyes level with the bar so 1:25 that when they pull the bar over their chest they have plenty of clearance room 1:28 here. So, I'm going to have Laura go ahead and set up, grab the bar where 1:32 she's comfortable. Comfortable should be a place where when you're at the 1:36 bottom, throughout the majority of your motion, your forearm is perpendicular, 1:41 straight up and down to the floor. Alright, so I'm going to help Laura off. 1:46 I'm going to give her a little count off, so one-two-three. I'll have you push off, good. 1:51 I'm then going to make sure that I align her so that she is over her chest. This is 1:55 particularly important for people who haven't done bench before. I don't want 1:59 her directly over her shoulder, I want more, not to be vulgar, but 2:04 across the nipple line. So just a little lower than chest height, that will help 2:09 keep us from any sort of impingement that may occur in the shoulder. She's 2:14 going to go ahead and lower down to wherever she's comfortable, and then 2:18 press right back up. I hear a lot of people talk about range of motion with 2:21 the bench. Your range of motion is the largest range of motion that you can 2:25 keep optimal form, and that is pain-free. So Laura, let's go ahead and show them 2:30 that one more time. Good. Now let's talk about stabilization. I want her 2:36 protracting as far as she can at the top, alright, so she's really pushing off. 2:41 What protracting does is allows your scapula to tip up this way, and that 2:45 gives some bony support to the humerus which is applying pressure this way. I 2:50 know some people have cued retraction in a bench that allows for no bony support 2:56 from the humerus that is pushing straight down. Alright so once again, go 3:00 ahead and drop down, push up, protract all of the way in. Now, I have some people talk 3:07 about stability progression where they put their feet up on the bench, or they 3:10 put their feet up on the bench to try to protect their back. If you find that you 3:14 feel more comfortable putting your feet up on the bench it is probably a good 3:17 idea to stretch your hip flexors and start working on some glute activation. 3:21 Putting your feet up on the bench is not necessarily a fix-all for somebody 3:25 with lower back discomfort. Besides, there's another benefit to keeping your 3:29 feet on the floor. If Laura has her feet on the floor I can make her kinetic 3:34 chain far more stable which should contribute to better bench performance. 3:40 I'm going to have her push her feet through the ground. By pushing her feet 3:44 through the ground, this is going to activate her glute max which is a hip 3:49 extensor, but also one of the primary stabilizers for the lumbo-pelvic hip 3:54 complex. If she has her glutes tight and I then asked her to draw-in, her lumbar 4:00 spine now has something stable, being her pelvis, to rely on. If her spine is stable 4:09 her scapula will be more stable. So now we have glute lumbo public 4:14 hip complex to spine to scpular thoracic stability, to hopefully - go ahead 4:21 show us one more time - a nice strong bench. I know, like I said, some 4:29 people feel more comfortable with their feet up. Have them stretch their hip 4:32 flexors and activate their glutes and see if you can't turn that around. I have also 4:36 seen this as a stability progression. It is more unstable to put your feet up. I 4:40 have personally backed away from that because I would rather reinforce 4:44 optimal stabilization mechanics throughout my kinetic chain. Now, the last 4:50 thing I might hint on is breathing. This is one of those exercises where people 4:56 hold their breath and that's not totally inappropriate, as long as they don't hold 5:01 their breath for an entire set. So what I usually have people do is 5:07 breathe in on the way down, if they need to hold their breath as they're turning 5:12 force around, so they went from eccentric and now they're going to concentric, that's 5:16 the hard part, that's okay, but then breathe out either on the way up, or at the top 5:21 of the movement. So have them breathe in, get nice and stable, hold, push. Good. If that's 5:28 comfortable, great. What I do see more often than not is people tend to over 5:33 cue breathing. You don't need to get into all of those breathing mechanics if 5:37 somebody's breathing naturally. Only cue those mechanics if you 5:40 see somebody who's turning red, and holding their breath for an entire set. 5:44 Now, I hope you can also see this nice line that she's got going on here. Go 5:50 ahead and drop down, and back up, and then when we rack it, once again, you want a 5:57 nice spotter there to make sure that she doesn't miss the rack and catch her face 6:01 on the way down. I'm going to just have her put this back, I'm going to help her through it. 6:06 Now, last but not least, this is a dangerous exercise to do without a 6:13 spotter if you're going to risk and do heavier weights. Obviously this is a 6:18 weight that Laura is very comfortable with which allowed me to walk 6:22 around, which allowed me to cue her through all of this movement, which 6:26 allowed me to create this educational video. If we were doing, let's say, a heavy 6:31 day, I would not be standing over here. I would be cueing her between sets, 6:37 giving her verbal cues from this position, and let's just show them one 6:41 more time, I would make sure that she is one-two-three, that I have my hands 6:47 underneath this bar, and that I am 6:51 following her through a good squat, so that if she gets in trouble I could lift this 6:55 bar, or at least help her lift this bar off her chest. The problem with bench, unlike a lot of other 6:59 exercises, you can't drop the weight and get it out of your way. So there you go, 7:04 stable kinetic chain, make sure you watch your line, protract through the top, 7:10 safety first, make sure you get a spotter when you need one. I hope you 7:15 enjoy this chest exercise, even though we did this video on a Sunday, we had a lot of 7:20 fun making it! Talk with you soon.
