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How to do a Bench Press
Doing a bench press correctly is very important. IF you do a bench press incorrectly, you can cause some bad injuries, and your muscle building will go a lot slower.
The muscles being targeted in a bench press are the pecs (the chest muscles), the triceps (the upper arm muscles) and the deltoids (front shoulder muscles). After doing a bench press, only your chest and upper arm muscles should be sore. If anything else becomes sore, especially your shoulder muscles, you should stop because you are doing it wrong.
Starting position
You should lie flat on the bench, in a natural position. A lot of people when they do bench presses, do it with a completely flat back. This means that the weight is distributed across the arms and the shoulders, but the chest isn’t being engaged. The way to exercises you chest on the bench press is to arch your back slightly. This will make your movement a lot more powerful and allow you bench press to engage the chest a lot more.
Make sure that your bottom, shoulders and head stay flat on the bench. Your feet need to be flat on the floor. If you find it hard to reach the floor, get some books or something to put your feet on. NEVER put your feet on the bench, as this will compromise your balance.
Grip
To get the right grip width, put your hands out to either side of you, and then bend your elbows, and bring your hands up to reach the bar. You should start out with this as your normal grip. As you get further advanced, you can make your grip wider to put more emphasis on the chest muscles, or narrower to put more emphasis on your arm muscles.
The Lifting
Start by just lifting the bar without any weights, until you are comfortable with the movement. Then increase the weight slowly until you reach a weight that is comfortable for you to lift. Remember it’s not how much you lift when doing a bench press, its how you lift it.
Lift the bar off the rack and lower it to around the nipple line of your chest. Inhale as you lower the bar down, to just lightly touch your chest, so that your arms are about parallel. Then Exhale, and push the bar back up, to the point where your arms are almost fully extended.
You have just done your first proper bench press rep. It is best to do about 8 reps to make up a set, and then take a rest, to make sure not to hurt your muscles.
Have a Spotter
Make sure you have a spotter when you lift heavy weight. A good idea is to try to ask the person with the best pecs in the gym if they will spot for you for a minute or two. That way you know that they are experienced and know what they are doing, and hopefully they will give you some pointer and make sure you are doing everything correctly while they are spotting.
If you don’t do the bench press properly it can cause you many injuries and be one of the most frustrating workouts. However if you make the effort to learn how to do the bench press properly, you will see some amazing results and gain muscle mass very quickly.
