bixby,

those look much, much better.

Dwarrior,

- Your stance is pretty close, a bit wider and toes pointed out more would be better
- Knees out more, you're almost doing a HBBS-style
- Depth is lacking a bit
- Go down faster and shove your ass back a bit more to get the bounce off your hamstrings on the bottom

Can't really see any reason why your elbow would hurt. Try a wider grip at least for a while and see if that helps.

You're on the right track.

Those look mostly good. A couple things:

- think about standing up tall at the top & squeeze your butt cheeks together. Do not lean back at the top.

- dont lose the tightness in your low back until the weight hits the floor

- it looks like your hips are rising a bit faster than the weight at the start of the lift. Try to squeeze the weight off the floor (dont jerk it) and keep your back angle the same until the weight passes your knees.

I unfortunately don't have a video, but:

The past 2-3 times I've benched, I've noticed that I more and more tend to lift my ass from the bench during the last couple of reps when it gets heavy. I think it's a by-product of focusing on leg drive. Is this a problem (eg. wrong muscles working, wrong bar path etc etc)? If so, how should I rectify it (cues)? Thanks

watch this whole series: http://articles.elitefts.com/article...e-series-here/

Hmm, guess I'll have to re-watch the series

Im guessing you need to either get your feet planted further back or wider if youve seen that series and still have trouble with your ass comes off the bench.

Hardgrove- this. I will take a guess and say that your knees are probably not lower than your hips, which I think they should be when benching. It's what I do anyway.

Look at where the bar is when it starts moving. Have to get it higher and get extension at the hips first. It's hard to do and I'm still working on that too.

some of my hang cleans from months ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj4LX...el_video_title

You don't need to lower the bar as much as I did, but you can see I get decent hip extension at the top even with that angle.

What busto said on the benches. It's basically unpossible for your butt to come off the bench if your feet are way behind like Tate teaches. And yes, it's a problem.

Will do this! It's funny: it wasn't a problem until I started benching with my wl shoes on. Normally I use the feet setup Tate suggests, but since using these shoes, I've done more of a mix between Tate and Rip (which obv hasn't been a success), because I wanted to get the "tightness" around the bench Tate suggests while still keeping the entire foot planted on the floor (to "use" the wl shoes optimally).

I have a video I made with a friend (World Champion Bench Presser). It's in Estonian, but I'll try to find it and read on some English or put some subs. Might be helpful to some people.

I have never had my butt come of the bench. I can imagine that driving with the legs can cause this problem. But generally your body should be tight all-over. Every muscle locked, only the arms/pecks really moving. The rest should simply be something that plants you to the ground and to the bench, so you have a place to "push from" so to speak.


Edit: Here's the video. I did a quick English dub. Not perfect, but should give some idea of what we are talking about. Messed up some words and definitions - just improvised this. Mixed up Elbows and Shoulders a few times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWM28_6iIK8

To add to the video. You should set your legs so they are as far behind your knees as you can, while keeping the feet planted on the ground. The more your thighs and hamstrings can stretch, the more you can go - and that helps with the back arch as-well.
With this technique the butt is helping with the lift as much as other parts of your body. It's driving into the bench, giving you a more solid place to lift from.

Basically - If you know any strongmen in the gym. Have them give you pointers and watch your form. There really isn't any way around this. You can only develop your form so much by yourself. You need outside observations to correct your mistakes. There is no point in inventing the wheel here. Get some help and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble.

Arnie - thanks for taking the time to translate that. Your friend is really strong.

I have a few issues though:

- belts dont protect you, but they can enhance your performance

- wide grip is NOT correct 99% of the time. Its bad for most people, most of the time because it can put your shoulders in a position to get injured. Your friend has such a huge arch and mobile shoulders so that's probably not a problem for him.

- that low back stretching he does can injure some people. When the low back goes too far into extension, bone on bone contact can happen in the vertebrae, which can cause injury (sometimes fractures of the vertebrae) for many people. Your friend has a very unique back that he can do that to such an extreme. Most people wont be able to do that safely.

- that shoulder stretch he does would put a lot of people into impingement and wreck their shoulders.

Cool. Discussion is always good. - Just remember that this video is about High Level Bench Press. Not really about pectorial development or the correct way to do a standard press for the chest.

I'd say they provide more than one function. They do protect you in a sense. Obviously they enhance your performance in a way, but how do they do that? They artificially strengthen your lower back tolerance, by removing some of the pressure on it.
Now you can think of this as "protection" from weights your lower back could not otherwise handle. If you try to squat with 500lb raw, you might break your back. With a belt, it's much less likely.

They remove some of the danger that comes with insane weights. But it doesn't necessarily make you any weaker to be without a belt. Some of the Strongest lifters on the planet lift 100% RAW - I doubt that they would lift much more with a belt or when fully strapped - but they often do use them to protect from injury.


Now we talked about this in the video. If you use full power-lifting technique, you must go wide. To reduce the distance of the press and to put maximum amount of pressure on the Pectorials. Close the grip and you may put too much weight on your triceps which is a much smaller muscle and this may reduce your max. rep power.

The Shoulders really won't be much part in this lift unless you are on an incline or press from too high like many people do. In such a case - yes, extra pressure can go on the shoulders.

In General even when doing a normal bench press without a back arch - you should still bench from much lower than you probably are doing. Too high and you are stretching the shoulders along with the pecs. You don't need to really do this with the standard press. It's all about the weight. If you want stretches, go for dumbbells.
So I'm thinking that you need to work on your technique a bit if you feel your shoulders after a press. Cause I never do after I corrected my form. Shoulders should be almost completely out of the bench press when it comes to them moving any weight.

Nobody starts out extra strong and flexible - but if you get better gradually, there shouldn't be a weak part in your body that could just fail.
Remember my Friend is a World Champion -110kg class and he hasn't had any injuries as far as I know. So I take his word on everything he says.


This is all about practice. These exercises that were shown are obviously meant to be taken slowly and probably no-one can perform them like that for years.
Arches in high level Bench Pressing competitions is very much the standard and I've seen many arches better then my Friends.

Basically you start off light and careful. And gently push yourself forward. It's like training to do a split. If you just go for it, you'll have a very painful crotch the next day. But with a few weeks you can be very close to a full split.



Indeed, if they just went to the gym and tried that. - But as I said before, it's all about gently progressing. What some athletes can do with their body is beyond my understanding - but I'm pretty sure no-one started off that way, and pretty sure that anyone who tried to replicate their movements would kill themselves.
So you start slow and light with everything.

This shoulder exercise could be tried after a shoulder workout when you are completely warm and already somewhat limber. Your triceps should be fairly strong still, so you can lower yourself carefully and gently stretch the shoulders... evermore so each workout.

I think we agree on most everything in general, but some stuff gets lost in the translation.

The belt issue - we do not agree on. I dont have time right now to cite everything I know or link stuff about this. Maybe someone else can help or maybe I'll do it later.

No problem man. I'm also interested about the belt part.

I've not yet heard of anyone using the belt as a simple performance increase equipment. 99,9% of the people who I know use it, do so to avoid Injuries that are very common with the lower back.

With heavy weight it's not really about the question if you can lift it or not - it's often about - can you lift it safely. A lot of people are unable to keep perfect form. Especially so when massive weight is being used. So one tiny fraction of faltering in your form and you can seriously damage your back.
Using a Belt negates a lot of that danger by simply not allowing your lower back to curve.

For instance:

I'm a weak squatter. I can squat like 400lb max. With perfect form I can only do maybe 340lb. I've done 400 and almost broke my damn back doing it.
With a Belt It wasn't any easier to make the squat - but it did definitely hurt a lot less as my lower back weakness was somewhat negated by the belt.


So I definitely understand the line: "It increases performance". But I'm not sold on the Idea that it doesn't protect you. Can't really say that at all.


PS.

If you are going to say that the overusing the belt can lead to injuries and a weak back - Oh definitely - 100%. Don't use the belt for anything other than Max or near Max reps.

You want your back to get gradually stronger and for that you need to do everything RAW as much as possible. But for MAX weights - it's so often that your lower back is the weakest link and it just can't keep up with the rest of the body, so it often fails to any disruption in the form, even though the rest of the body can keep going.

It doesnt necessarily lead to injuries if you dont mis-use them. But it doesnt prevent them. I've read a lot in the past that says this, and just within the past few days I've read a lot of detailed stuff from Stuart McGill that says this. To summarize what he says, belts do absolutely nothing to protect the low back. They can be a useful tool for enhancing performance on certain lifts.

Hmmm.

I understand what you are saying, but I still don't believe it. I mean you can get a sore back if you work out without a belt. But you don't usually get a sore back when you use it all the time when in the gym.
Let's take these extremes.

Now what is soreness? Muscle fatigue and damage. Logic dictates if you feel no pain or fatigue in the lower back - the belt is helping you out. If it protects the back from damage - well. It just protects the back from damage.
It's no substitute for actual muscle strength and endurance, but it does prevent injuries in a way that it simply will make it very hard for you to mess up your form.

I'll read some Stuart McGill when I get a chance and decide for myself what's he talking about.

I'll post some of his quotes later. He's a world renowned back specialist who works almost exclusively on elite athletes (including powerlifters & strongman competitors) and people with extremely injured backs.

Here are some links for the time being:

http://stronglifts.com/weight-liftin...r-not-to-wear/

http://books.google.com/books?id=j0R...page&q&f=false

Ok. I read some of that, and I understand. Definitely not going to argue those points. Makes perfect sense overall.

But I feel that this author is definitely going for the "healthy/safe" way of training the body. Which is extremely important. Alas PRO sport is not always healthy/safe, and one should not expect to get maximal results by taking the overly catious route.

I'm not advocating that people should ignore safety and health. But simply that so very often the healthy way is very slow and is psychologically very difficult to achieve.
In the light of this, a person interested in fast and powerful development of various muscles in the body and the desire to do so safely - will require certain outside assistance in the form of straps and whatnot.

You will not ignore correct form or the gradual development of muscles. But you will regularly go past your "safe" zone in order to achieve maximum muscle development. And in order to keep you still somewhat in the borders of that "safe zone" you must use straps/belts etc.

A Huge post coming up:


My point however is that the lower back get's a lot of pressure from various exercises and it is very hard to train it to such levels of strength that one can safely do several extremely heavy lifts a week for continuous periods without a belt.
I think the belt, taking the edge off from various exercises will allow it to withstand the constant pressure. You are no longer taxing the lower back muscles and spine so heavily - and that will allow it to recover sufficiently between workouts.

A lot of people that go to the gym aim for maximum results. Now you can only get that by going quite heavy with the weights. But so very often the lower back is far from being capable of supporting the massive weights during deadlifts, squats, presses and whatnot.
Even if you start very gradually you'll soon notice that your lower back simply cannot keep up with the rest of the muscles in your body. And injuries can happen with even the slightest error in the form.

I mean a beginner can easily go from DL-ng 150lb to 300lb in a few months. Many DL that off the bat. And More.
So the lower back will definitely be very, very far from being able to support those weights - and back injury will follow.

Using the belt for your max. sets only will still develop the back during your warm-ups and secondary work sets, while keeping it safe during the max. reps where your form might falter - and those max sets are important for muscle development.
The way to go without a Belt will often mean that you have to very gradually go up the weights and work on your lower back a lot. Possibly years before it becomes strong enough to allow you to tax the rest of your muscles to their limits and still being able to take it.

I think this is simply not practical if you are going for maximal muscle development. Sure, eventually you'll be able lift just as much as other people and while not wearing a belt. But I imagine it taking a while longer to get there.

It's the same with Straps really. Except straps aren't protecting your hands that much. But technically it's the same with the grip. Your muscles will most likely way outgrow the strength of your grip unless you train it a lot, like strongmen do.
Once again, if you go completely without straps, you are holding back your over-all development for the sake of developing your grip. It will pay off eventually, but I'm not sure it's very practical. If you do all non-max. sets without straps, you will still develop the grip sufficiently for non-strongman needs.

Who wouldn't like to have a superstrong lower back? But unless I'm going to be a powerlifter that goes RAW. I'll probably hold myself back way too much in the gym trying to go easier on my back.

Let's take another example: Wrist straps and Knee straps. Your body will develop those areas similarly as it would develop your lower back (though even less muscles involved. Mostly tendons and whatnot - but they do develop). People have squatted and pressed 500-1200lb completely RAW. So those areas can handle the pressure.
However for safety reasons 99,9% of professionals will use these straps to protect those vulnerable joints during max. sets because they know that one tiny slip, one nanosecond of weakness and a misfired nerve signal can mean massive life altering injuries.

And just as with the belt or ordinary straps - the muscles you train will quickly outgrow the "safe" performance levels of those joints. So you either hold yourself back and try to gradually move up, or you use this equipment to supplement your weak points a little during the max. sets.


And I totally agree that if you injure yourself while using a Belt, it could be devastating. But generally people who go so far to use weights that are way beyond their capabilities will do so with or without the belt. Without the belt they will probably break themselves a bit earlier and maybe slightly less in damage.
But overall it's not the belt that is going to be the problem, rather the lack of wisdom from these gym wolves.




Honestly - I've been going to the gym for like 6 years, which isn't much. But I have friends who are world champions in Bench Pressing, Bodybuilding, Fitness and etc.
And all of them swear by the belt. None of them advise using it during light set's. But most do say that you you constantly use heavy weights and no belt - your lower back will overtrain and you will be even more prone to injuries.

I mean do you really need that static pressure when doing bent over rows with a barbell, or dumbbell flies for the shoulders and whatnot.
It is just putting the lower back under excessive pressure it doesn't really need. By putting on the belt you are simply taking the edge off. You are not particularly laxing your form or anything.


A pretty darn long post. But I hope I got my thoughts across. I completely understand every point made in the links above. And I agree almost completely.
But this is my views on the matter and those of my friends.

I think we sort of agree on what a belt is best used for.

I use one when I squat over ~60% of my 1 RM, so that when I get to the heavier sets, my motor patterns are used to using the belt.

I think that relying on the belt to "protect" the back is what is bad, and a lot of people do that.

Here's something out of McGill's other book that is geared towards athletes (he's talking about deadlifting here):



I think that the best DLers have low backs that are like blocks of cement when they DL, and the belt just enhances their performance.

Agreed.

A lot of people neglect to train the lower back or to work on their form. Thinking that the belt will do all that and keep them safe. A foolish notion, but not uncommon.
Most don't even know how to properly use a belt. It's not like putting on something to keep your pants up, lol.

Here's a few cool videos of the sickest man on the planet - Konstantins Konstantinovs. Completely raw Deadlifts:

939lb / 426kg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh-ik...A94BA1681A9153

836lb / 380kg - for 4 reps. Insane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA8s1...eature=related


With a belt he only did a few pounds more. So this guy has the sickest lower back I've ever seen when it comes to strength. The belt seems like a fashion accessory to him.

rounding the upper back like he does makes the lever shorter. i would say there are a few guys with stronger backs - but given they all weigh much more than KK i don't think they are more impressive.