How to Bench by Greg Nuckols

• Force is linear: It describes how things are pushed or pulled in a straight line.
• To produce movement, your muscles contract. By doing so, they produce a linear force, pulling on bones that act as levers, producing flexor or extensor moments at the joints they cross, with joints acting as the axes of rotation.
• Attachment points play a huge role because muscles  generally attach very close to the joint they move, so small variations can make a big difference.
• Unfortunately, you can’t change muscle attachment points, so the only factor within your control is increasing contractile force. There are only two ways to do that: a) increase your skill as a bencher so your current muscle mass can produce more force during the movement and b) add more muscle!
• Narrowly defined, the shoulder joint is simply the ball-and-socket joint made up of the humerus and the glenoid cavity of the scapula.
• Your shoulder is a very shallow ball-and-socket joint--much shallower than the hip. That can cause a bit more instability (which is why dislocated shoulders are way more common than dislocated hips), but it also allows for a huge range of motion in all planes.
• The elbow is a simple joint. It flexes (like a biceps curl) and extends (like a triceps extension).
• Your pecs are your biggest, strongest prime mover in the bench. Their main role is in horizontal flexion, but they can also aid in shoulder flexion, extension, and internal rotation.
• There are only three major movements you need to accomplish to complete the bench press: flexion at the shoulder, horizontal flexion at the shoulder, and extension at the elbow.
• The most important thing is simply that your shoulder blades are pulled together.
• A key aspect of a tight set up is finding proper foot position. Your legs and hips help stabilize you on the bench and help you get leg drive.
• A common feature of studies that compare elite-level benchers to average joes is that elite lifters lower the bar slower and do a better job controlling the weight on the way down.
• If you’re a powerlifter, you need to get experience pausing the bar on your chest for each rep, since that’s required for competition. Otherwise, lightly touching the bar to your chest without a pause before pressing it back up is fine.
• Drive the bar off your chest aggressively, initiating the press with leg drive and pushing the bar up and back toward your face.
• Hold your breath throughout the duration of the rep. Take a deep, diaphragmatic breath before you start the descent, and release it once the bar is locked out, or at least nearing lockout. This will help you maintain tension and stability.
• Press every rep as hard as you can.
• In one study, pressing each rep as fast as possible resulted in literally twice the bench press gains as pressing the bar intentionally slower with the exact same training program. When you press harder, force output is higher (so training conditions are more similar to conditions when attempting 1RM loads), and you recruit more motor units, amplifying the training effect.
• Remember, there are three primary movements you need to produce in order to bench the bar: You need to flex your shoulders, horizontally flex your shoulders, and extend your elbows.
• As you start the press, squeeze your glutes hard and try to drive your heels through the floor.
• When you DB press, the only appreciable force you’re dealing with is the force of gravity acting upon the dumbell. Gravity pulls the DB straight to the floor, and you press against that force. Because of that, the weight needs to stay more-or-less over your elbow the whole time.
• The reason your elbows have to stay more-or-less directly under the weight when you’re DB pressing is that you can’t impose a meaningful amount of outward lateral forces on the dumbell.
• Once the bar starts moving back off your chest, you’ll want to start to flare your elbows to get them back under the bar by the midrange of the press.
• One of the only findings that seems consistent across the majority of the studies is the activation of the triceps tends to increase a bit more than pec activation as you add weight to the bar.
• Muscles don’t produce the same amount of force ever their entire range of motion. Muscle fibers themselves produce the most force when they’re around resting length, and their capacity to produce force increases or decreases as they lengthen or shorten.
• Lockout should be the strongest part of the lift.
• Bench press cues:
• Squeeze the shit out of the bar.
• Bend the bar/rip the bar in half (while lowering it).
• Chest up/inflate your stomach.
• Heels through the floor/squeeze glutes (for leg drive).
• Flare (to get the bar back over your shoulders).
• Screw your shoulders out (to make sure elbows are facing out for lockout).
• The reverse grip bench is a forgotten art form. [...] It’s probably a better upper pec developer than bench with a pronated grip.
• If you have shoulder or elbow issues when benching, it’s worth giving the reverse grip bench a shot.
• Incline press will train your front delts slightly harder than flat bench will, and maybe your upper pecs as well. However, based on available research, it seems like incline still doesn’t challenge your upper pecs quite as much as reverse grip benching with a wide grip does.
• If at all possible, incline press with a low incline (15-30 degrees) if you’re primarily incline pressing to train your pecs.
• In my personal opinion, decline press is primarily an ego lift. [...] Dips are a much better movement to train your pecs and triceps at that pressing angle since your scapulae can still move freely, and since you can achieve greater range of motion.
• For starters, research has shown that different regions of a muscle are activated and grow to different degrees based on the exercise performed. So, to fully develop the entirety of a muscle, you’ll need some exercise variety. You don’t need to take the full-on muscle confusion route, but you should probably have at least 2-3 movements in your training routine targeting each muscle if overall hypertrophy is your goal.
• Incline curls are my go-to exercise for happy elbows with heavy bench training.
• Ultimately, technical improvements can help your bench press dramatically (for both strength and longevity). However, technical improvements aren’t going to give you a huge bench press--they simply allow you to get all the strength possible out of your current muscle mass.
• Improving your skill as a bencher can make a big difference for a novice or intermediate lifter, but ultimately if you want to reach your full potential in the bench press, you need to put on as much upper body muscle mass as possible.
• If you already have good technique but your bench press is stalled, the prescription is simple: increase your training volume, make sure you’re eating enough protein, and increase your calorie intake.