The 2 Most Overlooked Bench Press Tips
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You’ve had this experience . . .
You’re benching. You’re at Gold’s Genesis 24 Hour Anytime Planet Crunch Fitness, and you’re set up for your work set. You’re driving with your legs, your arch is set, and your shoulders are pinned back.
The last rep is a grind, but you know you’ve got it. The barbell is moving upward slowly . . . and then it happens.
“i’m all pinkies, bro!” this spotter is a fool and just stole a rep from his lifting buddy.
Your spotter steps in and begins helping you with the rep. You didn’t give your spotter permission to do this, of course. You know that if the spotter touches the bar on any rep, that rep doesn’t count, so to say that you’re annoyed at this point is putting it mildly.
Make no mistake - your spotter messed up . . . but you could have prevented this.
Let’s cover two subtle, yet important, bench press tips to help make the bench press a more productive and less frustrating lift for everyone involved.
Tip #1: Get an educated spotter
Spotters are important in the bench press. If you’re not benching with safeties, you need a spotter, and even with safeties, spotters can help tremendously with the unracking process of a heavy bench press.
With that said, your spotter should know that he is to only touch the bar if it’s moving in any direction other than up. Moving slowly is not a reason to provide assistance.
If you can’t find an educated and experienced spotter, then it’s your job to find a person and explain it to him. If your spotter messes up, you probably didn’t explain it well enough.
It’s your work set, so make sure it counts.
Tip #2: Don’t destroy your lifter’s unrack
As the spotter, when assisting with the unracking process, be sure to provide just enough assistance to help guide the bar into position over the lifter’s shoulders (and if you’re the lifter, be sure your spotter knows to do this).
The spotter helps lift the bar off the hooks, but the lifter does most of the work in this process. The spotter should not provide a lot of lift as the bar comes smoothly up and off the hooks - perhaps somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-30 lb as long as we’re throwing out random numbers.
The specific amount of assistance will vary by load (and as mentioned, those were random numbers) - the major point here is that you shouldn’t provide so much assistance that you accidentally pull your lifter out of position on the bench. This can happen in a few different scenarios, but it often happens when a larger, stronger lifter is spotting a smaller lifter.
Don’t be that guy.
Assist. Don’t yank.
As always, we hope this helps you get stronger and live better.
-Phil
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