What's going on, guys?
Sean Nalewanyj on www.SeanNal.com and in this video today I'm going to be going over 12
common bench press mistakes that people make in the gym and how to correct them.
The barbell bench press might look like a pretty simple lift on the surface.
You know, all you have to do is unwrap the bar, lower it to your chest and press it back
up.
But the reality is that there are actually a ton of key mistakes that lifters make on
this exercise that not only reduces the amount of total stimulation they can put on their
chest but also increases the stress on their shoulder joints, their wrists and their elbow.
As well as increasing the chance for sudden accidents like dropping the bar on themselves
or getting stuck underneath it.
When you break it all down piece by piece, there are actually a lot of different subtleties
involved with performing an optimal set of bench presses.
So these are twelve things for you to keep in mind.
And also remember that most of these tips apply to dumbbell presses as well.
Now, I know this is a lot of info to taken at once for a single exercise, so rather than
trying to apply every single tip all at once, instead just try focusing on maybe one or
two things at a time, practice them until they become automatic and then move on to
one or two more things and so on until your bench press is being properly executed from
top to bottom.
Before I get into the specific tips, if you do enjoy this video make sure to hit the subscribe
button below to stay in the loop on all of my future content.
And also click the little bell symbol as well and that way you'll be notified whenever a
new video is available so that you don't miss out on anything.
So here we go, bench press mistake number one, the most basic one on the list but does
have to be mentioned and that's just going to heavy.
{Period}.
Pretty much any time I go into the gym I can be almost guaranteed to see at least one guy
loading up way too much weight on the bench press and then pumping out half or quarter
reps with it, or doing almost every rep with the help of a spotter.
The bottom line here is that if you can't lift the weight in proper form with a full
range of motion on your own without a spotter then the weight is just too heavy for you,
plain and simple, okay?
Going excessively heavy isn't going to build your chest any more effectively if you aren't
using the proper form to begin with.
And all you're going to be doing in that case is increasing your chance for injury and reinforcing
bad lifting technique, okay?
Nobody in the gym cares how much you can bench press.
When you go too heavy with bad form you just look silly.
So lighten up the weight, get your technique down and only increase the weight if you can
do so using proper form.
Bench press mistake number two is: flaring your elbows out at ninety-degree angles.
Now, theoretically keeping your elbows flared out like this actually does increase the tension
on your pecs because the main function of the pecs is to bring your upper arm across
the front of your body.
And so when you do it that way you do end up getting a larger range of motion, but unfortunately
that also puts a lot more stress on your shoulder joints as well.
So, the goal with a proper bench press is to find the right balance between maximizing
chest stimulation while also doing it safely at the same time.
Now you might be totally fine right now benching with flared elbows, but as you go heavier
and heavier over consistent weeks and months and years of training it's going to catch
up to you eventually.
So you're better off to just correct it right now from the get-go.
And the solution here is to tuck your elbows in slightly throughout the exercise.
You don't have to overly exaggerated this but a good balance is to have your upper arms
at roughly about a seventy-five-degree angle.
That’s still going to hit your chest really hard for muscle growth but it's going to protect
your shoulder joints as well.
Bench press mistake number three is: allowing your wrists to bend.
Now, I've talked about this in a couple videos but if you allow your wrists to bend backward
during the bench press like a lot of people do, not only do you lose strength on the lift
but it also puts a lot of stress on your wrist joints as well.
So instead what you want to do is consciously focus on keeping your wrists in a neutral
position.
And one thing that really helps with this is to position the bar across the lower medial
portion of your palm rather than higher up toward your fingers.
Bench press mistake number four is: improper grip width.
So if you grip the bar too wide or too narrow, just like with the previous point, you end
up losing strength on the lift but you also put stress on your wrists as well as your
elbows and your shoulders.
Now, there's no single grip width that's going to apply to every single lifter across the
board, because it does depend on your body structure and your limb length but the basic
goal is to find the grip width that causes your forearms to be vertical at the very bottom
of the rep with your wrists and your elbows directly stacked on top of each other.
And if you're having issues with this then it would probably be useful to actually film
yourself by putting a camera behind the bench, and then tweaking your form until you find
a proper grip width for yourself.
Bench press mistake number five is: lowering the bar too high up on your chest.
Now, if you have your elbows tucked in like I just mentioned and you're using a proper
grip width, then those things will mostly take care of this on their own.
But this still has to be mentioned because it's pretty important, and it's something
I see all the time in the gym as well where somebody's basically benching with their elbows
flared way out and then lowering the bar down to their neck area, almost like with a guillotine
press.
Again, this technically does hit your chest a bit harder in terms of raw muscle stimulation
but it's basically going to be suicide for your shoulders over the long term as you start
progressing to really heavy weights.
So keep those elbows tucked in and lower the bar down to your mid to lower chest area,
roughly around your sternum or slightly higher.
It's going to be a bit different for everyone depending on their individual body structure
but around the sternum area will be about right for most people.
Bench press mistake number six: is benching with a flat upper back.
So instead what you want to do here is retract your scapula by pinching your shoulder blades
back slightly and then driving them back into the bench.
When you perform your bench press with your shoulder blades completely flat against the
bench, it actually increases the stress on your shoulder joints because they lose their
solid contact with the bench and they don't have anything to properly drive back against.
So a good form cue for this is to think about squeezing your shoulder blades together and
putting them down into your back pocket, and also keeping a small arc in your lower back
throughout the bench press, that's also going to help out with this as well.
Bench press mistake number seven is: letting your butt raise up off the bench.
Now this is a really common thing you'll see where someone will have their glutes flat
against the bench but then as soon as they press the bar up their butt raises up into
the air as a way of trying to basically cheat the weight up.
Having your lower back arced and not in contact with the bench, that's fine.
Because it helps to keep your chest up but your glutes on the other hand should be tight
and pinned against the bench throughout the entire set.
Bench press mistake number eight is: not keeping a solid base with your feet, or even worse,
benching with your legs up in the air like you'll see a lot of guys doing.
Having your legs and your feet just, kind of, floating around during the lift, that
puts you in an unstable position and it also decreases your strength since you can't get
that additional force from driving your feet into the ground.
So, what you want to do is position your feet right below your knees and drives them into
the ground as you're performing each rep.
You can put your feet further back if you prefer or if that feels more comfortable but
just make sure that your heels don't come off the ground.
Bench press mistake number nine is: bench pressing with a thumb less grip.
Okay, this is going to make it a lot harder to maintain that neutral wrist position that
we talked about earlier, but more importantly it's also going to increase the chances of
losing your grip altogether during the set and dropping the bar on yourself.
People literally die in gyms every single year as a result of bench pressing accidents
and I have no doubt that a thumb less grip is probably to blame in some of those cases.
So to be fully safe, wrap your entire thumb around the bar.
It could save you from a sudden freak accident and at the very least it's going to help to
keep your wrists aligned in a better position anyway.
Bench press mistake number ten is: bouncing the bar off your chest.
So if you need to use momentum to bounce the bar off your chest on each rep then you're
just going way too heavy and you need to lighten the weight up.
From a pure strength perspective, bouncing the bar off your chest doesn't count as a
legal lift in the first place.
From a muscle building perspective, it's going to reduce the tension that you can produce
on your chest in comparison to lifting under more control.
And from an injury prevention perspective, bouncing the bar is also going to be a lot
more likely to hurt your shoulders or even your ribcage if you end up dropping the bar
too hard.
So lower the bar under control, touch your chest without bouncing, and then press the
bar back up without using unnecessary outside momentum.
Bench press mistake number eleven is: benching heavy without a spotter.
Now, this should pretty much go without saying.
If you're a more experienced lifter and you aren't maxing out and that's probably fine,
but if you're still a beginner, or if you're challenging yourself by lifting heavier loads,
especially if you're going with lower reps closer to failure, always have a spotter there
just in case.
And this is particularly important if you're training from home and there's nobody around
to rescue you in the case that you accidentally get stuck under the bar.
And finally bench press mistake number twelve is: moving your head and neck around during
the exercise.
So, don't raise your head way off the bench is a way of watching the bar come down and
touch your chest, don't press your head backward into the bench, and don't turn it from side
to side either.
All of these things are going to increase the strain on your neck or they could also
throw you off balance during the set.
So make sure to keep your neck nice and tight but keep it in a neutral position.
So there you go, guys, twelve bench press mistakes and how to fix them.
Applying all these tips is going to help you build a bigger bench press and a bigger chest
while staying injury free at the same time.
So, I hope you found this advice helpful.
If you did and you want to get all the tools you need to gain muscle and lose fat as effectively
and efficiently as possible; the workouts, the meal plans, supplement guides, along with
one-on-one coaching, then you can check out my complete Body Transformation Blueprint
by clicking the icon at the top of the screen here, or by heading over to www.BTBluePrint.com.
The link for that is in the description box.
If you enjoyed the video make sure to hit the like button, leave a comment, and subscribe
to stay up-to-date on future videos.
The official website is over at www.SeanNeal.com.
And you can follow me on facebook and Instagram as well if you aren't already.
The links for that are also in the description box below.
Thanks for watching, guys.
And I'll see in the next video.