Thread: Feet on the bench?

I always thought it was stupid. I would imagine it makes it much harder to keep your back neutral if you have your feet up on the bench like that.

I imagine it's used to take you legs out of the lift. I assume they believe it isolates the chest better or that using your legs is cheating. I wouldn't do it because it would make the lift less stable and I seriously doubt that it would lead to any additional upper body gains compared to benching normal. So there's no point, besides being a douche and thinking you're cool.

They are misguided
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I would laugh when they fall over. Why would you take your ability to stabilize the weight out of the lift? Or even better, why not just not use your legs to cheat.

Yep. These people think it puts more stress on the chest and takes the legs out of the equation. I wan't to go up to each of these folks and give them a quick lesson on basic anatomy/physiology.

My understanding is that, by not including the legs, benching puts an inordinate amount of stress on the shoulders, which leads to injury.

Originally Posted by Merkaba

Yep. These people think it puts more stress on the chest and takes the legs out of the equation. I wan't to go up to each of these folks and give them a quick lesson on basic anatomy/physiology.

Yep but you understand A&P It would be like giving math lessons to penguins.I too have seen theese people they're morons.

Originally Posted by DOMS

My understanding is that, by not including the legs, benching puts an inordinate amount of stress on the shoulders, which leads to injury.

I don't see how putting your feet on the bench places undue stress on the shoulders. The major difference in shoulder stress occurs through the bar groove. The closer to your head, the more stress. The closer to your feet, the less.

I mean, I don't agree with putting feet on the bench. In fact, it makes no fucking sense to me at all!

It would be less stable, maybe bring more core strength into it . . but a stupid exercise for retarded notBigs

One thing Ive seen is people not just arching their lower back but their whole back with only their shoulders/butt touching the bench. Ive also seen people only go about half way up on bench press. Dont know what thats all about.

Originally Posted by BC Lifter

One thing Ive seen is people not just arching their lower back but their whole back with only their shoulders/butt touching the bench. Ive also seen people only go about half way up on bench press. Dont know what thats all about.

This is what power lifters do. Less ROM makes one rep still one rep, regardless that they traveled 12" less in total in each direction.

I believe that people put their feet on the bench so that they can have the small of their back flat against the bench so there is zero arch. This is just really fuckin stupid, has anyone seen anybody fall off a bench whilst mid-press?

It puts a lot more stress on your core as you hav to cocerntrate 2 stabalize yourself more without legs as balance, you cant use your legs in the lift so it does make u concerntrate more on using your chest only specialy if u hav your legs/ knees at a right angle/ u cant cheat n arch your bak like a mother fuka. You obviously cant lift as much which is probly why you showponys dont rate it

kevin rudd used to bench with his feet up . . check out his pecs

ive seen it happen ... loss of balance. 60kg to the chest looks horrific...

If I am going to train my stability, I'll do landmines, planks or whatever.

If I am going to bench press, I am going to bench press.

When I first started out, I used to do this, because the bench was too high and my feet didn't comfortably reach the floor.

While doing dumbbell press with fifteen pounds a side, this was probably not a concern.

I wouldn't do it now, however. I now know to stack up a few plates on either side of the bench if it's too high for me.

Originally Posted by TheCapt'n

kevin rudd used to bench with his feet up . . check out his pecs

Iv seen youtube footage of Kevin Rudd bench presses 160 kgs after pre fatiging his chest n doin 4 dropsets of cable cross overs staring at 70 kg. The guys a machine!!!

It destabilizes the back. Of course most people don't think the back is terribly important when benching...

Originally Posted by BC Lifter

One thing Ive seen is people not just arching their lower back but their whole back with only their shoulders/butt touching the bench. Ive also seen people only go about half way up on bench press. Dont know what thats all about.

The first part is just a way to decrease the ROM so that you can press more weight. It also helps a lot when pressing because it forces you to involve the back muscles.

The second thing is a low-end partial press that powerlifters will sometimes do to improve the speed of the lift off of their chest. It's not that common though, since a lot of PLs are assisted and the low-end of the press is helped incredibly by a suit.

That prevents arching of the back, but makes you unstable. It's not enough of a difference to make a huge change in angle.

It's a dumb thing to do plain and simple. It throws off your balance and now you have to think about balancing along with lifting the weight. Makes no sense. I've seen guys do this too and I think they do it because they think it looks more impressive. But to anyone who knows how to do a bench press you just look like a fool.

I'm not quite sure how one would do that & be able to get any arch in your back without lifting your ass off the bench. I think people take bench form to lightly. 90% of the people I see performing BB flat bench have poor form.

Putting your feet on the bench while doing a bench press is pretty unsafe. You have no anchorage when benching heavy weight. I did have rather small non-big tell me once he did it so he wouldn't arch his back, and by placing his feet on the ground, he had a tendency to arch his back and left his ass off the bench.


On a side note, I used to put my feet on the bench when doing DB flyes. I saw Arnold doing them that way many years ago and tried em. Honestly it is harder, especially if you go all the way down to the floor like you are supposed to, but doing DB chest flys, and BB bench are entirely different.

I am short (5 foot) and I have my feet hanging and tippy toes on the ground due to my short legs, but I fixed that by adding some plates at a certain height so that I can have good control. Without the weight, my back feels hyperextended.

Thats something you can do (those who have short legs like me) whenever you want to bench press.

Am I missing something here? Everyone talking about not arching the back. The back should be arched slightly. I mean extreme is one thing. But you can't brace without a slight arch.

Taking the arch out of the lift reduces the involvement of triceps from the press.

A better approach to this end would be low incline pressing. Performed with an arch, an incline press reduces tricep involvement to the same degree, but without the "instability" problem.

Originally Posted by Merkaba

Am I missing something here? Everyone talking about not arching the back. The back should be arched slightly. I mean extreme is one thing. But you can't brace without a slight arch.

I for the longest time had issues with people describing the above method. Before Built brought me over to IronMag, I was a regular on Wannabebig and ALL they talked about was putting footballs, towels, anything to make the arch larger than McDonalds. It is ridiculous. Lay flat with minor "REGULAR" arch of the back and push that weight like it was a fat chick trying to hop on for a ride.