rangers97

lately I have noticed that a day or so after a workout, my muscles are not the least bit sore, but it feels like everything else is. By everything else I mean, joints, ligaments, tendons, bones, I dunno. For example...I did chest yesterday, and my shoulders ache, my elbow aches but I feel like my chest muscles themselves are fine. I am wondering if this is signaling to me that I am starting to injure myself and maybe I need to tone it back a bit? I mean this morning my shoulders are barking pretty loudly, especially the right one.

The question is, is this type of low rep high weight training supposed to have this kind of effect on things other than actual muscle. Because like I said, EVERYTHING is sore this morning, EXCEPT my muscles (or so it feels that way )

min0 lee

I used to go thru the same thing, what I do now is keep the shoulder blades together while pressing and when I reach to the top I squeeze my pecs.

min0 lee

Archive: How To Do The Perfect Bench Press Rep
Posted on Saturday, November 01 @ 12:00:00 MST
Written by: Nick_Nilsson


Learn the secrets to bench press form that will send your strength and muscle development through the roof! The Flat Barbell Bench Press is one of the most popular exercises in the gym, yet how many people know the most important techniques for maximizing strength and power during each rep?

In this article, you will find solid tips without the fluff. These tips will instantly help you to improve your bench press RIGHT NOW! You don't need any special equipment to use these techniques, just a willingness to learn.

Several of these tips will be further demonstrated with pictures (there will be a link to this picture page at the end of the article).

1. The perfect bench press rep starts without any weight on the bar. Why no weight? The first thing you need to do is determine your proper hand spacing on the bar.

Lie down on the bench and unrack the bar as you normally would. Lower the bar to your chest and have a partner take note of the orientation of your forearms. For optimal power, your forearms should be as close to vertical at the bottom of the rep as possible. Adjust your grip accordingly and take note of where your hands are in relation to the smooth rings on the Olympic bar.

The reason for this is simple: if your hands are placed wider, some of your pushing power will be expended pushing outwards rather than upwards. If your hands are placed closer, power is expended pushing inwards. When your forearms are vertical, the vast majority of your power goes to pushing the bar directly up.

2. Now that you have your grip properly positioned, put some weight on the bar. Lay back on the bench and plant your feet firmly on the floor. Your knees should bent at about an 80 degree angle (I will explain the reason for this later - this tip has an accompanying picture). DO NOT place your feet up on the bench. You will lose stability and potential power by doing this.

Place your hands on the bar in the grip width that you determined previously.

A technique that I like to use to lock my shoulders into the position for maximum strength and stability is as follows:

Instead of placing your palms on the bottom of the bar, place them on the back of the bar (this tip also has an accompanying picture).

Now, without removing your grip, rotate the bar down so that your palms are now directly under the bar. This has the effect of placing your shoulders into their most stable and strong position. It will almost feel as though you are "locking down" your shoulders.

As you are rotating the bar and locking down your shoulders, lift your torso slightly off the bench and force your shoulder blades together tightly underneath your torso.

This will force your shoulders back and puff your chest out, placing the pectorals in a position where they have a more effective line of pull. It also has the added bonus of making your torso thicker, reducing the distance you need to press the weight.

Keep your shoulder blades squeezed tightly behind you for the duration of the set.

3. Remove the bar from the racks and tighten up the muscles of your torso. Begin lowering the bar under complete control to a point at the bottom of your sternum (about even with the bottom of your sternum, a.k.a. the breastbone). Imagine as though your muscles are springs storing up all the energy of the weight lowering and getting ready to explode it all back out. Inhale as you lower the bar and feel it tightening up your chest.

Lightly touch the weight to your chest. DO NOT bounce the weight off your chest! This can cause injury in the form of cracked ribs or even snapping the tip of the sternum (a little bony protrusion known as the Xiphoid Process). It also diffuses the tension you've built up in the pectorals, reducing the effectiveness of the exercise for building strength and muscle mass.

4. As you start to change the direction of the bar and begin the press up, drive with the legs. This is a technique that most trainers do not know about. It's strange to think about it but your leg power can actually help you bench press more weight!

This technique should be practiced with an empty bar before attempting it during a regular set. Start by planting your feet flat on the floor with your knees bent about 80 degrees. This angle is very important as it is what allows you to push with your legs.

Lower the empty bar to your chest. The moment you start to push the bar back up, push hard with your legs as though you are trying to slide your body up the bench.

With an empty bar you probably will be able to slide yourself up the bench. When you have a loaded bar, however, the weight will keep you from sliding and the pushing power from your legs will get transferred through your body and into pushing the bar up.

This is what's known as driving with your legs. It can really beef up your power out of the bottom of the rep.

5. Exhale forcefully through pursed lips as you continue to push the weight up. This will help maintain your torso stability better than simply exhaling all at once.

Keep your feet firmly planted on the floor even if you start to struggle with the weight. The moment you lift your feet off the floor, you break your base of power and the odds of you completing the lift diminish greatly.

If you have a tendency to shift your feet around, try placing 2.5 pound plates on your feet. This is not to weigh your feet down but to help you be more aware of what is happening with your feet. If a plate falls, your foot has moved. Strive to keep those plates in place.

The bar should follow a slight backwards arc as you press it up, moving from your lower rib cage to over your face at the end of the rep.

Be aware of your sticking point and try to drive the bar through it rather than letting the bar slow down as you come up to it. There are many training methods for working on sticking points but those are beyond the scope of this article.

6. Power the weight up to lockout. You have just completed the perfect rep! Now do it again!!

Using these techniques can add immediate poundage to your bench press. Your chest will thank you for it!

Velvet

Are you warming up with progressively heavier weights before your working sets?

rangers97

Velvet--yes, I usually do about 5 warm up sets with progressively heavier weights for the first exercise of a body part ala Max-OT style. I am basically doing a max-ot type workout with less sets per individual exercise, but still no more than 10 sets for a large body part. I mean, maybe the dips with 90 lbs hanging from the belt is causing all these aches, since that is a lot of weight and I made the jump from bodyweight + 70 to bodyweight +90 the next week. It's funny cause my shoulders and my elbow hurt like hell, but while I am at the gym, my maxes keep going up....very strange.

but yes, proper warmups, proper form, pretty strict, just I feel things more in the joints I guess than the muscles. I dont wanna keep using bench press as an example, but I will, lol, as I was pressing the weight, I was able to lift it slowly and controlled, but I felt like the insides of my shoulders were taking the brunt of the lift...not even front delts, felt like something deeper inside was doing the lift...hard to explain, but I am doing my best.

Is it possible to advance in weight too quickly where your muscles haven't caught up to the load yet, thereby placing the stress of the load on tendons/ligaments/bone? Can those structures handle the weight if your muscles theoretically can't?

Velvet

Hum, I'm also doing Max OT and I haven't had this problem yet...maybe as you say, you just increase your weights a wee bit much from the previous session? Good luck anyway, I know how shitty joint aches are
Oh and I have read several articles that say that if you overload your muscles too much from one session to the next, your muscles may be able to handle it but not your connecting tissues, ligaments, joints etc I think you've already determined what's wrong

CowPimp

Perhaps your muscular strength is outpacing the strength of your tendons and ligaments? Perhaps you should place an extra rest day in between each session or something of the sort? If the pain is really becoming bothersome, you may want to take a week off, or lift very light for a week or two.

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rangers97

so I guess it is safe to say that muscles and tendons/ligaments do not strengthen proportionately to each other? I remember reading somewhere that you can not specifically train tendon/ligaments to become stronger, kind of like, they are what they are, obviously capable of handling a lot of stress and weight, but I guess there is a time based on individual genetics that you can reach an absolute strength limit with those tissues....any truth to that?

Mudge

Along with high intensity low rep count training, goes low volume IMO. Some people dont follow that, but most of us without lots of recoup abilities would be better doing low volume in such a case.

You may also be dehydrated, and/or not have enough nutrients in your diet for cartilage production, who knows.

Without drugs, or being morbidly obese, most of us are not gifted enough to reach high levels of strength, at least in most movements. If you progress slowly and have a diet supporting overall health, and are not doing ultra high volume training, you probably wont have any tendon/ligament problems that are all that bad.

Kinesiology Vote @ Top 25 Deads Comp Bench
Motivation Bench form MaxCalc Charles Poliquin
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. Lao-Tzu
I don't know any sources so don't ask - thanks

Mudge

Warmups become so important, as we age and as we get stronger as well. There is at least one 800+ bencher who starts his warmups, with the bar. When I was younger and much weaker, I could go right into the gym and go straight for heavy weights and never feel like I had a problem with that. Now things are different, I lift more, and I'm also not 16 anymore either.

Velvet

Ya, and I also can't believe how much stronger I am on any given lift when I've warmed up properly (acclimation and taking my time) Good luck to you!

CowPimp

Ranger's routine is pretty low volume. I have checked his journal periodically. It's practically HIT.

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rangers97

yeah it is kinda low volume, I recently decided to change things up a bit, I wrote about it in the journal, basically because of these nagging joint pains that are creeping up. CowPimp, I know you were one of the few people who understood my program, but now I am changing it back to the more traditional once a week per part thing. I am figuring it may be better to just get each part with a little bit more volume each session and then maybe the extra rest may help these pains. For everyone else, I was doing each part twice a week, but no more than 2 sets per part per workout. Now I may just keep one session a week for each part and do maybe 6 total sets for large parts and 4 for small parts. Maybe it will be a bridge for me from a max-ot type workout to a traditional HIT style workout, who knows....but what I do know it that I need to do something about these nagging joint pains recently! It kind of sucks right now since I have been progressing each week, but I have come to the conclusion that the pain is NOT worth the gain in this case

Velvet

Very smart

LAM

what rep range are you using ?

Dumbest statement made in the Anabolic Zone for Nov

TBD

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What you talking about Willis ?

rangers97

usually 4-6 reps, 2 sets per exercise, no more than 10 total sets per workout

Egoatdoor

This is exactly why I do not do high weight low rep training that much any more. It was working my joints and the assisting muscles more than the targeted muscles. I now vary my rep ranges, using 12 reps most of the time. Now when I do go to a high weight low rep sequence for a week or two, I no longer have the joint soreness I used to, because they are not being stressed to the max 52/365.

If you are going to stick to this, I would suggest inserting some periodization like powerlifters use and lower the intensity and the weights for periods of time so your muscles and joints can recover, especially if you are 30 or older.

Getting bigger is a battle and the weapon is my fork.

"The harder I work, the luckier I get"- Jenny Lynn

Squaggleboggin

I lift high weights low reps, and for some reason I have the same problem. I haven't had any actual pain from it, but, for example, when I dumbbell press, I don't feel any sort of pump or pain or anything in my chest, but I do feel sore in my shoulders the next day. I do one warm up set of 10 reps with 60 total, and two working sets of 5 reps with 90 total, followed by one set of 3 reps with 100 total. I think I do enough of a warm up since the weight isn't that heavy, but perhaps I'm not (?). I'm not really sure what's causing it as I keep strict form, but maybe I should do more of a warm up or something.

Egoatdoor

No, you are not. Start with a lower weight ( say 30, THIS IS A WARM UP. YOUR MUSCLES AND JOINTS ARE COLD), then another warm up and then your first working set, but don't even max out on that. Then go to the real heavy weights.

My six rep max right now is 85 pounds. My sequence the last time I did this was 25, 30,( warm ups), 55 ( an "acclimation" set), 70 ( to failure)and 85 ( to failure).

Getting bigger is a battle and the weapon is my fork.

"The harder I work, the luckier I get"- Jenny Lynn

CowPimp

I think one warm-up set and one acclimation set is sufficient, assuming the following: You completed a few minutes of some cardiovascular exercise prior to touching any weights, you aren't prone to injury using the joints in question, the particular exercise you are about to do doesn't seem to require more warm-up sets, you're not doing a working set at 90% intensity or above.

As well, I don't believe in doing warm-up sets for every single exercise. If you just warmed up for squats, then you don't need to warm-up for the leg press as well.

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Egoatdoor

I will say that one warm up may be sufficient on subsequent exercises for the same bodypart ( i.e do two warm ups for bench, then only one for the next exercise say inclines), but I still think it best NOT to jump right into sets without a warm up when training heavy. I also think doing a warm up or aclimation set also helps get the form in the right groove so one may be less inclined to cheat or use bad form on the heavier sets.

Getting bigger is a battle and the weapon is my fork.

"The harder I work, the luckier I get"- Jenny Lynn

Squaggleboggin

Before every workout, I get the blood flowing (in general) with some jogging (today I did 5 minutes at a fairly quick pace). Then I proceed into the warm up, followed by the actual exercise. I try not to do too much of a warm up since the weight I use isn't that heavy yet, and I also don't want to fatigue myself before I really get started (going for low volume here). Should I maybe just do 2x10 (60) followed by 2x5 (90) and then 1x3 (100)? I'd really like to increase my strength, so low volume is important, and this seems like too many reps for a low volume workout. Once I move into higher weights, I'll progressively add more time to warm up, but is it really necessary now? Is 2x5 followed by 1x3 a good idea for power (not going for mass or a better look at all), or should I maybe do 3x3 (100), followed by 1x2 or 1x1 (110)?

I've heard that for some exercises, you shouldn't do low volume work. Is this true, or can you work on power for basically everything you do?

Vieope

Egoatdoor

You decide what you want to do. I think 10 reps at 60 is using too much energy and unnecessarily fatiguing the muscle. If it were me, I would either do a lower weight at 10 reps or else do 60 and stop at 6 or 8 reps.

Getting bigger is a battle and the weapon is my fork.

"The harder I work, the luckier I get"- Jenny Lynn

CowPimp

If the muscles already have sufficient blood pumping to them, and the tendons and ligaments have been used to move heavy weights already, then what's the additional warm-up set going to do? Muscles, tendons, and ligaments don't know the difference between movements.

I understand that it might help you with form, but if you use good form all the time and your motor patterns are properly developed, then this shouldn't be much of an issue.

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