Bench Press Form Critique

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
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If this video sucks, please let me know a different angle to shoot from next week.

This is this morning’s bench press final set on 5-3-1 at 290. I’m 5’7 200. I know…not very impressive, but I’m trying to get better.

And the opening frame is a finger, not a butt.

Thanks

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From this angle it looks like your wrist is not in line with the forearm.

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WRISTS

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What should I do to improve on the wrists?

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[quote]Onemike wrote:
From this angle it looks like your wrist is not in line with the forearm.[/quote]
this

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[quote]JLD2k3 wrote:
What should I do to improve on the wrists?[/quote]

If your wrists are indeed not in line with the forearm, you can try:

  • Bringing in your grip a little bit, maybe pinky on the ring
  • Keep the bar lower in your hand and squeeze the bar
  • In the video, right before you start turning your hands in and out the grip and the wrists seem ok
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I have the same problem with my wrists and started to get pretty bad pain in my right wrist because of it. One thing I found helped me lock my wrists is trying to bend the ends of the bar towards your feet so the side of your thumbs are pushing into the bar. I can’t remember where I read it but its seemed to help me so far.

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Update: I focused on my wrists and arm angle. This is 305x3 and a fail. How am I doing? I think I made some progress, but not sure.

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That bench is sweet. The uprights drop back after the bar is lifted off? Brilliant!

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[quote]inkaddict wrote:
That bench is sweet. The uprights drop back after the bar is lifted off? Brilliant![/quote]

x2. I never seen a bench like that. At first I thought “dude your bench is broken!” but then it made perfect sense. Very awesome idea.

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I like it, too. They just got new ones, unfortunately, that have the hooks a couple inches higher. I’m 5’7, so that gives me trouble at 275 and up.

Trying again on today’s video. Firefox updated today, so maybe it’s a browser issue:

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[quote]farmerson12 wrote:

[quote]inkaddict wrote:
That bench is sweet. The uprights drop back after the bar is lifted off? Brilliant![/quote]

x2. I never seen a bench like that. At first I thought “dude your bench is broken!” but then it made perfect sense. Very awesome idea.[/quote]
I had to re-watch it, thinking “there’s NO WAY he’s lifting on a bench that wobbly!”

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LowfatMatt is working on getting this to work, but if you want to see today’s video, it’s in my log. Matt posted it for me.

Thanks for the help and support!

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JLD2k3’s video

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You didn’t touch your chest on every rep. CHEATER ;). Wrists still seem to bend back a little bit but I think the camera angle has to do with this too. Makes it harder to judge

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You’re right. I was thinking about my wrists so much. I’m going to repeat this cycle on my 531 weights to get a better feel for it and definitely touch every rep. How is my arm angle? The first video I thought I had too much bend back toward my head. This one seems better, but I feel like my bar path is arced.