Benching from Pins

Can you tell me what is the philosophy of benching from the pins?
I noticed Christian uses it a lot in his training.

there is no stretch reflex involved because the eccentric/concentric chain is broken by pausing on the pins and allowing the weight of the bar to be absorbed by the rack. more force production is required to move the weight when the stretch reflex is taken out of the equation.

As well, you can overcome a weak point in your range of motion by setting the pins around that area and working an exercise until stronger.

bench from pins and floor presses are the bomb

Philosophy explained

Is there anything wrong with making a pin press your main movement instead of just using it to overcome a weak point in your range of motion? Like seated shoulder press from pins or low incline bench from pins. I love the way I can control the reps and explode on every rep.

i pretty much don’t do military presses anymore at all. i much prefer pressing from the pins. just saying

[quote]howie424 wrote:
Is there anything wrong with making a pin press your main movement instead of just using it to overcome a weak point in your range of motion? Like seated shoulder press from pins or low incline bench from pins. I love the way I can control the reps and explode on every rep. [/quote]

You still want to use a full range of motion in the exercise. So you would use pin presses like they are used in the I,Bodybuilder program where they are used as the first movement as CNS activation. Then move onto regular benching/overhead pressing movements and you will be able to lift more weight and more explosively because the CNS is activated.

I generally ramp anyways, so once I hit my working sets my CNS is pretty well activated. I’ve heard of guys using pin pressing for warm ups though.

But as a mass building exercise, is there anything wrong with making your main exercise off of the pins? You can use more weight and I personally feel I can control the weight way better.

[quote]howie424 wrote:
I generally ramp anyways, so once I hit my working sets my CNS is pretty well activated. I’ve heard of guys using pin pressing for warm ups though.

But as a mass building exercise, is there anything wrong with making your main exercise off of the pins? You can use more weight and I personally feel I can control the weight way better.[/quote]

I would only recommend the use of pin presses as your primary exercise infrequentely… maybe 1 out of 6 weeks.

A routine I like for pressing muscles is as follow:

A. Standing military press
ramping sets of 3 reps

B. Incline bench press
ramping sets of 3 starting where you ended the military press

C. Flat bench press
ramping sets of 3 starting where you ended the incline bench

D. Pin press
ramping sets of 3 starting where you ended the bench press

But once every 5-6 pressing workouts you can do a “pin press special” which would look like:

A. Seated shoulder press from pins
Ramping sets of 3 reps

B. Incline press from pins
Ramping sets of 3 reps where you ended the shoulder press

C. Bench press from pins
Ramping sets of 3 reps where you ended the incline

D. Bench press (normal)
3-4 sets of max reps with 65-70% of the weight you reached on the bench press from pins

So basically, you don’t advise primarily focusing on a pin press (like pin bench for chest or pin shoulder press for shoulders)

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]howie424 wrote:
I generally ramp anyways, so once I hit my working sets my CNS is pretty well activated. I’ve heard of guys using pin pressing for warm ups though.

But as a mass building exercise, is there anything wrong with making your main exercise off of the pins? You can use more weight and I personally feel I can control the weight way better.[/quote]

I would only recommend the use of pin presses as your primary exercise infrequentely… maybe 1 out of 6 weeks.

A routine I like for pressing muscles is as follow:

A. Standing military press
ramping sets of 3 reps

B. Incline bench press
ramping sets of 3 starting where you ended the military press

C. Flat bench press
ramping sets of 3 starting where you ended the incline bench

D. Pin press
ramping sets of 3 starting where you ended the bench press

But once every 5-6 pressing workouts you can do a “pin press special” which would look like:

A. Seated shoulder press from pins
Ramping sets of 3 reps

B. Incline press from pins
Ramping sets of 3 reps where you ended the shoulder press

C. Bench press from pins
Ramping sets of 3 reps where you ended the incline

D. Bench press (normal)
3-4 sets of max reps with 65-70% of the weight you reached on the bench press from pins[/quote]

Coach:

Every 3rd or 4th pressing WO I start with seated shoulder press from the pins for activation, bar at just above forehead. Ramping sets of 3 to max where I can still accelerate the weight - is this OK?

After the pins I do standing milt press, push press, close grip bench wave loading.
Other WO’s I do one arm snatch or another activation exercise to begin.

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]howie424 wrote:
I generally ramp anyways, so once I hit my working sets my CNS is pretty well activated. I’ve heard of guys using pin pressing for warm ups though.

But as a mass building exercise, is there anything wrong with making your main exercise off of the pins? You can use more weight and I personally feel I can control the weight way better.[/quote]

I would only recommend the use of pin presses as your primary exercise infrequentely… maybe 1 out of 6 weeks.

A routine I like for pressing muscles is as follow:

A. Standing military press
ramping sets of 3 reps

B. Incline bench press
ramping sets of 3 starting where you ended the military press

C. Flat bench press
ramping sets of 3 starting where you ended the incline bench

D. Pin press
ramping sets of 3 starting where you ended the bench press

But once every 5-6 pressing workouts you can do a “pin press special” which would look like:

A. Seated shoulder press from pins
Ramping sets of 3 reps

B. Incline press from pins
Ramping sets of 3 reps where you ended the shoulder press

C. Bench press from pins
Ramping sets of 3 reps where you ended the incline

D. Bench press (normal)
3-4 sets of max reps with 65-70% of the weight you reached on the bench press from pins[/quote]

I don’t really do workouts like this. I just do chest/arms day, and full ROM bench just doesnt hit my chest that good, but I find that it does from pins. Is it still not advised to use a pin press as your primary exercise for chest?