I tried out floor presses yesterday. They felt pretty good, and it seems like I can handle more weight on the floor press than the bench (or do more reps for a given weight).
I’ve looked at my bench vs floor press and it doesn’t look like the distance the bar travels is too different. Am I right or just not seeing properly?
I’m seriously considering using the floor press as a main assistance movement for bench for a while because it feels good but the groove feels very similar to my bench.
Bench press, 2x264 lbs
Floor press, 5x231 lbs
My main questions are:
Am I floor pressing right?
Is it normal to floor press more than bench, and what does it say about my benching?
Floor press looks fine, can stick your legs straight out in front for added difficultly. Floor press is only half the bench motion, you are going further down in the bench, even if the vid angle doesn’t show it well. Strong in the floor press range of motion, work on what you think is lagging.
I am stronger in every bench press variation I have tried that takes away the drive of the chest itself. Floor pressing always felt great to me, aswell as pin pressing and slinghot benching. From this I figured that my chest is my weakpoint. That seems to make sense because my OHP is fairly good and I have big arms. Maybe that is the case for you too?
[quote]Koestrizer wrote:
I am stronger in every bench press variation I have tried that takes away the drive of the chest itself. Floor pressing always felt great to me, aswell as pin pressing and slinghot benching. From this I figured that my chest is my weakpoint. That seems to make sense because my OHP is fairly good and I have big arms. Maybe that is the case for you too?[/quote]
It may be, but my OHP is shithouse and my arms aren’t big.
Could be that the weight at the bottom of the floor press is supported against the forearm during the pause. The forearm bone won’t tire out but normal bench doesn’t allow that, arms are holding a good portion of weight the whole time. Just another thought.
I’m definitely no expert but my guess is that, although you have a really good arch you have little to no leg drive with your competition bench. It’s very difficult to get leg drive with a floor press and keep your butt on the floor. If your floor press is stronger and your forearms aren’t especially long my guess would be lack of leg drive and general tightness in your competition bench.
[quote]Vincepac1500 wrote:
Could be that the weight at the bottom of the floor press is supported against the forearm during the pause. The forearm bone won’t tire out but normal bench doesn’t allow that, arms are holding a good portion of weight the whole time. Just another thought. [/quote]
Thats a good point the weight is being deloaded essentially. As far as floor pressing I don’t do it often enough to have a strong opinion about it, though I felt slightly weaker at it than my regular bench. I think you could benefit by getting the elbows in a little more though on bench, keeping the knuckles towards the sky. My bench recently went from about 405-445 from July to now by adding in a dynamic bench day, using more long pause sets and 2-3 boards and occasionally slingshot, followed by DB bench at a slight incline.
With the lack of leg drive, you’re not wrong. I’m definitely tight, but I dont get a ton of leg drive. I used to have better leg drive but a crappy arch and it did nothing good. I guess I might play around with my foot position and see what I can do.
I do DE days, usually for cycles three. I’ve got one starting week after next. Plenty of DB incline as well, and I recently got a Reactive Slingshot which I’ve been using a bit.
I’ll just keep chipping away, will see how floor presses work as an accessory.
Something else not mentioned is people’s various anthropometries. If you have a barrel chest and short t-rex arms, you’re probably going to bench more than floor press. In fact, there are some people on a floor press who will touch their chest before their arms reach the ground.
If you have normal to long arms and normal to slender chest, there’s a good chance you’ll floor press more.
Now if you can 3-board press more than you can bench press, that doesn’t mean your chest is the weak point. It just means you have better leverage.
What I personally like about the floor press is that it takes away leg and lat drive so I can focus on the chest, shoulders, and tris. It’s also a lot friendlier to my joints.
I’ve been using the Floor press recently to strengthen my triceps, that being said I don’t floor press more then I can bench. Not sure how much I mostly do reps on the floor press after benching, focusing on relaxing at the bottom and firing/contracting. I think it’s definitely helped with my ability to grind through the last bit on my higher rep bench.
Went through a bench cycle where I went from a 340 bench to I didn’t max but hit 342.5 for a triple. Probably a 12 week span and incorporated a lot of Floor press and Dead stop bench press out of the rack.
I take a little bit closer grip about a thumbs length when I grip, legs straight out, I may bring them in on my last rep or two.
I’m going to use floor presses as a way of getting more reps with heavier loads during my bench assistance work. I’ll do that for four weeks or so and reassess.
