Getting My Shirt On

All right, I have my routine that I’m going to use for the next 10 weeks until I compete.

My wife helped me put my shirt on and it felt okay. I can’t imagine what it’s going to take to get the bar to touch my chest.

I laid down and tried doing a benching motion, but the shirt bunched up in the middle, so I don’t know if it’s because I wasn’t wearing a belt to keep it in place, or if the shirt wasn’t on my arms far enough, or correctly.

Can anyone tell by the following pictures if it’s on right or not?


front view…

Side/shoulder view…

And finaly the back view.

Where in NY are you? If you’re not far from CT, we could probably work out a time to help you out with it.

Try putting a belt on - even if it’s only a regular belt that you’d wear with pants.

Probably should pull the arms up more, pull the front down. The F6 is for belly benchers, so remember these 2 things: Elbows in, stomach out!

Jason

[quote]Eric Cressey wrote:
Where in NY are you? If you’re not far from CT, we could probably work out a time to help you out with it.

Try putting a belt on - even if it’s only a regular belt that you’d wear with pants.[/quote]

I’m in Whitesboro (2 miles from Utica, or 42 miles East of Syracuse, right in the middle of the state).

My weight belt is in my truck, so that’s why I didn’t put that on for the pictures, but I never thought of using a regular belt.
I’ll try that next time (or I’ll just get my lazy ass to go out to my truck and get the belt I’ll be using at the meet).

I’m going to be using the shirt starting tomorrow evening (if I can get in on) to practice with it.

It’s going to be part of my routine that slattimer put together for me, so I want to make sure I’m doing it right.

Thanks,

Shoot me an email; I know of two guys in different locations that might be able to help you out.

ericcressey@hotmail.com

[quote]SWR-1222D wrote:
Eric Cressey wrote:
Where in NY are you? If you’re not far from CT, we could probably work out a time to help you out with it.

Try putting a belt on - even if it’s only a regular belt that you’d wear with pants.

I’m in Whitesboro (2 miles from Utica, or 42 miles East of Syracuse, right in the middle of the state).

My weight belt is in my truck, so that’s why I didn’t put that on for the pictures, but I never thought of using a regular belt.
I’ll try that next time (or I’ll just get my lazy ass to go out to my truck and get the belt I’ll be using at the meet).

I’m going to be using the shirt starting tomorrow evening (if I can get in on) to practice with it.

It’s going to be part of my routine that slattimer put together for me, so I want to make sure I’m doing it right.

Thanks,[/quote]

The shirt looks like it is on all the way. Make sure the pits are flush against your body. I wear a dress belt with the shirt. I arch pretty hard and a normal weight belt inhibits the arch. I bench in an F6 as well and love the shirt.

beef

Pull the front down as much as possible, then use a regular (non-weightlifting) belt to hold it in place.

[quote]cap’nsalty wrote:
Pull the front down as much as possible, then use a regular (non-weightlifting) belt to hold it in place. [/quote]

For sure, but before you do this have your wife grab the back of the collar by your traps and pull up, then pull the front down and secure it with a belt. If you really want to jack it up you can have your wife stand on a bench behind you and reach down the front of your shirt and pull your pecks up until you have cleavage. The F6 is a badass shirt. Remeber to belly up and tuck your elbows. My partner gets about 150 lbs out of his single F6.

when it comes to a bench shirt, don’t try and touch right away, work with the shirt off of boards first, learn the groove and eventualy after about two or three weeks try and touch. This time on boards will give you a good clue on what kind of weight it will take to touch. Also don’t worry about bulling the shirt down yet, learn the shirt. The farther you pull the shirt down the more weight it will take to touch, as you progress you can start to pull the shirt down.

As for a belt, it all depends on how much of an arch you have and what is comfortable. I train with buys that use competition belts, cheep belts, and even the belts that hold up your pants. Get something that will work for you.

Good luck

Thanks for all the replys.

There’s a lot of good info here.

I’m going to try the shirt out for the first time at the gym in an hour or so.

If it’s not too crowded I might have my wife video some of the lifts with our digital camera to get some better feedback on my form.

Thanks again,
SWR


Well, I don’t have any video of the lifts, but I do have some pictures of my ‘war wounds’.

These are from the shirt.

My wife seemed to get the shirt on a little better than yesterday, though it still wasn’t going down very far on the chest (the collar was in approx. the same spot as the pics above).

Would these marks on my arms indicate that the arms of the shirt weren’t on far enough?


Here’s the other arm…

[quote]Vaj1 wrote:
when it comes to a bench shirt, don’t try and touch right away, work with the shirt off of boards first, learn the groove and eventualy after about two or three weeks try and touch. This time on boards will give you a good clue on what kind of weight it will take to touch. Also don’t worry about bulling the shirt down yet, learn the shirt. The farther you pull the shirt down the more weight it will take to touch, as you progress you can start to pull the shirt down.

As for a belt, it all depends on how much of an arch you have and what is comfortable. I train with buys that use competition belts, cheep belts, and even the belts that hold up your pants. Get something that will work for you.

Good luck[/quote]

AAAAAH!!! Don’t use boards to “break your shirt in”!! You need to learn the groove of the shirt from the get-go. Using boards with your shirt will only reinforce bad form.

[quote]SWR-1222D wrote:
Well, I don’t have any video of the lifts, but I do have some pictures of my ‘war wounds’.

These are from the shirt.

My wife seemed to get the shirt on a little better than yesterday, though it still wasn’t going down very far on the chest (the collar was in approx. the same spot as the pics above).

Would these marks on my arms indicate that the arms of the shirt weren’t on far enough?[/quote]

Actually they look to be almost in the right place! Good job putting it on. The more you work in it the better you will feel with it.

practice, practice, practice with it on until you find the best groove for it, then train appropiately…

[quote]TTewell342 wrote:
Vaj1 wrote:
when it comes to a bench shirt, don’t try and touch right away, work with the shirt off of boards first, learn the groove and eventualy after about two or three weeks try and touch. This time on boards will give you a good clue on what kind of weight it will take to touch. Also don’t worry about bulling the shirt down yet, learn the shirt. The farther you pull the shirt down the more weight it will take to touch, as you progress you can start to pull the shirt down.

As for a belt, it all depends on how much of an arch you have and what is comfortable. I train with buys that use competition belts, cheep belts, and even the belts that hold up your pants. Get something that will work for you.

Good luck

AAAAAH!!! Don’t use boards to “break your shirt in”!! You need to learn the groove of the shirt from the get-go. Using boards with your shirt will only reinforce bad form.[/quote]

If you can do that, bully to you. I personally probably would have injured myself if I tried to full range bench press the first time I got my f6. I wouldn’t have come even close to touching. First time I tried a three board it almost ended up going below the boards.

How’d you do as far as getting weights to touch? (what weight, which boards, etc.)