Help Determining Bench Press Sticking Point

This was from my last ME day, and I am having a hard time telling if its my shoulders or triceps that are the weak point.

Triceps.

Triceps are usually a “weak point” for everyone. It’s one of those things you almost can’t work enough. It looked to me like the bar went back toward your face almost immediately, which is your shoulders trying to take the weight.

Something to think about though, and I mean absolutely no offense, at your level, it may not even be especially beneficial to agonize too much over weak points. Get stronger overall. Make everything stronger from your shoulders to chest to triceps etc.

There are sometimes a couple camps on this. A “find and train your weak points” group and a “just make everything stronger” group.

But yeah, in the interest of not just giving you a cop-out answer, it definitely looks like your triceps are the sticking point in that bench.

I would agree. If you look at the moment when you finally lock the weight out, it looks like your shoulders come forward out of the “scaps pulled back” position, which seems to me like your body had to pull out all the stops to compensate for your triceps not being able to lock the weight out.

I would also agree that I don’t know how I feel about weak point training overall. I think just adding some more reps in the 75-85% range would probably be best. But I also don’t have much experience with weak point training, nor am I a particularly good bencher haha. Still, that’s my 2 cents.

laying down triceps extensions till you puke

Is it plausible for someone with tricep deficiencies to simply “go wider” to compensate with the chest muscles?

OP – how much weight is that?

That’s a weird sticking point, I think it has to do with your upper back being loose. If you pause at 10 seconds in, your shoulders come forward & up (towards the bar) and are not tucked back hard behind you. The path of the bar also leads me to believe it’s because you’re lacking tightness in your upper back. This is a result of how you unracked it. You pushed the weight up and out of the rack – as opposed to pulling the bar out of the rack with your lats. I can image this would be difficult to master without a handoff man.

As a side note, what’s happening with your wrists? Are they bending backwards?

Strong press my friend.

Thank you for all the replies everyone. I truly do appreciate the feedback.

240 lbs. It was sloppy, but I can push my own weight finally :slight_smile:

No idea. I honestly have never looked at my wrists once I get a comfortable grip, but they do seem to be bent backwards. I’ll have to keep an eye on that.