What is Bench Press? Bench Press is a Compound exercise that helps increase strength and develop chest muscles extremely effectively. Let’s learn more about this exercise through the following article.
What is Bench Press? Surely this exercise is familiar to many people in the gymer community. But, are you really practicing Bench Press properly? The article below will introduce all the most basic information about this powerful strength-building and muscle-building exercise. Follow along with Wheystore!
1. What is a bench press?
Bench Press or Bench Press is a Compound exercise that is extremely effective in developing muscles and increasing strength in the upper body. Even if you are new to the gym. Or you have been practicing for a while, you can do it and get many benefits from this Bench Press exercise.
Furthermore, this is a very flexible exercise, not limited to a certain position, but it also has many different variations that help deeply impact many muscle groups in the upper body.
Bench Press is also not required to practice at the gym. With just a chair and a barbell (or a pair of dumbbells), you can easily do the exercise even at home.
2. Benefits of Bench Press exercise
Without a doubt, the biggest benefit you will get from bench pressing is the significantly improved upper body strength. The muscle groups that benefit the most from the Bench Press are the pectorals, anterior deltoids of the shoulders, and triceps. Practicing Bench Press regularly will stimulate the development of these muscle groups in both size and strength.
Besides, Bench Press is also an extremely useful exercise in restoring balance to muscle groups for athletes who swim, climb mountains or wrestle (due to using a lot of pulling muscles).
Many people who practice Bench Press also see positive changes in their health, both physically (muscle gain – fat loss, stronger bones and joints) and mentally (reducing tension and stress).
In short, Bench Press is an exercise that brings many great benefits that we should not ignore during training, including:
✥ Increase strength and endurance for the upper body.
✥ Build bigger, sharper muscles.
✥ Promotes the process of burning excess fat extremely effectively both during and after exercise.
✥ Improve the health of the bone and joint system.
✥ Improved upper body propulsion makes other exercises more effective and makes it easier to perform any daily activities that require pushing or carrying movements.
✥ Is a way to help you reduce stress, tension, and pressure from work and daily life.
3. Who should and should not use the Bench Press exercise?
Although the Bench Press exercise brings so many benefits, not everyone can apply this exercise. If you have a history of bone and joint diseases or shoulder injury/recovery from injury, it is best not to use the Bench Press.
Besides, it should also be noted that during exercise, if you suddenly feel unusual pain in your shoulder (not pain caused by muscle groups working effectively), you should also end the exercise instead. because I keep trying to practice.
4. Instructions for practicing Bench Press properly
After understanding the concept of what a Bench Press is, next, Wheystore will share more detailed implementation techniques so you can apply this exercise correctly. Ensures positive results and minimizes injuries.
4.1 Tools need to be prepared
Unlike Bodyweight exercises that only use the body’s own strength, Bench Press exercises require us to prepare certain equipment. More specifically, to practice Bench Press, you will need to prepare an exercise chair. It can be a flat chair or a chair with a backrest with the function of adjusting the slope up or down depending on the type of Bench Press exercise you apply.
Along with that is 1 barbell or 1 pair of dumbbells. With barbells, you should prepare an additional rack. Depending on your physical ability and training purpose, choose the appropriate weight level of dumbbells.
Besides, you can also prepare an additional pair of gym gloves to make holding the weights more secure if needed.
Below are instructions for performing the Bench Press in the most traditional form. That means using a barbell and a flat bench.
4.2 Steps to perform Bench Press
✥ Step 1: You start the exercise by lying on a flat bench with your feet on the floor.
✥ Step 2: Grasp the barbell with both hands at a shoulder-width distance or a little more than shoulder-width apart so that the bar is held in the palm of your hand and your arms and wrists are straight.
✥ Step 3: Slowly lift the barbell from the rack so that your arms are straight but do not lock the joints. If you are just starting out, you can ask for help from a coach to make sure the weights don’t fall.
✥ Step 4: Breathe deeply and slowly bring the barbell over your shoulders and lock the joint in this position.
✥ Step 5: Take a deep breath and begin to lower the barbell downwards so that your elbows are slightly 70 – 75 degrees from your body and your forearms are vertical.
✥ Step 6: Try to lower the weight towards your chest until it almost touches or lightly touches your chest. In this position, maintain for about 1 second.
✥ Step 7: Exhale and push the barbell from your chest up to your shoulders to the starting position so that your arms are completely straight and your elbows are locked at the top position.
✥ Step 8: To finish the exercise, return the dumbbells to the rack by bending your elbows to lower the dumbbells to an upright position.
4.3 Standard technique when performing Bench Press
✥ Hand position
Depending on the type of Bench Press exercise, you will need to adjust the grip width accordingly but not let your elbows get too far away from your body. Make sure when lowering the dumbbells your forearms are vertical and perpendicular to the floor and your elbows are lower than your shoulders. Along with that, always keep your wrists straight so that the exercise can be most effective.
✥ Top position
Keeping your head straight on the bench will not put stress on your spine.
✥ Foot position
Place both feet firmly on the floor, do not bounce your feet or bounce your heels. This will help the upper body become more stable. From there, the force is developed better to be able to meet the weight of the dumbbells when performing the exercise.
✥ Shoulder position
Squeeze your shoulder blades together to hold and protect your shoulders. At the same time, the back shoulder always lies close to the chair. When pushing the weight up, it does not move with the weight, causing loss of support for the body.
✥ Back position
For muscle building purposes, you should only keep your back in its natural arched position. Arching the lower back is only for Powerlift applications.
✥ The path of the barbell
Make sure the bar moves straight diagonally from the shoulders toward the chest when lowering the weight and from the chest toward the shoulders when raising the weight.
5. Popular variations of the Bench Press
Bench Press variations are based on the tool used, handle position and lying/sitting position of the chair. Specifically, there are 6 quite popular variations of the Bench Press you should know, respectively:
5.1 Narrow Grip Bench Press exercise
This exercise will impact the rear arm muscles the most and affect the secondary muscle groups, which are the chest muscles and shoulder muscles.
How to perform this exercise will differ from the traditional Bench Press exercise in the position of your hands holding the dumbbells. Instead of holding the barbell at or slightly wider than your shoulders, you grasp the bar a bit narrower than your shoulders.
At the same time, when lowering the dumbbells, you should also pay attention to keeping the 3 elbows close to the body so that the triceps muscles are deeply affected. To maximize the benefits of the exercise, the time to lower the weight should be twice as long as the time to raise the weight.
5.2 Wide Grip Bench Press exercise
The opposite of the above exercise is Wide Grip Bench Press or wide-arm dumbbell push. With this exercise, the pressure on the triceps is reduced. Instead, the exercise will focus more on the outer chest.
For this exercise, the distance between the hands holding the dumbbells needs to be 1.5 -2 times wider than the width of the shoulders. For example, if your shoulder width is 40cm, the distance between your hands holding the dumbbell will be 60 – 80cm. To maximize the benefits of the exercise, the time to lift the weight should be twice as long as the time to lower it.
5.3 Incline Bench Press exercise
In this exercise, instead of choosing a flat chair, you will lie on a chair with a 45 – 60 degree slope. That makes the exercise more difficult than the traditional Bench Press exercise. Therefore, muscle groups are affected more deeply, especially the upper chest muscles.
This exercise will give the most positive results when you lower the weight 2-3 times more than when lifting the weight.
5.4 Decline Bench Press exercise
This exercise is performed with a chair sloping down about 15 – 30 degrees for optimal results. With this exercise, the lower chest muscles will be affected and developed in the most powerful way.
However, it should be noted that the chair sloping down will make the exercise more difficult. To avoid injury, be careful not to let the bench be too steep, the handle not too wide, and when dismounting the weight, do not place it close to your stomach and do not lock your elbow joints.
5.5 Dumbbell Bench Press exercise
This variation of the Bench Press will require you to hold a dumbbell in each hand instead of just a single barbell. Performing the Bench Press exercise with dumbbells will give a greater range of motion, helping the chest muscles develop more evenly.
In addition, dumbbells are more compact than barbells, so this exercise is often performed more commonly by people who regularly practice at home.
5.6 Bench Press Machine exercise
With this exercise, you will only be able to do it at gyms that provide Smith Machine exercise machines. When performing Bench Press with an exercise machine, you can exercise with larger weights, control the speed of movement and ensure that the pressure on the muscles is steady and long-lasting.
Therefore, this exercise will be an extremely useful choice to help develop chest muscles completely and minimize the risk of injury compared to other forms of Bench Press exercise.
6. Some common mistakes with beginners
As a complex exercise, Bench Press techniques require the participation of many muscle groups and body parts. That makes making mistakes difficult to avoid. Especially for those new to this Bench Press exercise.
Below are some common mistakes beginners make when practicing Bench Press. And sometimes people who have been practicing for a long time can get it. Let’s check to see if you’re making any mistakes that make your exercises less effective!
✥ Start with too heavy a weight
✥ Do not fix your shoulders when lifting the weight
✥ Ignore the posture of the legs
✥ Wrong finger position when holding dumbbells
✥ Lock your elbows suddenly.
✥ Use force at the head to lift the weight up
✥ Lower the weight too low.
7. Incorporate the Bench Press into your workout plan
It is a fact that Bench Press is not the only exercise that helps develop chest muscles. In addition, in order for your muscles to develop balance and evenly, you should not only do this exercise.
Instead, make Bench Press a part of your training plan. Spend 2 – 3 training sessions a week to train your chest with Bench Press and other chest exercises if your main goal is to have a muscular, toned chest.
And don’t forget to give yourself at least a day between workouts to rest and allow your muscles to recover.
The number of reps and sets will depend on your physical goals:
✥ If you are training at heavy weights for optimal muscle development, you should do less than 8 reps/set.
✥ With the goal of improving health and having a balanced body, use moderate weights 8 – 12 times/set.
✥ To lose weight – burn fat, increase endurance, choose light weights with over 15 repetitions/set.
Besides strength exercises, you should also combine Bench Press with cardio exercises such as jogging, cycling or swimming to increase strength and endurance to make training more effective.
When your body has quickly adapted to the current level of exercise, you should increase the difficulty of the exercise by increasing the weight, reducing the rest time or adjusting the posture of the exercise so that muscles are always stimulated and developed. development.
8. Epilogue
Hopefully with the above sharing, readers will better understand what a Bench Press is ? As well as how to do it and its accompanying variations. Incorporate Bench Press into a reasonable exercise regimen and you will definitely see positive changes in both your health and physique.
And don’t forget to have a reasonable, scientific diet and lifestyle. At the same time, use more whey protein for optimal muscle development!
