(04-21-2018 12:42 PM)Horus Wrote:  I'm recovering from a shoulder injury and I've decided that I've officially retired from bench pressing for the rest of my life. In fact I don't think it's a good idea for me to do any pressing movements for a very long time - I can barely do 2 pushups without pain. At the moment the only chest exercises I can comfortably do are machine flies and cable flies. I'm happy to just keep doing that for a the time being, even though it's boring as fuck for me, but does any one have any recommendations for other chest exercises I can do to keep me interested?

If you're a recreational lifter (99% of the people reading this) please don't gloss over this post. What happened to Horus is all-too common. There is absolutely no reason for anyone except competitive powerlifters to bench press. None. It's a terrible exercise from every standpoint. I tried to warn guys about this awhile ago: https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-38933...pid1376181

scorpion Wrote:Reminder that heavy benching is the absolute worst lift:

- Has killed and/or maimed hundreds of people over the years

- Seriously injured countless millions of shoulders

- Athletically and biomechanically useless as a power movement

- Inferior to numerous other exercises for pectoral hypertrophy

- Completely unnecessary for achieving imposing and aesthetic upper body development

Anyone who considers themselves a casual lifter has zero business bench pressing. If your goals in lifting are all about feeling and looking better (99% of people) then you shouldn't be benching. You do not need to bench to get big and strong. You do not need to bench to have a big chest. You do not need to bench to development athletic upper body power. The only thing you're likely to get from benching is fucked up shoulders a few years down the road that will not only limit your future ability to lift, but very likely require surgery, months of rehab and even then leave you with reduced strength and range of motion in your shoulders.

I've honestly lost count of how many guys I've met over the years who had nagging shoulder problems resulting from bench pressing. A staggering number. The shoulder, being the joint with the widest range of motion, is already at the greatest risk for injury. Overloading it with hundreds of pounds at a biomechanically awkward and anatomically unnatural angle is a recipe for disaster.

Stop benching. Just stop entirely. You will thank yourself ten, twenty or even fifty years from now when you are still able to enjoy the benefits of lifting while guys who tied their egos to the heavy bench can't even lift their arms over their heads.

STOP BENCH PRESSING

STOP BENCH PRESSING

STOP BENCH PRESSING

Pushups, dips, cable flies, dumbbell flies will give you all the chest development you need without compromising your shoulders. Combined with pullups, bent over rows, standing overhead press (a much better lift bio-mechanically for loading the shoulders) and shrugs you won't lack any accompanying upper body development.

(04-21-2018 08:14 PM)scorpion Wrote:  STOP BENCH PRESSING

STOP BENCH PRESSING

STOP BENCH PRESSING

Pushups, dips, cable flies, dumbbell flies will give you all the chest development you need without compromising your shoulders. Combined with pullups, bent over rows, standing overhead press (a much better lift bio-mechanically for loading the shoulders) and shrugs you won't lack any accompanying upper body development.

How I wish i I'd read this post a few years ago. It could have saved me a world of trouble. But who am I really kidding? I would have just ignored it just as I did with all the many other warnings I read about bench pressing. I had to learn the hard way. And unfortunately many of the other guys reading Scorpion's post will also learn the hard way.

The truth is I never really enjoyed bench pressing and if I had to give up one lift that would be it. But because I kept it up and ended up injuring my shoulder it affected every other movement - I can now barely do a few pushups, can't do a single pull-up, I struggle with deadlift... the only lift that is unaffected is squat.

A few days ago I was rough housing with my friend's ten year old son. He ended up kicking my arse because the strength in my shoulder gave out. I had to play it off like I was pretending to let him win. And I think I did so convincingly because who would believe an ten year old could kick a grown man's arse right? Put it this way - the ego lift you gain from heavy benching is somewhat offset by getting beaten up by a kid.

As I grow older, I grow less interested in any "heavy" benching. I mostly do dips with weight now. I think dips + weight give way better chest growth. Whenever I'm doing dips 1-2 times a week is when people start asking me for advice on chest growth. Not to mention, Dips are amazing for nearly all of the muscles in your upper body.

I've never met a guy who did tons of dips who had lagging arms, but I meet many guys with huge chests from benching but pretty subpar arms.

Man...

The bench gets a bad rap because it's executed poorly.

Everyone arches the shit out of their back and bounces it up, which doesn't do much for the chest and puts a ton of pressure on the shoulder.

I avoid many of the pitfalls of the bench by stopping a few inches off the chest and using a slow 4 count negative on the way down, which forces me to use a lower weight than if I did fast reps. I focus on keeping the pec involved.

It's a tool for chest development, but if you do it the way everyone else does its more dangerous than effective.

Scorpion refers to "heavy benching" as dangerous. My question is, over what weight bench press can be referred as dangerously heavy? I am asking because SS, the program I will follow from tomorrow on for some time has bench pressing as one of its core exercises. I don't want to fall into the trap of changing the program by myself, which is a lot of newbies do and ultimately fail because of it.

(04-22-2018 09:43 AM)sterling_archer Wrote:  Scorpion refers to "heavy benching" as dangerous. My question is, over what weight bench press can be referred as dangerously heavy? I am asking because SS, the program I will follow from tomorrow on for some time has bench pressing as one of its core exercises. I don't want to fall into the trap of changing the program by myself, which is a lot of newbies do and ultimately fail because of it.

I don't think there's really a hard and fast rule for as for what amount of weight you can safely do on a bench press in order to minimize damage to the shoulders. But I would say that the weight would be substantially less than a 1RM or even a 5RM like you'd be doing in SS. A 20RM would probably be more in the ballpark, done slowly with maximal recruitment of the pectorals the way Steelex describes. And really, at that point you might as well just be doing slow rep (3-5s up and down) pushups with your feet elevated off the floor, which accomplishes essentially the same muscular recruitment but is biomechanically much less taxing on the shoulder joint.

As for your fear of failing on the program, I would counter that a fear of sustaining a life-changing shoulder injury that great hampers your training capacity in the future would be more appropriate. There's no reason you can't make substantial gains with a modified SS that focuses on squats, deads, overhead presses and substitutes pushups and dips for bench. Remember that the pectorals themselves are functionally (and athletically) some of the least important muscles on the body. Look at the majority of professional athletes across every sport. You will find very little noticeable hypertrophy of the chest compared to the much more athletically important posterior chain. Massives pecs are really a bodybuilding thing. It's pure aesthetics. And you do not need to bench to induce hypertrophy in the pecs. There are superior exercises for that and they are easier on the shoulders than benching.

What I'm basically saying is that by cutting out bench you really aren't sacrificing anything. You aren't leaving gains on the table. You can make the same gains with other exercises, and you can do so with substantially less wear and tear on your shoulders. Some people reject this stance as overly conservative, but I think that weight training should be undertaken with the Hippocratic principle of "first, do no harm". You're lifting weights to look better and feel better. The weight is a tool, not an end in and of itself. The amount of weight you're lifting and how you lift it doesn't really matter. The end goal is self-improvement, which means you want to end up better than you started. That makes injury prevention paramount. This should be treated as a marathon, not a sprint. God willing, I will be healthy enough to lift up through my 80s. That's why joint health is a priority for me, and should be for all lifters who want to stay in the game for decades to come.

I actually agree that bench press is not a great lift for casual lifting for just trying to work on muscle development, although i think it IS a great strength movement in that it is the only pressing movement that involves as many muscle groups as it does. If treated as a full body movement, the bench can recruit pecs, triceps, delts, lats, core, and even quads and glutes.

If I were mainly concerned with aesthetics then I would replace barbell bench press with DB press as you can get far more ROM and pectoral activation than with the barbell bench.

So you would substitute bench pressing with pushups and dips? I am not sure if we have a place for dips as I haven't really been in that gym yet (starting tomorrow). What is the set/rep for those two?

Working all the hours and when I'm not trying to train a ll the hours. Food can be an issue which is why I'm trying to up my milk intake. I've read in places that Alot of milk daily can result in hemorrhoids etc. Anyone recommend a supplement / dietary addition that helps my stools to pass smoothly.. Or smoothly enough.

Thanks.

A probiotic containing acidophilus and a digestive enzyme.

(04-21-2018 11:50 PM)Steelex Wrote:  Man...

The bench gets a bad rap because it's executed poorly.

Everyone arches the shit out of their back and bounces it up, which doesn't do much for the chest and puts a ton of pressure on the shoulder.

I avoid many of the pitfalls of the bench by stopping a few inches off the chest and using a slow 4 count negative on the way down, which forces me to use a lower weight than if I did fast reps. I focus on keeping the pec involved.

It's a tool for chest development, but if you do it the way everyone else does its more dangerous than effective.

I thought you were supposed to arch your back, or is that only a thing because powerlifters are trying to shorten the bar path?

I've never had any shoulder problems from benching, dipping and overhead pressing multiple times a week for months on end. However, I keep the weight reasonable.

I tend to find that most dudes fuck themselves up on bench because of ego. I "look" like I can go a lot heavier than I do in the gym, but I find to find that my development doesn't slow down when I drop the weight down a few pegs and go for multiple sets at medium reps. Some would probably look at me and say "You could go a lot heavier than that!" but I don't really worry too much about it at this stage. I'm almost thirty, so I always try to look after my joints.

Whenever I feel like something is off, I cycle exercises out for a few weeks to let my body recover and then come back to it.

At the end of the day, we can blame exercises, but it's often our ego that gets us into trouble.

SS prescribes the overhead press together with bench to keep the shoulders healthy. Do that and focus on good form and you'll be fine.

(04-21-2018 10:08 PM)Fortis Wrote:  As I grow older, I grow less interested in any "heavy" benching. I mostly do dips with weight now. I think dips + weight give way better chest growth. Whenever I'm doing dips 1-2 times a week is when people start asking me for advice on chest growth. Not to mention, Dips are amazing for nearly all of the muscles in your upper body.

I've never met a guy who did tons of dips who had lagging arms, but I meet many guys with huge chests from benching but pretty subpar arms.

Fortis, for starters I want to do BW dips. What is the set/rep you recommend, is 3 x 8 - 12 a good idea and see after that is achieved if there is belt for weights available?

That's fine. I do 10x10 bodyweight dips with 30 seconds between reps. Sometimes I'll do 6x15 or 5x20, but I've found that 10x10 is safest for me. Tearing your shoulder girdle is not a good move.

I'd start with something modest. Depending on how good you are at dips, I'd start with like 3x8 and really master going down and up. Don't rush it. Once you feel good with that, you can start adding more sets and reps. Start light, like 5-10 pounds and then slowly go up. Make sure you're getting a nice stretch as you go down and come up.

As far as technique goes: Tighten your core, retract your scapula (to protect your shoulders) and go up and down slowly. It'll feel like you're unable to do as many reps as you "know" you can do, but higher quality reps really put a lot of friction on the muscle fibers and stimulate them. I strongly suspect that guys wreck their shoulders on dips because they're not retracting their scapula (pulling their shoulder blades back) and going slowly.

(04-21-2018 08:14 PM)scorpion Wrote:  If you're a recreational lifter (99% of the people reading this) please don't gloss over this post. What happened to Horus is all-too common. There is absolutely no reason for anyone except competitive powerlifters to bench press. None. It's a terrible exercise from every standpoint. I tried to warn guys about this awhile ago: https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-38933...pid1376181

scorpion Wrote:Reminder that heavy benching is the absolute worst lift:

- Has killed and/or maimed hundreds of people over the years

- Seriously injured countless millions of shoulders

- Athletically and biomechanically useless as a power movement

- Inferior to numerous other exercises for pectoral hypertrophy

- Completely unnecessary for achieving imposing and aesthetic upper body development

Anyone who considers themselves a casual lifter has zero business bench pressing. If your goals in lifting are all about feeling and looking better (99% of people) then you shouldn't be benching. You do not need to bench to get big and strong. You do not need to bench to have a big chest. You do not need to bench to development athletic upper body power. The only thing you're likely to get from benching is fucked up shoulders a few years down the road that will not only limit your future ability to lift, but very likely require surgery, months of rehab and even then leave you with reduced strength and range of motion in your shoulders.

I've honestly lost count of how many guys I've met over the years who had nagging shoulder problems resulting from bench pressing. A staggering number. The shoulder, being the joint with the widest range of motion, is already at the greatest risk for injury. Overloading it with hundreds of pounds at a biomechanically awkward and anatomically unnatural angle is a recipe for disaster.

Stop benching. Just stop entirely. You will thank yourself ten, twenty or even fifty years from now when you are still able to enjoy the benefits of lifting while guys who tied their egos to the heavy bench can't even lift their arms over their heads.

STOP BENCH PRESSING

STOP BENCH PRESSING

STOP BENCH PRESSING

Pushups, dips, cable flies, dumbbell flies will give you all the chest development you need without compromising your shoulders. Combined with pullups, bent over rows, standing overhead press (a much better lift bio-mechanically for loading the shoulders) and shrugs you won't lack any accompanying upper body development.

I tend to agree as the only chest barbell movement that has never caused me any problems is the incline press. I am currently doing decline press and I've felt a light twinge in my shoulder as I've moved into the 6-8 rep range.

Playing devil's advocate here-- with regards to your suggested isolation/bodyweight movements as substitutes, would that logic apply to all other bodyparts from a hypertrophy perspective? For example, lunges and leg extensions instead of squats? I just don't see the necessary muscle recruitment occurring without some heavier compound moves.

(04-22-2018 06:57 PM)Fortis Wrote:  I thought you were supposed to arch your back, or is that only a thing because powerlifters are trying to shorten the bar path?

I've never had any shoulder problems from benching, dipping and overhead pressing multiple times a week for months on end. However, I keep the weight reasonable.

I tend to find that most dudes fuck themselves up on bench because of ego. I "look" like I can go a lot heavier than I do in the gym, but I find to find that my development doesn't slow down when I drop the weight down a few pegs and go for multiple sets at medium reps. Some would probably look at me and say "You could go a lot heavier than that!" but I don't really worry too much about it at this stage. I'm almost thirty, so I always try to look after my joints.

Whenever I feel like something is off, I cycle exercises out for a few weeks to let my body recover and then come back to it.

At the end of the day, we can blame exercises, but it's often our ego that gets us into trouble.

Arching the back helps you use more of your body/more muscles in the bench and also shortens ROM. It does diminish some pec recruitment though. Arching the back in the bench press is something brought on by power lifting. Body builders who bench do so with a flat back and generally more flared out elbows.

I've also never hurt myself benching and I workout like a power lifter.

(04-23-2018 04:38 AM)Fortis Wrote:  That's fine. I do 10x10 bodyweight dips with 30 seconds between reps. Sometimes I'll do 6x15 or 5x20, but I've found that 10x10 is safest for me. Tearing your shoulder girdle is not a good move.

I'd start with something modest. Depending on how good you are at dips, I'd start with like 3x8 and really master going down and up. Don't rush it. Once you feel good with that, you can start adding more sets and reps. Start light, like 5-10 pounds and then slowly go up. Make sure you're getting a nice stretch as you go down and come up.

As far as technique goes: Tighten your core, retract your scapula (to protect your shoulders) and go up and down slowly. It'll feel like you're unable to do as many reps as you "know" you can do, but higher quality reps really put a lot of friction on the muscle fibers and stimulate them. I strongly suspect that guys wreck their shoulders on dips because they're not retracting their scapula (pulling their shoulder blades back) and going slowly.

Retracting scapula as in like trying to squeeze ball between shoulder blades?

Has anyone here tried the Smolov Jr program for squat or bench?

If so how were your results

Never tried arching my back while Benching.


Trying various positions while doing back rows. Trying to find that sweet spot for the lower muscle inbetween my shoulder blades

(04-21-2018 12:42 PM)Horus Wrote:  I'm recovering from a shoulder injury and I've decided that I've officially retired from bench pressing for the rest of my life. In fact I don't think it's a good idea for me to do any pressing movements for a very long time - I can barely do 2 pushups without pain. At the moment the only chest exercises I can comfortably do are machine flies and cable flies. I'm happy to just keep doing that for a the time being, even though it's boring as fuck for me, but does any one have any recommendations for other chest exercises I can do to keep me interested?

How recent was the injury?

I messed up my shoulder bad last summer and I could not do pressing without pain for about 7 months. It got to the point I gave up and just let the thing heal because anytime it would feel okay I would try to a press/push movement and then the shooting pain would return. I stopped doing the press movements and just did like stretching every time to my shoulders doing more and more progressively with time.

I'm not a big fan of the classic bent-over row. I feel like slamming the weight back down takes stimulus away. I find that when I keep my body at a 45 degree angle and pull up, I activate more of my back.

I know SS-adherents swear by the pendlay (90 degree bentover row) but I always felt like you waste so much energy staying bent over at 90 degrees that you could conserve if you stayed around 45 degrees and let the weight hang and then explode back up.

I'm sure guys see me doing my way in the gym and go "bad form!1!1!111" but it's the only way I find that I'm able to get my lats contracting and full of blood.

What about having a slight angle of back (not parallel like in Pendlay) and getting barbell to just couple of inches from the ground? Alan Thrall has a good video about different kinds of barbell rows, just watched it yesterday.

Sure, I"ll check it out. I feel like the back is such a complex muscle group that it pays to know multiple ways to achieve growth.

Generally I try to find the way that works best for me. or the longest time I was just following cookiecutter advice and I was wasting time. That said, I'm just one man and I'm sure other men have had success using more traditional methods.

At your other question: retracting your scapula is pulling your shoulder blades back like you're trying to squeeze a ball. Like you said.

I do both and I think they offer different but beneficial stimulus. I do the 45° bent over row more often then the pendlay row, but I actually think I get a little more lat activation with the pendlay row. I do a 45° bend more often because it's easier to over load and I think it has a little better carry over to deadlift.

I will do barbell row instead of power clean even though I am aware Rippetoe said it is not a substitute. I am not sure though what version to do. Athlean X talks about what each kind of bb row is suitable for. Supposedly, that 45° angled one is better for hypertrophy and is less explosive than pendlay.