My Top 3 Bench Press Tips

 

Hey guys…today I’m sharing my top 3 bench press tips. Read on to learn the proper bench press form and grip.

 

Bench Press Tips #1: Keep Your Shoulders Down & Back

When bench pressing, you want to keep your shoulders DOWN and BACK.

Squeeze your shoulder blades together, and keep them there.

This will keep the load on your chest muscles, rather than in weird places in your shoulders.

Try this:

1. Hold your shoulders UP and FORWARD, and pretend you’re doing a bench press. Do you feel it in your shoulders? Probably not much.
2. Now hold your shoulders DOWN and BACK, and pretend you’re doing a bench press again. See how much more easily you can contract your chest muscles?

 

Bench Press Tips #2: Use A Diagonal Grip

Most people use the wrong grip. What most people do is hold the bar straight across their hand (see the 2 pictures on the left below).

What you should do, instead, is use more of a diagonal grip (see the 2 pictures on the right). You want the bar to rest on the meaty part of your palm.

Here’s a picture of what I mean:

There are 2 benefits to using this bench press grip:

1. It’s more stable. Because the bar is resting on that meaty part of your thumb, it’s less likely to slip in your hand.
2. It encourages the proper elbow angle (see tip #3).

Also, I should add: ALWAYS wrap your thumb around the bar. You do NOT want to drop the bar when doing bench press.

 

Bench Press Tips #3: Lower Your Elbows At 45 Degrees

When you lower the bar, you do NOT want your elbows to be too far out to the side…

But you also do NOT want them too close to your body…

Instead, you want your shoulders to track at about a 45-degree angle:

This will keep the load off of your shoulders and onto your chest muscles, where you really want it.