You need to know how to properly bench press so you don’t die.
Okay, that’s not the only reason, but it’s a damn important one.
What’s really important in proper bench press form, is making sure that you maximize all the muscles worked during the exercise…
…so you can make the most chest gains in the short gym time that you have.
(And try to build a better upper body than the guy next to you.)
Well, in addition to some very common guidelines for how to properly bench press that will make sure you’re doing the exercise correctly and safely, I have a rule (the one-second rule) that I personally follow and I recommend everyone follow to hit additional muscles that most guys you know are going to neglect.
This will leave them with a puny chest… and you trying to figure out why your t-shirts got so tight…
What Muscles Do Bench Press Work?
Before I get into the specifics of how to properly bench press, I want to mention what makes this exercise so great in the first place.
The reason why the bench press is promoted in almost all respectable muscle-building and strength-training routines is because it’s a well-rounded upper-body exercise.
It’s a powerful compound exercise that’s going to work some important major muscle groups simultaneously.
What are the bench press muscles used? What does bench press work?
Immediately, the bench press is going to work your chest, but it’s also going to work your shoulders (front and rear), as well as your upper back and abs.
Pro Tip: If you’re skilled enough to incorporate leg drive into your bench pressing (advanced technique) you’ll be able to activate your quads during the exercise as well. More on this later…
The bench press is definitely worth working into your routine if you’re looking for balanced upper body development.
So let’s go over how to do it…
How to Properly Bench Press
Now it’s very important that you learn how to properly bench press for a couple reasons:
- Crappy form will lead to crappy results – Failing to go through the correct motions could actually create muscle imbalances that lead to slower progress and less muscle-development later as you grow out of the beginner stage.
- Bad form can make the exercise dangerous – If you get used to bench pressing by flopping around and not activating all the right muscles, as you continue to increase the weight, there’s a higher chance you’ll hurt yourself because you won’t be able to properly support the weight.
With those reasons in mind, let’s go through the major points of proper bench press technique…
Hand Placement
When you place your hands on the bar, you want your grip to be a little wider than shoulder width.
This placement is going to give you a broader range of muscles worked during the movement.
If you use a narrower grip at about shoulder width (safest narrow distance), this is going to work a little more of your triceps, but increase the distance the bar needs to move making the overall exercise more difficult.
Note: Don’t go any narrower than shoulder width otherwise you’ll mess up your shoulders in the long term when the weight gets heavier.
Just for reference… how much does a bench bar weight by itself? 45 lbs.
Going any wider than just outside shoulder width will limit the range of motion and you won’t get the full benefits of the exercise.
You might see competitive powerlifters doing this, but they do it to actually make the exercise easier (they’re not trying to maximize muscle activation).
Make sure that the bar rests right over the forearms hanging straight down and in the meaty part of your hands.
You don’t want your wrists bending back (hurts).
Tighten Your Upper Back
An important point about how to properly bench press is keeping your back tight.
Everything in the bench press should feel tight (and a little bit uncomfortable).
When you’re laying down to bench, it shouldn’t be like laying down on a bed to take a light nap after class.
Instead, you’re going to pull your shoulder blades back and together while rolling your shoulders back and down.
Note: Experienced bench-pressers say you should be able to hold a pencil between your shoulder blades while you’re in position.
Keep Your Butt on the Bench
This is a common issue with how to properly bench press, but when you’re trying to make your whole body tight for the purpose of stability, you may have the tendency to lift your butt off the bench.
This is a “no-no” because again, with your butt in the air, you won’t be stable enough to perform the exercise safely.
Full disclosure; I used to do it this way when I didn’t know any better, but once I developed better technique, I felt safer doing the exercise and my numbers increased too.
Here’s a great instructional video from Jordan Syatt explaining how to keep your butt on the bench for more stable bench-pressing.
Plant Your Feet Firmly in Place
Your feet shouldn’t be just lazily flopping around while you’re moving some heavy weight with your arms.
Additionally, you don’t want your feet up in the air trying to do some weird core-building crap or have them on the bench with you either (I’ve seen that too).
Instead your feet should be planted firmly on the floor.
Pro Tip: An advanced method of creating more leverage is to use leg drive by actually pushing into the floor with your legs.
To perform this, you need to flex your abs, keep your back very tight and push the balls of your feet or your heels into the floor (what part of the food to push is still debatable among powerlifters).
This will actually dig your upper back into the bench and give you further stability to push the weight away from your body.
(Think about Santa Claus coming down a chimney and trying to hold himself in place by pushing against one side of the chimney with his legs, digging his back into the opposite side.)
(That’s a weird example, but it works.)
Keep Your Head Off the Bench and Behind the Pins
Make sure that when you’re initially laying down for the exercise that your chin is just under the bar.
This ensures that when you unrack the bar, you don’t have to move it out so far into starting position.
Plus, there’s going to be tension in your entire back and again, if you want to maintain proper tightness, you can’t have your head resting on the bench.
Instead, you need to keep your head up (without digging your chin down) and focus on the ceiling where the bar sits when it’s off the pins and your arms are outstretched.
Unrack the Bar and Move It Out Over Shoulders
Take a great, big giant breath, tense your abs and tighten everything.
Then, unrack the bar and move it out over your shoulders into starting position.
There’s an important point to make about how to properly bench press …and it’s the fact that this step and the next step are isolated.
There’s a distinct step of just unracking the bar… and another step of actually lowering it down to your chest to begin your first rep.
The point I’m trying to make is you shouldn’t be unracking the bar and immediately dropping it to your chest.
If you can’t unrack the bar and simply hold it suspended in the air with your elbows locked…
…then the weight is too heavy for you.
Lower the Bar Slow and Controlled Down to Your Chest
After the bar is out over your shoulders, you can begin to descend to your chest to begin the rep.
Don’t let it free fall and bounce off your chest.
Your goal is always control, safety, and good form.
Now, you want the bar to touch your chest very close to your nipples and the exact location actually depends on the length of your torso and your arms.
For example, someone with a medium torso and shorter arms might feel more comfortable touching the bar to the nipples or right above.
Alternatively, if you’re someone like me with a shorter torso and long arms, you might feel more comfortable touching the bar right below the nipples.
As long as you’re in that general area you’ll be okay.
What you don’t want to do is touch too high towards your neck (commonly called a guillotine press) or touch to low on your stomach, because then you’re out of a safe range for pressing and there’s a higher chance you won’t be able to safely get the weight out of the bottom.
The One Second Rule
The one-second rule is an active attempt to demolish the two types of bench-pressing that I absolutely hate, but I see promoted very often in bodybuilding videos:
- No Touch
- Touch and Go
No Touch bench-pressing is when someone brings the bar down to their chest and doesn’t actually touch their chest.
Touch and Go is when someone brings the bar down, let’s the bar graze the fabric of their shirt for as much time as it takes the Flash to make a cup of coffee and then presses back to the top.
Here’s why I hate seeing these methods and why the one-second rule… rules…
Different muscles get worked at different points in the exercise.
When you’re pushing from your chest to midway, you’re working more of your chest.
When you’re pushing midway to the top, you’re working more of your triceps.
But there are additional muscles that are worked at the very bottom when the bar is resting on your chest that most guys neglect…
…and when you simply touch the bar to your chest and press back to starting position, you’re neglecting the stretch reflex and muscle development at the bottom of the lift.
Why is this important?
Well, guys who don’t let the bar rest at the bottom position are WAY more likely to get pinned under the weight when the bar gets too heavy.
How can you expect to have enough strength to get a very heavy bar off of your chest… when you’ve never developed the muscles needed to get the bar off your chest!
So… if you actually want to build MORE muscle in your chest and save yourself from being pinned under the bar when you’re really testing some heavy loads without a spotter…
…let the bar rest for a full one-second count before you press it back up to starting position.
Explode Out of the Bottom
This is actually a cue used by Mark Rippetoe of Starting Strength and I love the concept, but you should try to EXPLODE out of the bottom position.
Studies and tests have shown us that more muscles are recruited during an exercise when you try to perform the movement as fast as possible.
Now, that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to press 200 lbs at 65 mph…
…but what it DOES mean is if you attempt to move the bar quickly, you’re recruiting more muscles and you’re more likely to successfully complete the rep.
That’s why “explode” is a pretty good visual cue to use when getting out of the bottom position.
Lock Your Elbows at the Top
Okay, so after you’re done exploding out of the bottom position and you have successfully pressed the weight all the way to the top, you need to lock out your elbows to make sure that you’re safely finished with one single repetition.
Now this is extremely important especially if you are not bench-pressing with a spotter.
And this brings about a very important point…
Do You Need a Spotter When You Bench Press?
This is something that’s kind of update for debate and I could get into hot water if I don’t say the right thing here…
… And that’s why for legal reasons, I will say that if you can, you should always work out with a spotter to make sure that you do not put yourself into any dangerous situations when weightlifting.
That being said, I have never worked out with a spotter LOL.
So, I will give you some pointers on how to properly bench press without the help of a spotter for maximum safety.
Benching Without a Spotter
The most important thing I’ll say about bench pressing without a spotter is it has to be done inside of a power rack with safety pins.
Safety pins allow the bar to drop down to the bottom position but still remain elevated so the bar doesn’t actually pin you underneath the weight that you are lifting.
This is extremely important once you start increasing the weight and really begin testing your limits on the exercise.
How to Safely Fail on the Bench Press
So if you decide to bench press without the help of a spotter, you’re going to need to know how to safely fail on the bench press when that inevitably happens.
(Believe it or not, this appears to happen at least once in the career of every weightlifter. It’s a little embarrassing, but you’ll get over and hopefully learn from it.)
The first thing, is to make sure that you have the safety pins correctly setup in your power rack.
So, when the bar drops down to your chest and you can’t get it up, you can simply roll the bar down towards your waist and the pins will actually capture the load instead of your stomach.
That’s why it’s important to make sure that the safety pins are set almost level with your chest at the time of benching.
Since your chest will be slightly elevated above your waist level, there should be no problems rolling a bar down towards your waist and then simply sitting up in order to escape the weight of the bar.
So those are the major points of how to properly bench press, but I want to give you a few exercises that you can use to actually increase your bench press strength and build a stronger, more powerful chest.
Accessory Exercises to Increase Your Bench Press Strength
Flat Dumbbell Bench Press
What’s great about the flat dumbbell bench press is that it’s going to generally work all the same muscles as the barbell bench press, but it’s going to engage some additional stabilizer muscles because each arm is now working independently to balance the weight floating through the air.
Incline Barbell or Dumbbell Bench Press
Now, when you switch to an inclined position on either the barbell or dumbbell bench press, you’re engaging more of the upper chest and front delts.
This is really going to round out your upper body and create more of a wider illusion that will really contrast and give the impression that you have a smaller waist.
(Very aesthetic.)
Dips
Dips are one of my personal favorite exercises, and they do a great job of not only working your triceps, but also your lower chest.
Tricep Push-Downs
Tricep push-downs are really going to isolate the triceps and help you lockout the barbell bench press after you pass midway on the movement.
Skull Crushers
Skull crushers or another great tricep isolation exercise to include because they work the triceps in more of a pulling motion instead of a pushing motion (builds a little more girth).
That’s How to Properly Bench Press
So, that’s how to properly bench press in order to make sure that you get all of the muscle-building benefits…
… And to make sure that you don’t die.
Plus I included a few good accessory exercises to use so you can keep increasing your strength on the bench press.
But now I want to know your opinion on bench-pressing and using it in your own workout routine.
Leave a comment below and tell me about your thoughts on how to properly bench press, how you plan to make it better, and how important the exercise is to you and your goals!