posted Sun, 11/11/2012 - 18:29
3100
Overcoming flat bench dead spot?
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Ok, I have one spot when I bench that is hell. Lifting from my chest when I get the bar about 5-6 inches off my chest I hit the most difficult spot to push on up. If my spotter gets me past this point I can push on up. Whats the best way to overcome a dead spot?
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If your goal is to increase your bench then do lock outs in the squat rack 2'' below the sticking point. if you dont train that spot how are you going to get stronger there? bodybuilder or not you can take a page out of a powerlifters book and make awesome gains.
Easy peasy. Your bar path sucks. I've trained tons of people through this issue, it's quite common so don't feel bad. Push the bar towards your face and flare out your elbows. This is really hard to get from text but think of this: a karate punch. You start with your elbow down and palm up and as you punch, you rotate your hand and throw your elbow out, finishing the punch at about low neck/collarbone level right? Same in bench, minus the rotation at the wrist. All the people I see making this mistake (most of them) are pushing the bar toward their feet: this is wrong, you should lock out over neck/collar bone. Punch to over the neck, keep your shoulder blades pinched back and down and get tight as fuck. When this works for you: hit me back and let me know how well : )
1jakd_hipyWhat you're telling him to do causes extra shoulder rotation which leads to pec tears and shoulder surgery, also the bar has to travel farther than if you push it in a straight line
the body is not as bridle as you make it sound, and by moderate weight i do not mean 120lb dunbells 20lbs will do the trip stimulating the deep pectoralis tissues will stimulate growth on the lagging chest dead spot that causes the mid range stop, i have been doing this for years with success with no tears to any muscle groups, now if you decide to have an ego rage and jump from something manageable to something completely obscure i wouldnt not argue with you but rather agree with you.
1jakd_hipyIt has nothing to do with ego bud, it has to do with facts. And the fact is the chest has very little to do with a proper bench it's almost all triceps. Look videos of Eric Spoto benching (one of the strongest raw benches in the world) when he touches its below the pecs and then presses in a straight line. You saying you've been doing this a long time means nothing because as we learn more about exercise science and sports biomechanics we learn that what guys were doing for years was wrong. This is why you'll see so many old school bodybuilders who can't do a shoulder press now because they flared their elbows to incorporate more chest in a movement that should have had minimal. If you talk to any elite level raw power lifters they will tell you the same thing and the really good ones will tell you to focus more on lats than chest for a big bench.
bro at the bottom of the movement its all chest arms come into play 1/3 of the way up triceps do the lockout; i undertand everyone has their own opinions but this is how i broke out of my own gap it was tried and applied with success in my case and in the case of a few acquaintence, keep in mind though bro we arent powerlifters we are bodybuilders the point is to build fibers not force through reps a controlled movement even with minimal weight will not only avoid injury but will fire those untrained fibers significantly; lactic acid will build up wether its heavy weight or light weight causing an expansion in tissue and fascia over time this will cause a gradual strength increase i have been able to work my way up to 120lbs of deep fly all the way to the floor feeling absolutly nothing on my rotary cuff nor injuring this once; i do use more advanced techniques and warmups but regardless bodybuilding is knowledge and proper execution, any certain training style correctly will yield results; i end my point, if you dont agree this its fin, i was just giving my two cents which worked for me.
1jakd_hipyWe'll just agree to disagree because this is going nowhere
exactly let me keep doing what is working and you do what your doing
1jakd_hipyAnd the mid range sticking point comes from weak inner triceps not chest, if you don't believe me do pin presses from 4-5 inches off your sternum with near maximal weight for sets of 4 and tell me what gets taxed most
we arent talking about close grip, the closer your hands are the more the triceps work, chest gets involved the further your hands move out on the bar, a normal bench grip involves both muscle groups
bro i have seen this scenario before this can be a mix of technique or physical development of strength, what i mean by this is a lagging muscle group, when you push you use a mix of chest & Tricep mainly, chest at the bottom and tricep half way up to the lockout. imo when you reach that dead spot you have a lagging in your chest, generally this is why people avoid going all the way down; but when you avoid it you are leaving out a fleet of fibers from being trained, hindering your overall chest development, this to happened to me when i began to train but i figured a technique to help train those fibers and break through the dead spot, this is my advice to you grab two dunbells that you can manage use a normal bench bar with a slight incline if you wish, then do your standard fly, but i do not want you to stop once your arms are parallel to your chest, i want you to keep dropping them down to as far as you can get them, this will superstretch your chest fascia and trigger those lagging fibers, your first set will be the most difficult second and third set will be gradually easier since the fibers stretch and become accustomed and trained, afterwards id like you to get on an incline bench and do a minimal amount of weight 135 or less with complete controll all the way down to your chest and up slowly you can do this for as many sets as you did the deep flys. If you follow my steps you will soon enough be able to bench and breakout of the dead spot. Good luck bro. PM if you have any questions.
Thanks for the replies guys. I will being implementing these into my routine and see how it goes.
Anonsounds like it's all psychological, bro, if you're only getting hung up about 5" from your chest. actually watching your strength progress may help you overcome the psychological barrier. there's tons of techniques out there, but here is one:
practice doing negative reps... muscles are 130% as strong in the escentric phase of a contraction compared to the concentric phase. in the bench press, the concentric phase would be when you're doing the pushing from your chest outward. the escentric phase would be on the way down to your chest.
knowing that you're 30% stronger in this phase, you can tweak the load to get you to an unassisted failure close to 4 reps, possibly even 3 reps. from this point - be sure to have a spotter for this - have your spotter lift the barbell to the highest position for you while you conserve your energy by letting him do the work. when he lets go of the barbell, let the weigh drop to your chest slowly while resisting along the way. 5-10 seconds would be ideal.
to guage your progress, you can start tweaking your initial weight. you should see this number climb. setting and meeting goals helps trigger the reward circuits of the brain. by doing so, you may be able to overcome the psychological barrier that is hindering your full range of motion. working your triceps at the end of this will help as well, as the triceps play a huge role in the first half of the concentric phase of the bench press.
juice12345678I am going to give everyone here the greatest piece of benching help ever....
EVERYONE should look up "So you think you can Bench"
Dave Tate / Elite FTS
I think it's an 11 part Video? Been a while since I've seen it....
In advance....you are welcome
Big chains on the end of the bars! When you un-rack it it will be heavy. As you go down the links hit the floor and the weight gets lighter. But as you go up it gets heavier forcing you to work harder to push through the spot.
how much are you benching? sounds like weak triceps?
I'm kind of the opposite, when I go heavy I usually struggle at the bottom then once it hits halfway I push though no problem.
Pin presses,board work,floor presses, generally work for me and also throw in some dynamic work/speed day.
1jakd_hipyFloor press, pin press, 2-3 board press and band work also incorporating dynamic effort so tgat you learn to explode off the chest and use the momentum to get you through it.
1jakd_hipyAnother tip as you lower the bar lift your head watching the bar come down and when you touch pin your head to the bench hard and press
Change your grip up a little. Try more of a powerlifting from. Bring your arms in rather that out as if you are trying to bend the bar. See if that helps
The guy I lift with has a natural powerlifters bench press form. I tried it a few times and it just seems very unnatural and feels rough on my shoulders.
I've been playing around and trying it out and the change has helped with chest development
1jakd_hipyProper PL form is uncomfortable as fuck but should lessen the strain on your shoulders and put more on your triceps
I have always had trouble with my shoulders anyways, partially due to my job.
1jakd_hipyShoulder pain on the bench comes from anterior shoulder rotation caused by flaring the elbows, try focusing on keeping your elbows tucked and narrowing your grip to a thumb from the beginning of the knurling also keeping your rear delts pinned to the bench
Closegrip triceps. Tris are the chest off push helper
rack lockouts..
shoxingbiceps17X2!