Facts & Myths about the Bench Press
Here are some myths, as well as some facts, about the bench press.
The bench press is the best chest exercise, right?
The chest muscle or pectoralis major is involved in the bench press, but it is far from the best chest exercise. Due to the fixed grip width on the bar (predetermined before you start to move), the desired shoulder motion is limited therefore the amount of contraction is limited.
Furthermore, the fixed hand width also creates a mechanical system in which the triceps are called into play as much as, if not more than, the chest. There’s nothing wrong with triceps involvement, but what’s your goal? Exercises like the dumbbell press that allow the hands to change width as you move use much less triceps, thereby allowing you to emphasize the chest if that is truly your goal.
The bench press is a mass building exercise.
There is no such thing as a mass exercise or a shaping exercise. This myth was partially based upon the amount of weight one could lift in a given exercise. The truth is that if the pec fatigues in, say, eight reps on a press and eight reps on a cable fly, then the pec itself was under the same load. Chances are the actual poundage used was very different on each exercise, but don’t confuse the weight you see with the force that is actually placed on a muscle.
The more muscles and joints that are moving, the more weight that can be lifted. But that weight is now distributed over many movers with each accepting no more load than they could have individually.
Often many people fail to consider the fact that various exercises create different mechanical leverage systems that make it hard to see just how much force is truly placed on a muscle group. A relatively light weight placed far from the joint may create as much force as a heavier weight located closer to the joint.
Touch the bar to your chest to get full range of motion.
We have this tendency to determine range of motion for an exercise by how far the bar/weight moves. Range of motion must be determined by how far your body moves, and more is not always better. Joint limits must be considered first and foremost. But in weight training there is another key factor, the target muscle group’s mechanical and physiological ability to generate force throughout that range.
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