Best Bench Cue You’ve Never Heard Of

In the bench we have movement at two main joints, the shoulder and the elbow. Just like in the squat where we aim for the most efficient use of both the hips and knees, we need to put priority on doing the same for the bench press. I talk about all the time the importance of having an even break at the knees and hips in the squat, but in the bench press it is a bit different. For the most part, I want my lifters to ignore their shoulders. What I mean by this is that a quality setup that places the lifters shoulders in a retracted and depressed position while elevating the rib cage takes care of placing the shoulders into their optimal movement pattern. From there, the main thing we should do when initiating the bench press is to “break at the elbows”. Too often lifters over-exaggerate movement at the shoulder, which coincides with over-tucking the elbows, an over emphasis on the lats, and a touch point that is too low. In all 3 above examples (CLICK HERE) of Jesse, Patrick, and Lorenzo, we can see when they over-exaggerate the shoulder movement that it creates an odd sticking point off the chest as they try to press the bar back. The reason for this is they have positioned themselves to where they are having to heavily relying on the anterior deltoids, a fairly weak muscle, to in sense “front raise” the bar back and up over their shoulders. For all 3 of these lifters, cueing them to “break at the elbows” created the proper elbow flare and touch point to create more a efficient press. This cue not only takes care of the shoulder movement and over tucking issue but it also is my main go to, along with grip position, to help lifters learn to flare their elbows and internally rotate properly. All in all, unlike the squat where we need to focus on breaking evenly at the hips and knees, in the bench press we should prioritize “breaking at the elbows” to create a stacked joint position that creates a more efficient bench press.

The Hamstring’s Role In The Deadlift

The hamstrings play an interesting role in the deadlift. They are a primary hip extensor, which is an extremely important role in a hip hinge dominant movement. But less talked about is the hamstring’s role in the anti-extension of the knee joint. The hamstrings act against the quadricep in the role of knee extension, and when utilized correctly it helps to stabilize the knee joint and prevent the knees from locking too soon. But when the hamstrings are inefficiently used in the deadlift, in this case over biased towards, what we can see from Matt’s deadlift (CLICK HERE) is this battle between the hamstring and the quad with the hamstring winning. Now at the same time though, if we bias too much the opposite way anteriorly towards the quads, the scenario we see then is the hip shoot deadlift where the knees immediately lock and the lifter ends up looking like they are doing a stiff leg deadlift. So in summary, there needs to be this perfect happy medium between the hamstring and the quads to create the most efficient deadlift.

The first video is of Matt’s 661lb. PR deadlift from this past week, with some major form improvements all around. Notate how there is distinct leg drive to initiate the bar breaking from the floor, followed by the knees locking and the hips extending. In the sumo deadlift especially, we want to see this distinct knee lock and hip lock in that order. It is a fairly quick action, with the knees locking preceding the hips locking by a fraction of a second. In this example of Matt’s deadlift, we see the hamstrings working conjointly with the quadriceps to optimize the mechanics of the knee joint.

In the second video from a couple months back we see what happens when the hamstrings become too dominant within the sumo deadlift. Matt was biasing towards his posterior chain, and if you were to zoom in and watch in slow motion you could see this even before the bar left the floor through the pressure of his foot (rocking back towards his heel and “twinkle toes”). As the bar breaks the floor the hamstrings and quads fight against each other, with the posterior bias he displays emphasizing tension on the hamstrings. But his body is wanting to bias more towards his quads to find the more efficient position. This can be seen in the “leg shakes” that occur right after the pause. His quads are trying to extend the knee but the hamstrings are not fully allowing it. And then by lockout, you can see that as he fully extends at the hips his knees unlock yet again due to the hamstring trying flex the knee and overruling the quadricep.

So what was the fix for this? It sounds simplistic, but it mostly comes down to foot pressure off the floor. If we get that right, most of the time the hamstring vs. quad tensioning will take care of itself. I had Matt initially deadlift barefoot and then proceed to wearing slippers rather than shoes, as this helped to establish a better connection to the floor with the foot. From there we emphasized a more patient pull, developing tension pre-pull by driving the knees forward and out as he pulls the chest up. He uses the patient tension build to find the correct pressure at his mid-foot and leverages the bar to pull his mid-foot directly into the floor.

Shoulder Mobility Tips For The Low Bar Squat

Shoulder mobility can play a large role in the low bar squat, and for those who may lack shoulder mobility it can create problems not only at the thoracic spine, but all the way down the chain.

While I do not want to call this a simple fix, I have 3 go-tos that have worked fairly well. The first is really just the cueing and setup of the low bar squat. The general idea is that we are trying to do a “lat pulldown” with the bar. During a lat pulldown we are retracting and depressing our shoulders and using the lats to adduct the arm, and that is the same tension we want to create throughout our upper back during the low bar squat. The only slight difference is our elbow position, and often times its a simple as cueing a lifter to push their elbows forward as well.  But to help with the process there are two mobility drills I really find useful and have seen good results with, and that is a PVC pipe preacher stretch with controlled breathing and direct lacrosse ball work on the pec, particular the pec minor. The pec is an internal rotator, and many times tightness from the high volumes of bench pressing can offset the shoulder mobility improvements we have. So the combination of these 2 exercises seem to work best. For a more in depth breakdown of these drills, CLICK HERE and scroll over to 2nd and 3rd videos for full demonstrations!

With all that being said, a variable that always needs to be looked at as well is grip width. A good starting point I find is the same width you would use for a lat pulldown, but from there is becomes more individual based on shoulder mobility and a lifter’s ability to maintain thoracic tightness. Typically the wider the grip width, the more difficult it will be to stay tight, and vice versa. The downside though of a narrower grip is a higher need for shoulder mobility and an increased risk of developing some type of biceps tendon or elbow pain from the high demands of being in that compacted position.

Why You Should Game Plan To Go 9 for 9

There are a lot of different opinions on attempt selection and strategy, and one of those debated topics is if 9 for 9 means you had a perfect meet or if it means you left some weight on the platform. In my opinion, the goal should always be 9 for 9 and to some that may seem obvious, but many coaches and athletes set up game plans of attempt selection knowing very well that the 3rd attempts will be a reach. I could write an extremely long post on proper attempt selection, but I’d rather take this in the direction of why 9 for 9 is so important, not only in regards to putting in your best performance but also the psychological factors that its carries post meet.

1.) A missed lift does not add weight to your total. And if the goal is to achieve the highest total possible, we want to create the best game plan to do so. Any time we miss a lift, that is energy expended on a maximal attempt that does not improve your performance on the day. And what a lot of people do not factor in is how each lift affects the next. If you grind out a squat, this will affect bench press and deadlift. Countless time I’ve seen or had someone grind out/miss their 3rd squat, to then find their back is cramping up. This then affects their ability to achieve proper positions in the bench press and no doubt affects their deadlift strength. Low bar squatting also tends to fatigue the shoulders, and that is another factor that plays into the performance on bench press. We want need to expend our energy as efficiently as possible to achieve the best total. And sometimes that means leaving 2.5kg in the tank on squat so that we have an extra 5kg for deadlift.

2.) Powerlifters usually do not get a 2nd chance at a max when they miss. What I mean by that is if you miss your 2nd attempt due to strength, the chances of you coming back and hitting it on your 3rd attempt is slim to none. Now if there was a true mis-groove that is possible, but if you did not have the strength to lift a weight on your 2nd attempt, you probably don’t have the chance on your 3rd. So what this means is we should plan for 1 maximal attempt for each lift, aka our 3rd attempt. We use the opening attempt to get into the meet, our 2nd attempt is used to gauge our strength on the day to pick the proper 3rd attempt, and then the 3rd attempt is our chance at a maximal lift. A very common strategy I see though is to basically take your 2nd attempt as your opener, take your max attempt as your 2nd, and then see what extra bit you have on your 3rd. Summing up points 1 and 2, this is just not an efficient approach. At minimum that 3rd is going to be a grinder, and more likely than not a miss. So you have now created a fatigue debt that did not add to your total and will affect your coming lifts. If the goal is the achieve the best total possible, this strategy is hindering that. And while every world record total wasn’t a 9 for 9 day, I can guarantee the number of successful attempts correlates to higher totals.

3.) The 3rd and maybe most important is the psychological aspect that going 9 for 9 plays, not only during the meet but long after. First off, every lift sets the tone for the next. In my opinion there is not a more important lift to hit for a lifter’s mentality than the 3rd attempt squat. It sets the tone for the entire day. Hit that lift and they are pumped up, excited, and extremely positive which flows right into bench press and deadlift. Miss that 3rd attempt and it changes the entire mood and now they are into playing catch up to try to make up for the lost pounds on their total. For this reason, I am generally more conservative on 3rd attempt squats that any other lift, as it sets up the success for the rest of the meet. I tend to be somewhat the opposite come deadlifts though. If we are going into that final attempt with an 8 for 8 day, why not push it a bit to see what the lifter has. It is the last lift, so it no longer has any affect on the rest of the meet and that is the time to leave it all on the platform. But what I think is very much overlooked is how a bad or good meet plays into the long term psychology of a lifter. In my experience coaching, I have no doubt seen a correlation between going 9 for 9 and the positivity and motivation as we resume training. The opposite holds true as well. The lifter’s I have had that underperformed based on their expectations and missed lifts tended to suffer more from those post meet blues, struggling to find the same motivation as they resumed training. This negative mentality post meet can have lasting effects long term on a lifters progress. So for these lifters “leaving it all on the platform” had another meaning as well, and that meant their motivation and drive.

Why You Should Bench With Your Feet Flat

No matter which federation my athlete’s competes in, currently every single on benches with their feet flat. Are the scenarios where I may have someone bench on their toes? Yes, but in my opinion, keeping the feet flat on bench press is optimal as it allows the most stability and control when it comes to utilizing leg drive. Leg drive is one of the hardest skills to learn in powerlifting, and took me almost 4 years to really master. What most people do when first trying to learn how to incorporate leg drive is they find going up on their toes easier as it creates a constant tension with the legs that they otherwise cannot create. So heels up isn’t necessarily better for them, but it does make it easier to “feel” that tension everyone is telling them they need. When you tuck your legs under you and push the hips into extension it automatically increases the tension in the quads without you even cueing it to. And when that same person brings the feet out to just under their knees and stays flat footed, they lose that automatic tensioning and can no longer incorporate the quads as desired. There are 3 big reasons though that I find being on your toes is inferior to flatted footed.

1.) It doesn’t take a genius to understand that the less overall foot contact we have with the floor, the less stability we have, and that goes for any movement in any sport in any scenario. As can be seen in the first video here, Matt prior to working with me benched in a heel up position, and I initially described to him my thoughts that his bench press looked like he was laying on a stability ball. He was losing his ability to transfer force into the bar due to his body being unstable. Could he have maybe improved this with a slightly wider stance and tucking his feet under a bit more? Yes, but I consider that a band aid fix, or the easy fix, rather than the optimal fix. Feet flat with a stable base and leg drive creates not only horizontal stability but also lateral stability, and that is where heels up is lacking. Lateral stability is going to be much harder to achieve when on your toes versus with your feet flat.

2.) Another big reason people gravitate towards a heel up bench setup is it makes it easier to arch. But what they many times don’t understand is they are arching at all the wrong spots. Look at the second video (here) of Brandi. On the top she is on her toes, and the highest point of her “arch” is her belly button, which serves no purpose on the bench press. We need our sternum to be the highest point, as that is where we touch the bar. Our goal is to achieve that arch through the mid-back, not the low-back, as can be seen with both Matt and Brandi once they transitioned to a feet down position. This allowed an elevated rib cage that creates the highest point of the body as their sternum.

3.) When we tuck are feet under us, especially when we are on our toes, it creates an upward drive with the hips. Instead what we should be after is a backwards drive into our upper traps/upper back. A big misconception is that the leg drive helps to propel the bar up, and that is incorrect. The bar goes up because we drive our upper backs down into the bench creating the opposite reaction. What leg drive does is aids in the stability and tension to help increase the efficiency of force transfer to the bar. We want to use leg drive not to drive our hips up, but to drive our upper back down into the bench. Creating that backwards drive folds our upper traps into the bench to drive the upper back down. With your heels up and feet tucked under, this movement will not occur optimally. Rather having our feet flat and in vicinity of 75-90 degrees knee flexion helps to create this backwards drive that creates the mid back arch, elevating the rib cage, and driving the upper back down into the bench.

Now all these is easier said than done. As mentioned, when allowed people tend to gravitate towards a heels up setup as its an easy fix for inefficient leg drive. But when learned properly, I will argue that feet flat is going to be the more optimal bench setup for most lifters. I like to think of the feet as the throttle control of our bench press, and when we tuck our feet under and are on our toes, there is no control. But when our feet are flat we have a much better connection with the floor and our body to control our leg drive to create the best position, tension, and stability possible.