Thursday, November 9, 2017

Ask The Super Strong Guy: Should I Bench Press The Bar In A Straight Line?

Question: My goal is to bench press as much as possible raw. An old-school, turn-of-the-millennium powerlifter at my gym keeps yelling at me to bench press the bar in a straight line. Doing so feels awkward to me. What should I do?

You've asked the right person. I was the youngest person to bench press 600 pounds raw, until a student of mine, Peter Edgette, surpassed me. I've coached more than a dozen 600-pound-raw bench pressers, four of whom have benched more than 300 kilograms, or 661 pounds. I've also written a best-selling book on the bench press. So, if I rant and rave a bit on this topic, I hope you'll understand.

Bench Shirts Were In: Now They're Out

Before I answer your question, let me digress a little bit. A couple of decades ago, nearly all powerlifters competed while wearing bench-press shirts. These shirts enabled some lifters to add more than 400 pounds to their unassisted lift.

Back then, the objective was to use specific techniques and...


Source: Ask The Super Strong Guy: Should I Bench Press The Bar In A Straight Line?

No comments:

Post a Comment