You Gotta Be Kidding Me- Bridging on the Bench Press
By Jason
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I could hardly believe what I was reading.
I sat in absolute bewilderment as I read an article in a recent muscle magazine. It explained in detail why you should lift your hips as high as possible off the bench (called bridging) when you bench press.
Was the author seriously recommending this type of thing to people who are trying to improve their workouts? I could hardly believe that any widely distributed magazine would publish this sort of “advice”.
Of course, I don’t think that the muscle magazines are very good reading for most people out there. They focus on what the pros are doing for their workouts instead of telling the readers what will help them the most. I’ll drop by once a month or so and read them just to see what’s out there (and only because I blog about this).
But there it was, right in the magazine. The author was praising the advantages of arching your back as high as possible and shooting your hips into the air on the bench press.
His argument was that arching your back and lifting the hips gives you more power for your bench. More power lets you lift heavier weights, and lifting heavier weights means you’re building strength and muscle.
So how could that be wrong?
More Weight is Not More Strength
Is lifting more weight really equal to adding more strength? In some cases it is, if you consider the fact that the heavier lifts tend to use more muscle groups. But there is a serious mistake in believing that just lifting more weight equals more muscle.
If this were true, then squatting only half way down would allow you to do heavier weights and (as the argument goes) build more muscle. Heck, if that’s true, why not just go an inch down and get really strong?
The top picture doesn’t even come close to the guy in the magazine, as he had longer legs and lifted his hips incredibly high off the bench.
Take a look at the two pictures above. Notice that lifting the hips off of the flat bench press puts the upper torso in a position similar to the decline press. The fact that we have a slight mechanical advantage on the decline press is what helps us to lift more weight at this angle (and this is probably why it’s popular).
Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t ever use this decline angle to work your chest muscles. The problem is that the flat bench is not the best place to be doing the decline bench press. Instead, you should use the decline bench to do the decline bench press.
This will give you much greater stability and safety. The fact that you’re not wasting energy to stick your hips up in the air means that you can focus more of your energy on the weight that you’re trying to move.
Here are a few tips to help you avoid rising at the hips on the bench press:
- Some arch in the back is ok- Your natural posture leaves the spine in a semi-arched position. A slight arch on the bench helps to keep the back tense and position your lats to better act as stabilizers and oppose the stabilizing deltoids.
- Squeeze your shoulder blades together- This helps with stabilization and raises your chest up to the proper position while keeping your upper back on the bench.
- Place your feet correctly- They should placed in a wide stance, with the heels flat on the floor and your shins vertical. If you take the wider stance with vertical shins, raising your hips off of the bench becomes much more difficult.
I just hope some poor guy doesn’t come along, read that article, and then decide to start flaring his hips up on the bench press. I can only imagine how much it would hurt if his toes slipped out and the bar dropped onto his neck. Kids, don’t try this at home.
Note: I unfortunately did not write down the magazine I saw this in. I returned to Barnes & Noble Bookstore when I decided to write this post, only to find that it was no longer there. If anyone else has read it, please let me know which magazine and I’ll update this post. I read the article in October 2007.
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Topics: Training Tips |
November 28th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Here’s a video of how silly it looks.
Why do you still read magazines Jason?
November 28th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Mehdi,
Great find, it’s a good laugh!
And good question, I started flipping through the magazines once a month or so since I blog about weight lifting. It’s good to see what others are writing (even if it’s bad advice), and it gives me something funny to write about here and there.
November 28th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Shite! I never read those rags, full of ads for nonsense that doesn’t work and exercise tips from roid heads. Anyway, this gave me a good laugh.
Mark
November 28th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Mark- yeah, it’s healthy to be skeptical of any publication that has more space devoted to advertising than to editorial.
December 6th, 2007 at 4:24 am
Those muther f***ers! Haha.
Man, I know it might seem trivial but this could cause a lot of heart ache to some kid who reads it and takes on that advice. I have a chronic injury that will never go away from bad bodybuilding technique - it has mentally strained me for many years. This type of bull crap from these magazines can do a lot of harm.
Thanks for posting it. I’m going to bump this post on RMO now.
RT
December 6th, 2007 at 4:33 am
[…] good mate Jason over at World Fitness Network has posted an interesting post about an article he saw in a bodybuilding […]
December 6th, 2007 at 5:49 am
RT- Lol! Yeah, I’m sure some poor kid out there has read it and is probably is thrusting away at the hips with each set. I just hope that they realize how ridiculous this is. If you’re doing this in the gym, then maybe others have a free pass to laugh for once.
December 11th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Interesting Jason! I have also seen a lot of guys at the gym do like this; but when I tell them that it’s wrong, they just say something along the lines of: “You pussy don’t f***up my workout let me see you press bigger, bitch”… Sorry about the flaming words, but that’s really how some guys at the gym talk to me when I try and correct them a little. I think I’ll print this page and put it up besides the bench press.
Just kidding. Nice article anyways Jason
December 11th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Alex,
Lol- some people are just dead set on these kinds of things. Maybe you really should hang it up over the bench press
January 24th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I’m still laughing
April 17th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
[…] What this does: When you begin lifting your hips up on the incline press, you essentially bend your lower back and your shoulders move a bit lower down on the bench. This changes the angle of your chest. […]