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Many things wrong here, going for a 1rep max with no spotters. On top of that he was using a pad to assist with the arch meaning he couldn't even properly set the safety pins or flatten out to roll the weight off. Once he could not lift the weight, it just slid down and crushed his neck.
Yes, horrible, and unnecessary. The power rack was poorly designed. There should have been safety bars instead of those hook like catches on the back uprights.
I rarely do bench presses with a spotter. I am sometimes the only person in the gym when I'm doing bench presses. They key is not to arch your back during the exercise. If you start to fail on a rep, that is the time to arch your back to finish that last rep. Some lifters say to always keep a slight arch in your lower back. I disagree and think it is better and safer to keep your back flat on the bench. I've seen some people who put their feet on the bench to help keep their back flat. At 6'4" I would need a longer bench to do that so I probably have some arch.
I rarely do bench presses with a spotter. I am sometimes the only person in the gym when I'm doing bench presses. They key is not to arch your back during the exercise. If you start to fail on a rep, that is the time to arch your back to finish that last rep. Some lifters say to always keep a slight arch in your lower back. I disagree and think it is better and safer to keep your back flat on the bench. I've seen some people who put their feet on the bench to help keep their back flat. At 6'4" I would need a longer bench to do that so I probably have some arch.
You need to arch your back to:
a) expose your chest, otherwise you work less chest and more delts/triceps/and lats.
b) safely fail.
When you set the safety pins, they should be just below where the bar touches your body with arch, and when you flatten your back, just above (so they catch the weight). Once you fail on the movement, you just flatten.
Kid couldn't do that here since he put a pad under his back to assist with the arch.
Having an arch is actually safer for your lower spine as well during the bench, as it keeps everything tight. What is not safe, and I see this all the time, is lifting your butt off the bench to assist with the last few reps. Not only is this technically not a regulation bench, it can place enormous stress on your lower back.
Going to failure is key to muscle growth. If you're alone, better just do dumbbells vs bench, you can safely fail there. Or machines. The bench is not ideal for chest development anyways, not enough stretch and most people don't know how to push correctly and use wrong muscle groups.
Bonus: Bench with a cambered bar if your gym has one for that gnarly deep stretch in the pecs/
a) expose your chest, otherwise you work less chest and more delts/triceps/and lats.
b) safely fail.
When you set the safety pins, they should be just below where the bar touches your body with arch, and when you flatten your back, just above (so they catch the weight). Once you fail on the movement, you just flatten.
Kid couldn't do that here since he put a pad under his back to assist with the arch.
Having an arch is actually safer for your lower spine as well during the bench, as it keeps everything tight. What is not safe, and I see this all the time, is lifting your butt off the bench to assist with the last few reps. Not only is this technically not a regulation bench, it can place enormous stress on your lower back.
Going to failure is key to muscle growth. If you're alone, better just do dumbbells vs bench, you can safely fail there. Or machines. The bench is not ideal for chest development anyways, not enough stretch and most people don't know how to push correctly and use wrong muscle groups.
Bonus: Bench with a cambered bar if your gym has one for that gnarly deep stretch in the pecs/
He was arching his back at an extreme angle with his butt 4-5 inches off the bench. He would be alive if he hadn't arched his back at that extreme angle until the last rep. The only people I have ever seen do that are high school boys. I can't imagine someone putting a pad under their back when doing bench presses. I'd have to have someone take a video of me to know for certain how much arch I have, but I've always tried to minimize it.
I prefer doing bench presses on a standalone bench and not in a power rack. I do use the safety bars when doing squats. I don't do dumbbell bench presses. I think it is the exercise where you are most likely to get injured, and I never see people using enough weight to be effective.
He was arching his back at an extreme angle with his butt 4-5 inches off the bench. He would be alive if he hadn't arched his back at that extreme angle until the last rep. The only people I have ever seen do that are high school boys. I can't imagine someone putting a pad under their back when doing bench presses. I'd have to have someone take a video of me to know for certain how much arch I have, but I've always tried to minimize it.
I prefer doing bench presses on a standalone bench and not in a power rack. I do use the safety bars when doing squats. I don't do dumbbell bench presses. I think it is the exercise where you are most likely to get injured, and I never see people using enough weight to be effective.
Yea, that's true. I never watched the video. After reviewing the photos, it does appear he lifted his butt well off the bench. But the issue was the barbell slid onto his neck. His back was not the issue, though the arch obviously allowed gravity to pull the weight down to his neck.
By regulation, butt and shoulders need to be connected to the bench at all times. So they practice getting bigger and bigger arches, which allows them to lift more weight (less range of motion, more spring like force through the body. Getting a proper arch is very difficult and often pads are used to ease the back into that position. Of course during a regulation lift, a pad is not allowed. It's just used to get the back accustomed to the arch.
I disagree wholeheartedly on dumbbells. One, they allow a more natural range of motion with your wrists/elbows/shoulders so one develops less shoulder/elbow problems doing dumbbell presses. They allow for a greater range of motion (you can touch the dumbbells to outside your chest). I always feel a better pump during dumbbells than bench press. Bench press is for impressing on how much you can lift, dumbbells is about developing your chest.
Time under tension is key, you generally need around 40 seconds and you need to control the eccentric. I rarely see anyone doing that on the bench. They usually put on more weight than they can handle - do 6-8 very quick reps with bad form, and allowing the bar to bounce off their chest like a springboard. That kind of lifting won't develop your chest, and will get you hurt.
With dumbbells, you need a gym with a wide assortment of them, which not everyone has. But generally with dumbbell presses I do 20-30 reps, and that burns my chest and delivers a huge pump. Meanwhile, doing 20-30 reps on the bench is kind of eh boring. Some part of you always wants to put on that weight to be manly, so I never do more than 8-12 reps on the bench. As a result, I treat the bench like a warmup and the dumbbells the meat of my chest exercise. Always great to keep a set of lighter dbs in handy so when you burn off doing your presses, you superset with db flys. Your chest will feel like it wants to rip itself out of your body/
...Some part of you always wants to put on that weight to be manly.../
Not if you've got two painful shoulder impingements...
I still do bar bench presses, by myself, but at such a low weight that it's only marginally risky. At some point I'm going to get some dumbbells of the right weight and switch over. If I were to pass out in the midst of the exercise (unlikely, to be sure, but not totally impossible) the worst thing that could happen would probably be dropping a dumbbell on my face and losing some teeth, not having a bar fall across my neck and kill me.
Keep in mind that not everyone lifts weight purely for the purpose of getting YUUGE, some of us do it to keep general fitness, strength, and muscle tone. The very idea of doing a 1X max is anathema to why I lift weights.
Keep in mind that not everyone lifts weight purely for the purpose of getting YUUGE, some of us do it to keep general fitness, strength, and muscle tone. The very idea of doing a 1X max is anathema to why I lift weights.
Sure.
And a popular misconception is you do 1rep maxes to build muscle. 1rep maxes won't build muscle. Time under tension is too low. They're for displaying strength. You build muscle in the 15-30 rep ranges most optimally provided you go to failure. Maybe 8-15 can occasionally be useful. 3-8 is for developing strength, not muscle. 1 rep is what you to do to showcase the strength/muscle you added on the higher rep schemes.
Just want to point this out because people often make this mistake. A lot of young men go for 1rep maxes thinking that's how they will add the most muscle. The opposite is the case.
But you do need to go to failure. When I see people doing 15-30 rep ranges, most often none of those reps are even approaching failure. If you don't fail on your lifts, you won't be putting on muscle for long.
I've been pinned before on a standard bench press, which is one of the reasons I don't use clips, that way if I get into serious trouble and can't roll it forward, I can dump the weights to the side. Can't see it clearly from my phone but that looks like a funky weight bench.
Why would you attempt to lift so much weight by yourself in an empty gym?
Watched from a larger screen and saw that he was using clips. Sad, RIP.
Last edited by flamadiddle; 09-28-2023 at 01:26 PM..
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