Bench press: technique and the evolution of records

The following text comes from the T Nation article “The Best Damn Bench Press Article Period”, a comprehensive and good piece. Who knows, perhaps I will translate another bit or two from it someday.

Like it or not, the bench press is and remains one of the main exercises for showing upper-body strength. From time to time, critics have tried to diminish the reputation and importance of the bench press by pinning “labels” on it such as “injury-prone,” “non-functional” or “pointlessly overrated.” Despite these attempts, the bench press was, is and will remain, and it isn’t going anywhere. And for a very good reason. There is no other lift that defines upper-body strength as well as the bench press.

Translator’s note: at this point I’m stepping in, because I must add to the article that it would be more correct to say that “the bench press is the best exercise for showing the overall level and strength of the pressing movement”. Let’s not forget pull-ups. When we talk about the upper body and measuring its overall strength level, we should always assess it separately, either through the pressing movement or through the pulling movement. It is absolutely wrong to claim, and to generalize, that only pull-ups or only the bench press are the best exercises for showing upper-body strength. That would be the same as claiming that the barbell biceps curl shows overall arm strength or is the best exercise for assessing arm strength. That exercise does not show overall arm strength in any way. The biceps only shows the strength level of elbow flexion. If the triceps is weak and gets no attention, the biceps curl tells you nothing about the strength level of the triceps or of the arms overall. After all, these are antagonist muscles (biceps and triceps), meaning muscles that work in completely opposite directions. Back to the translation:

What other exercise demands this much leg involvement, adequate lat engagement and the maximally coordinated effort of the shoulders, pecs and triceps? What other upper-body exercise allows such heavy weights and, with its biomechanical structure (horizontal press), is nonetheless specific (functional) to so many sports?

The answer is that there is no other exercise like it!

In powerlifting, the bench press is one of the three competition lifts. Many different training methods are used to increase pressing strength. Bodybuilders bench mainly to develop the pecs and triceps. “Gym rats” revere and love the bench press so fervently that Monday, the first day of the week, could easily be renamed “press day.” Hardened “gym wolves” usually start their splits and their training week with the bench press.

The bench press is also used in the NFL as one of the main lifts for measuring athletes’ upper-body strength and endurance. And it isn’t only the NFL: pressing is used as a test exercise in other sports too. Despite all of the above, the more serious strength-sport community has never been willing to accept the bench press as one worthwhile and important exercise, and has not seen a need to value it.

The history of the bench press…

In the days when the bench press was first being tried out, standing exercises dominated; only those were seen as indicative of strength and as manly. Classic lifters despised and mocked the “pretty boys” who lay on a bench and simply moved the barbell up and down. But a lot changed when male bodybuilders began to attract the attention of the opposite sex with their well-developed pecs. As a result, quite a few lifters added the bench press to their programs.

The traditional bench press we know today has in fact undergone quite a development over time. People have pressed simply from the floor over the neck/chest, from the floor from a bridge, from a bridge on the stomach with a hip thrust, all the way to the variations practiced by bodybuilders and powerlifters today.

The very first style of the bench press was the floor press, performed with proper technique and from a dead stop on the floor. In 1899, George Hackenschmidt, the inventor of the “Hack” squat, rolled a 164 kg barbell lying beside him over his face to above his chest and pressed it up cleanly from the floor. That result stood for 18 years, until in 1916 Joe Nordquest broke the record by 2 pounds.

Around the same time, new bench press methods and techniques began to spread. Strongmen started to realize how important a role the hips and glutes can play in getting the barbell off the ground to above the chest. People began to press with the barbell starting on the stomach (above the stomach), and as the press began, a powerful upward thrust was made with the glutes and a bridge was used. That way the barbell was thrown forcefully upward and the arms were simply locked out at the top.

The heaviest weight pressed with this technique is 201 kg, and it belongs to the heavyweight wrestler Georg Lurich, who made that lift in 1902. More and more critics appeared who thought that this kind of swinging, hip-jerk press up from the stomach was rather a whole-body or hip exercise, no longer so much a press or an exercise showing upper-body pressing strength. The triceps was needed only enough to lock the weight out above the chest.

In the lighter weight class, Arthur Saxon used the same technique to hoist 175 kg, and in 1917 Joe Nordquest broke that record too, by 2 pounds. The bench press technique described here dominated until the 1920s–1930s.

Around the 1930s it became clear that the starting position of the press was still the bridge. Lifters no longer pressed so much from the stomach but more from the chest, and the bench press began to look more like a floor press at a negative incline. A variant was also used in which the starting position was the same bridge described above, but a little acceleration from the hips was allowed. Even so, the chest muscles and triceps still had to do the work.

This pressing technique didn’t last either, once Bill Lilly, thanks to his extremely flexible spine and hips, began setting numerous records. His spine was so flexible that he pushed himself up into such a high “bridge” that he practically no longer had to perform a pressing movement at all. The bridge was so high that in the starting position the barbell was already almost against his stomach (almost as if it were already up), and there was really very little left to press. Coaches soon realized how absurd this pressing technique was.

Lilly’s flexible spine gave the further development of bench press technique a new push. His 220 kg press in his own technique remained unbeaten even through the 1930s.

In 1939 the AAU declared pressing in a bridge invalid, and the new standard became a technique that actually consisted of a pullover and a press. While pressing, the legs had to be straight and together, with the buttocks on the ground. Nevertheless, many wrestlers carried on pressing “in a bridge”. Pressing in a “bridge” in itself demanded unprecedented neck strength.

It was only several decades after the first bench presses that lifters arrived at using small boxes and plank benches. People began to understand that pressing while lying on a box or a bench allows significantly greater chest muscle activation and increases the range of motion of the press. By the 1940s, gyms were in fact using all the previously tried versions of the press: pressing from the floor from a dead stop with pure strength, pressing from the stomach with a push and hip extension, pressing simply from the floor but with a big bridge, and finally the already traditional bench press on a bench.

On records…

In the fifties, bodybuilding began to gain more and more popularity. So did the idea that for muscle building it is most beneficial to use the maximum range of motion. It is fair to say that by the fifties the bench press had become the king of upper-body exercises. Pressers grew stronger, spotting became more competent, technique improved, supportive equipment that helps with pressing appeared, and bench press records began to climb.

In the fifties Doug Hepburn was the first man to press 400 pounds (182 kg), soon also 500 pounds (227 kg), and he did it with a pause on the chest. The first 600 pounds (272.5 kg) presser was Pat Casey, in the 1960s. 700 pounds (318 kg) was pressed for the first time in the 1980s, and the first 700-pound presser was Ted Arcidi. The first 800 pounds (363.5 kg) presser was Tim Isaac in the late nineties. At the turn of the century (the new millennium), in its first years, the first 900 pounds (409 kg) presser was Gene Rychlak. A little while after pressing 900 pounds, Gene Rychlak was also the first 1000 pounds (454.5 kg) presser.

The world record is currently held by Ryan Kennelly, who in 2008 pressed 1075 pounds (488.5 kg) with equipment. The world record for pressing without equipment is held by Scot Mendelson, who in 2005 pressed 715 pounds (325 kg).

As we can see, the bench press has come a long way and has caused its share of controversy and talk. These have ranged from unrestrained pressing being blamed for disproportionate upper-body development to various debates about technique. This controversy and debate continues today. People are still discussing the optimal technique, which technique would be safer, and just how functional this exercise really is.

Just as pressing on the floor in a “bridge” raised big doubts in the early days of the bench press, today there are very many people who do not value the “bridge” pressing technique used in powerlifting. The same goes for bench shirts: very many don’t consider a lift pressed in a shirt a special feat.

Despite everything, one thing is certain: pressers will always keep looking for ways to get even better, to press even more.

Translator’s note: I definitely recommend that interested readers read this story to the end in the original article. It covers technique and data from scientific studies, and gives tips for improving the different phases of the press!

Author: Janar Rückenberg (translation)

Source:Turg.Fitness.ee

Come and train! ArtGym