How low on bench and shoulder press?

[Adamo]

I've been getting different info about how low I should go with the bar when doing barbell bench presses and doing dumbbell shoulder presses. I thought I read somewhere that going too low can put stress on the rotator cuff.

On the bench should I be lowering the bar down so that it touches my chest?

And, on the dumbbell shoulder presses should my upper arm go below horizontal?

Any input would be appreciated

thanks

[tooncesthecat]

Yes and yes. You should have no problems from going to your chest and below parallel unless you have some existing shoulder trouble. Just use light weight if you are not used to either of these movements until you build up proper strength in the shoulders. Do some rotator cuff exercises.

[wil]

Yes to both.

[katz7479]

heres a tip if I am guessing why you have asked this because at your gym you see the half rep'rs the guys that ethier go half up or half down on the bench the best way to learn about lifts is using this link. I have learnd alot from this website and have correctd my form in a variety fo lifts.

Bodybuilding.com - #1 Exercises Guide - Over 300 Exercises!

like i said great website

[painless2]

Go down to where is comfortable for you. I go to slightly below a basic parallel on bench as there is little extra benefit from going deeper and with shoulder presses it's about the same.

[skijumpbump]

Originally Posted by katz7479

half rep'rs the guys that ethier go half up

I like to do this some times to really target the chest, I don't recommend doing this on every set of all of your bench presses, but it is a good way to not involve the triceps and just hit your chest for a good burn after all of your work sets.

What I HATE are the guys who load up the bar with tons of weight and then only lower it about six inches on every rep. To the OP, please don’t be one of those guys. For most bench sets lower the bar to your chest in a slow controlled manner until it touches your chest, pause for a second, then press it up with power.

[Carnitas]

Also, don't bounce it off your chest! I hate when I see guys doing that. Its fine to lower it to your chest, and even have the bar touching, but don't use your chest to bounce it up so its easier to lift the bar.

[Steel_UK]

I bring the bar down to my chest under normal benching, and on the dumbbell shoulder pressing I bring the dumbbells down till they touch my shoulders.

[torofuerte]

Originally Posted by Adamo

I've been getting different info about how low I should go with the bar when doing barbell bench presses and doing dumbbell shoulder presses. I thought I read somewhere that going too low can put stress on the rotator cuff.

On the bench should I be lowering the bar down so that it touches my chest?

And, on the dumbbell shoulder presses should my upper arm go below horizontal?

Any input would be appreciated

thanks

It can, but only if you never take care of working the antagonistics, the external shoulder rotators (infraspinatus and teres major), the internal shoulder rotator muscle (subscapularis), the supraspinatus and the serratus anterior as well as maintaining flexibility on your external shoulder rotators, pec minors and upper thoraccic mobility.

Simple test: Wall Shoulder Girdle Stretch

If a person has difficulty doing that, or if he/she sees that one arm is more inflexible than the other, chances are that the person is well on his way of shoulder problems... even if he/she doesn't feel any pain right now.

Shoulder problem does not occur overnight, nor of pressing, but of a long and continuous pattern of an excess of pressing/pushing exercises in relation to pulling exercises.

You need to keep a ration of 2:1 on pulling in relation to pushing to maintain long-term health of the shoulder. And by pulling I don't mean just barbell rows or pull ups/pull downs, but on active external rotation pulling like face pulls.

The shoulder and shoulder blades have 4 basic ranges of movement:

1. Protraction - pushing forward and "shrugging" your shoulders forwards, as in push ups, push up "plus" and plyometric push ups.

2. Retraction - when you retract the shoulder blades on the top of a row (or when you retract them in preparation for a bench press.)

3. Elevation - shrugs.

4. Depression - the bottom part of a dip pushing the shoulders further down.

Now, the bench press is a funny animal. You push, but you do not perform protraction. You retract your shoulder blades for safety (if you don't, you are a moron, you are going to nuke your shoulders.)

Then people try to balance that "pushing" movement with, say, rows (which also do retraction) or pull downs (which do not much retraction or protraction at all.)

So, even if you are trying to balance your pushes and your pulls, you are still doing predominant retraction movements with little protraction. This is another reason for shoulder pain on the long run.

Add push ups (either regular, pdepth or plyos or push up plus) on a regular basis. This adds protraction to your shoulder training. It's is an exercise that you can do pretty much every day. Depth push ups work your serratus anteriors (thus avoiding wing scapula syndrome.)

In addition to that, do face pulls and stretch your internal and external shoulder rotators ALWAYS. Never let those suckers get inflexible. Never.

And last but not least, aim to do a couple of sets of push ups on a medicine ball regularly. Make it part of your warm up everytime you go to the gym. The instability of the ball forces you to recruit not only the pushing muscles, but the antagonists. The added instability forces the shoulders to work as a whole, and since it's just a couple of sets, it won't drain you and turn detrimental to your training.

Then you can bench press almost any way you want without having to worry about fuckign up your shoulders.

If you have already messed them up, then you'll have to work around, avoid certain types of exercises. A messed up shoulder almost surely stays with you for life.

[Cicero]

As torofuerte says, you should keep your shoulders strong and protected. It's worth it to to the additional exercises to maintain shoulder health. Once you damage them, you will live with that for life.

[painless2]

Never do what you're "supposed" to do, DO what is comfortable for you to do. There is so much BS and mythology in exercise, a person is their own best judge for whether something hurts, strains, pulls etc..., so use a comfortable range of motion that works for you, there is not perfect answer aside from that.

[TommuGuns]

Originally Posted by painless2

Never do what you're "supposed" to do, DO what is comfortable for you to do. There is so much BS and mythology in exercise, a person is their own best judge for whether something hurts, strains, pulls etc..., so use a comfortable range of motion that works for you, there is not perfect answer aside from that.

I disagree.... there a guys at the gym who dont even do a half rep and go super heavy cos they like to think they are lifting heavy weights. There are proper ways of training and wrong ways of training, its as simple as that.

[painless2]

My point remains that comfortable ROM is fine. Sure, by doing half reps you are not getting a complete recruitment of a muscle along its length, but it's just as silly to say that people must bring a bar to their chest during bench press, as it differs so much from person to person. If a guy wants to do half reps, let him, and if a guy wants to bring the bar to his chest, same thing. You get my point?

[TommuGuns]

No i dont get ur point.... you can try justify poor form however u like. You are only lying to yourself, its your results which are going 2 suffer.

Just giving my opinion. There are right ways and wrong ways to train... there is no in between.

[painless2]

At what point did I advocate poor form? I think you know I never did, I simply said to use a comfortable range of motion. I'm pretty sure I know how to train. I think what you need to grasp is the concept of functional range of motion and absolute range of motion, the difference is dramatic and the amount of work done by the muscles targeted varies greatly.

[Steel_UK]

Another thing by the way TommuGuns, what about board benching? As that's not bringing the bar all the way down to the chest... So do you dislike that or what?

[TommuGuns]

Originally Posted by painless2

At what point did I advocate poor form? I think you know I never did, I simply said to use a comfortable range of motion. I'm pretty sure I know how to train. I think wha