Bench press articles

“mental cues for big presses”

By Ian Smalley

Often times over the course of a lifters career they will develop mental cues that help them to visualize proper form or activate a particular muscle group necessary to proper bench press form. I’ve compiled a short list of tried and true mental cues for benchpressing  that should help you if you are struggling.

1. P1. Pushing yourself into the bench. Rather than focusing on pressing the bar away from your body once it’s touched your sternum, push yourself down into the bench. This helps to keep your body tightness during the press and also helps to align your body correctly under the weight. Your mind has an easier time controlling your own bodies actions than it does controlling the weight. By allowing your mind to focus on pushing you away from an inanimate object, like a wall, or in this case the weight, your mind will always position your body in a state of maximum leverage. When you focus on the path that the weight is traveling in relation to your body your mind will constantly make corrections or over-corrections that can lead to missed attempts. Keep it simple, and press yourself into the bench to maintain proper bench press form.

2. S2. Spreading the Bar. This goes hand in hand with number 1. Once the weight touches your sternum, focus on spreading the bar apart in your hands. This helps to engage the triceps effectively as well as initiating the flaring of the elbows on the ascent. The bar path will be shorter and lockout more forceful when you use this cue. The reverse of this action would be to try and pull the bar together. This is used in bodybuilding as it engages the chest and delts, which is great for building your chest but bad for locking out big benches, so spread the bar.

3. T3. The immovable object. One of the main contributors to missed presses, especially with a bench shirt is lack of tightness. So often a lifter will be very tight in the arms but not the lats. Or be tight in the upper body but leave the lower body lax. If you get loose at any point in the movement you’ll often either collapse and loose your arch, stall out on the press, or dump. The key is to tense your ENTIRE body and hold it in a state of static tension throughout the lift. From your hands all the way down to your feet, once you are in position to take the weight you become an immovable object. When you squeeze your entire body the weight will not only feel much lighter, but you will be able to hold your body position throughout the entire movement without breaking proper bench press form. So think of yourself as though you cannot be bent, broken, or otherwise moved.

4. Pull the bar out of the rack This simple set up cue will solve all of your upper body position problems in one move. After you get arched up, tuck your shoulders beneath you, pinch your upper back, and grab the bar, you’re ready to take the weight. Many lifters then try and press the weight out of the rack, and in doing so completely undo their set up and end up flat backed with shoulders out and forward. If your try to PULL the bar out off the rack with your lats, you’ll remain in the proper position with you’re shoulders tucked in beneath you and your arch intact. Your hand off guy will have to do a bit more work this way to hand the weight out to you, but that’s his job anyway right, so pull the weight out of the rack and save you’re set up.