Recently got into a small little debate with an old man and a female fitness instructor.

They say that you should not touch your chest with the bar, it can cause shoulder pain and your chest muscles are stretched too much.

I told them both, bullshit, if you're physically capable to touch your chest comfortably with the bar, you should do so.

Thoughts?

I just recently did a lot of research into this because I wanted to make sure I was using proper form. The consensus seemed to be that unless you have shoulder problems you should touch your chest.

Not touching your chest is still fine if you have shoulder problems though, I guess you just aren't gettting 100% of the workout that way.

This post was edited by Mastersam93 on Jun 29 2017 06:54am

If you don't have a proper arch it may cause shoulder pain depending on many other factors.

Depends on the person

If you bench more than both of them, you're correct.

That is enough to invalidate their opinions.

Full ROM is fine.

This

Chest

And 3 second pause

If your back is flat on the bench with no arc, mechanically speaking you'll be involving shoulders more than they need to be. It'll be harder to increase the weights that way and it's easier to get hurt.

To primarily involve your chest, you gotta push in front of you, slightly angled down (which makes absolutely no fucking sense on a bench that's perpendicular to gravity's pull). So you raise your chest, pinch your shoulder blades and pull your shoulders back to try and sink them into the bench. That also reduces the range of motion a little, gives you the right angle and drastically reduces the shoulder involvement.



tl;dr:

Touch chest.
Idiots who say don't touch chest are retarded.

This post was edited by CMBurns on Jun 29 2017 07:02pm

if u gota post on the internet
cuz yur insecure baout
touching chest
stop going to the gym
c u at ballet