Is Bench Press all that bad??

The bench is fine as long as you do not take your elbows past the 90 degree mark. Do them as if you are laying on a floor and cannot take your elbows back past your body.

quote:

Originally posted by hsballcoach:
The bench is fine as long as you do not take your elbows past the 90 degree mark. Do them as if you are laying on a floor and cannot take your elbows back past your body.

Agreed.

In other words, don't take the bar down to your chest (because this stresses the muscles of the front of the rotator cuff).

In the same way, when it comes to pushups don't bring your chest down to the floor.

Does stressing the muscles in front of the rotator cup make the rotator cuff more prone to injury or is that the injury itself?

Bench isn't bad but you can't do too much weight. My physical therapist from when I was hurt 2 years ago told me it can make you more injury prone because the muscles in your back that declerate have to be strong also.

quote:

Originally posted by Gon2rE22:
Does stressing the muscles in front of the rotator cup make the rotator cuff more prone to injury or is that the injury itself?

You can tear these muscles and weaken them. Once these muscles get weakened, then the whole shoulder can start to become destabilized (because the purpose of these muscles is to hold the shoulder in the sicket).

Benching to build strength during the season can be bad. Benching with medium weight and reps is ok.

You do need to be mindful of your shoulder. Deep benching can hyperflex the shoulder area.

Seek the most current and up to date info on this and other weightlifting related stuff.

Regards,

Someone who been there done that.

The Bench Press itself is not a bad movement. However, I typicaly advise against it because almost everybody does it wrong, no matter how much coaching they receive.

What causes damage to the shoulder is not how deep you go, but rather the position of your body. When the elbows flare out a large amount of undue stress is placed upon the shoulder (rotators). When posture goes (typically with too much weight) and the legs and abs arent working, again the stress is placed upon the shoulders.

In addition most lifter perform a "J Press". When they lift the weight ends upover their eyes or mouth at the top of the lift. Again, this places a great deal of undue stress on the shoulders. The bar should be pressed over the chest or slightly towards the belly button.

Performed correctly the bench places very little, if any, stress on the shoulder and rotators.

But there are not many people who have the overall strength to maintain posture when loads gets above 80%.

Sorry Jon...

A deep bench w/o the elbows flaring out which force the elbows down behind the body places a ton of stress on the shoulder. I couldn't disagree more.

The smartest way to do benches is prevent the elbows from breaking the imaginary plane of the back.

There are many other exercises which are terrible for the rotator cuff also. Basically anyone movement where the arms are raised over the head where the arms are behind the back - lat pulldowns behind the neck, military presses also behind the neck.

Try it. Lay on a bench and allow the elbows to break the plane. Now do the same and do not allow the elbows to break parallel with this plane.

Regards,

Ed

quote:

The smartest way to do benches is prevent the elbows from breaking the imaginary plane of the back.

There are many other exercises which are terrible for the rotator cuff also. Basically anyone movement where the arms are raised over the head where the arms are behind the back - lat pulldowns behind the neck, military presses also behind the neck.

I agree.

I guess we are just going to disagree on this one.

If the body is properly balances a bench press with a % between 40-90% will not cause any significant shoulder stress.

As with most exercises, when athletes get into 1RM and higher %'s is when they get into trouble.

Even the close-packed position you spoke of. With lower percentages, behind the neck work can be done very safely and effectively.

A pitcher certainly gets his arm in that position and too much work in front of the body creates a lack of dynamic flexibility which will lead to stress on the shoulder.

I agree that heavy work should not be done in that position, but it certainly needs to be developed in a dynamic fashion.

Let me first say that I have the utmost respect for Jon. What I have read from him is good stuff. I will say that there are different opinions on the aspect of weight training and some of the exercises discussed. I had the opportunity to have the head trainer for a major league club speak to our players last week and his recommendation was the advice I gave earlier. No bench with the elbows going past the plane on the back. He also recommended avoiding any lifts above the head due to possible shoulder impingement as well as only doing lat pull-downs in front and to the chest and not behind the head. These are things that we had in place with our program already. Others may certainly do it differently and that is fine. I do think it is important to note that Jon pointed out the importance of lighter weights in this area. But we currently avoid these lifts.

I was a strength coach for the University of Nebraska and for the KC Royals organization and we performed bench presses at both places. Each had a slightly different philosophy but both went through the entire range of motion.

At Husker Power the problem with bench was that you are laying on your back. You don't play baseball on your back so that lift wasn't focused on but it was part of the program and they went all the way down.

The Royals also did bench press. They only used dumbells and they never let their arms abduct more than 90 degrees. But they insisted on their players going all the way down.

Doing an exercise without going through the entire range of motion is going to cause a decrease in the range of motion.

Mike Griffin
No Excuses Baseball
www.noexcusesbaseball.com

quote:

They only used dumbells and they never let their arms abduct more than 90 degrees. But they insisted on their players going all the way down.

Mike,
Calling you to task on this, especially since you put in the plug for your site

Can you explain what the difference is between going all the way down but not allowing your arms to abduct more than 90 degrees?

Ed

PS: Going to take a look at your site now...

Hsballcoach,

I completely agree that there are different opinions and this thing can be debated about forever.

Let me first say I don't even like the bench press all that much. I hardly use it for baseball players, especially in-season.

But to say the exercise is "bad" is incorrect IMO. There are very few "bad" exercises. Just a lot of bad application.

I think most should never touch a bench press because they just cannot check their ego at the door and maintain proper technique and use a realistic weight. Most will use way too much weight and terrible technique.

I wish someone stopped me from all of the benching I did when I was 16!

Certainly the elbows wide bench press creates an unfavorable position for the elbow and causes more stress on the shoulder than keeping the elbows closer. Assuming everything else is equal.

If an athlete gets shoulder pain while using proper technique on the bench press there are larger issues that need to be taken care of before that athlete can bench.

I think your approach is the right one in avoiding these lifts for reasons stated above. There are far more important lifts that should be done.

But I don't see where the 90 degree thing fits here as a be all end all of bench press safety. It is an old "gym myth" as I like to call it.

If the elbows are flared out I understand this logic, but the bench press was never designed to have the elbows out.

Also, overhead lifts can be tremendous for shoulder/upper back strength as well as range of motion. I use a great deal of overhead work and I think lack of overhead work is one reason for extremely poor shoulder/upper back strength, endurance and posture that is rampant in baseball.

But again, the real culprit here is bad application as overhead work using too heavy a load will lead to injury. Using the correct loading and technique (On the push press the hips actually do most of the work) will lead to greater performance and a decrease in injury-risk.

Mojo,

We are talking about the difference between abduction/adduction and flexion/extension. This might not be really easy to explain but I'll try. I'll have you try to do the movements so that you can see them easier.

Imagine standing straight up with your arms by your side. When you raise your arms out to your side so that your arms are parallel with the floor, that would be ABDUCTION of 90 degrees.

Moving your hands back down to your side is ADDUCTION.

Now, raise your arms straight out in front of you. This is FLEXION of 90 degrees.

When you put your arms back down but keep going back so that your elbows are behind your body, that is EXTENSION.

Now we will try to combine the two. ABDUCT your arms out to 90 degrees. Now push your arms forward(FLEXION). When you pull your arms backwards, keeping them out from your body, this is extension. (The extension is what you guys are talking about with the elbows going behind your back.) This is similar to the motion of your shoulder with bench press. I'm just saying that you should only ABDUCT your arms maybe 60 -75 degrees as you are benching. Many people may start with their arms ABDUCTED only 65 degrees but when the weight gets heavy, their elbows flare out, which is the abduction and internal rotation that I don't like.

I know I've probably confused as many people as I've just helped but these are all just technical terms used to described human movements. Some other movements you might have heard are pronation, supination, retraction, and protraction.

I know Jon dislikes bench more than I do for various reasons. I don't really like it that much for performance reasons but I feel like you must have balance from all sides of the joint. If it were a performance reason, I like ground based exercises and bench press is usually done on your back. I prefer to do it while on a stability ball using dumbells.

I hope I've helped more than confused. Feel free to contact me if you have questions or disagree.

Mike Griffin
No Excuses Baseball
www.noexcusesbaseball.com

Jon,

quote:

overhead lifts can be tremendous for shoulder/upper back strength as well as range of motion. I use a great deal of overhead work and I think lack of overhead work is one reason for extremely poor shoulder/upper back strength, endurance and posture that is rampant in baseball.

Its not the overhead, its the way you do it. Behind the neck is NG for the rotator cuff.

Ed

Mike,
Would be nice if you had some stills to demonstrate this.

I don't think the flaring of the elbows really matters. I think its the forced flexion of the shoulder induced by the weight on the bar. The heavier the weight the more the flexion. I believe its this flexion which leads to loosening of the shoulder joint. Leads to subluxation etc.

quote:

Now we will try to combine the two. ABDUCT your arms out to 90 degrees. Now push your arms forward(FLEXION). When you pull your arms backwards, keeping them out from your body, this is extension. (The extension is what you guys are talking about with the elbows going behind your back.) This is similar to the motion of your shoulder with bench press. I'm just saying that you should only ABDUCT your arms maybe 60 -75 degrees as you are benching. Many people may start with their arms ABDUCTED only 65 degrees but when the weight gets heavy, their elbows flare out, which is the abduction and internal rotation that I don't like.

Regards,

Ed

I don't understand how more weight increases flexion. The bar can only go so far and more weight can't make the bar go further than your chest.

I have been around a lot of professionals and experts in this field but I haven't been around any who suggest not to let your elbows go behind your body.

We may just have to agree to disagree.

Mike Griffin
No Excuses Baseball

quote:

I have been around a lot of professionals and experts in this field but I haven't been around any who suggest not to let your elbows go behind your body.

This is a relatively new idea that is designed to keep the shoulder joint in the zone of maximum stability. For example, see...

http://www.wellingtonortho.com/health/shoulder-safe.html

Also, abduction is generally define as taking the upper arm up and away from (and back down to) the side of the torso. Adduction is generally (but not consistently) defined as taking the the elbows either in front of or behind the back. Of course, adduction is also (and confusingly) referred to as horizontal abduction.

When doing the bench press, the upper arm is abducted 90 degrees. What varies is the degree of adduction (it should only be positive and never negative -- or behind the back -- to maximum the stability of the shoulder joint).

Adduction and abduction are opposites. The definition usually used for adduction is to move a limb close to the midline. The definition of abduction is moving a limb away from the midline. You can't both adduct and abduct at the same time. They are opposites. Bench press does not have to occur at 90 degrees abduction.

Mike Griffin
No Excuses Baseball

The way the illustrated person is pitching in the diagram is impossible to do with any real velocity or arm movement. I doubt if any real pitchers can pitch effectively while keeping their elbow close to their side.

quote:

Originally posted by shermanreed:
The way the illustrated person is pitching in the diagram is impossible to do with any real velocity or arm movement. I doubt if any real pitchers can pitch effectively while keeping their elbow close to their side.

That's the problem. Pitching is a dangerous, violent activity. All that you can do is use proper technique, "pre"habilitation and therapies to minimize the damage, and pray that you don't get seriously injured.

Here's a neat fact to show just how "traumatic" pitching can be. The acceleration phase of the overhead throw has been reported to be the fastest human motion recorded. The maximum internal rotation/adduction velocity exceeds 7000 degrees/second and takes .03 to .04 seconds. WOW

To weigh in on the question of exercise safety, I tell the athletes that I work with to work with their head, not over it.