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Where to hold the barbell for the bench press [Article, Free Download]

Posted by Pascal Landshoeft

Feb 7, 2019 9:30:00 AM

Where to hold the barbell for the bench press

Where to hold the barbell for the bench press

You can hold in the middle, close or wide. Close puts emphasis on the triceps while wide maximizes chest pump. The middle is the way to go to post big one repetition maximums. 

Bench press calculator

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What is your why 

Before we move on to where to hold the barbell for the bench press let me ask you a couple of questions. 

 

  • Why do you want to bench press 
  • Why do you want to be stronger 
  • Why do you want to pack on muscle 
  • What happens if you do 
  • What happens if you don’t 

 

You might think that these questions are trivial. They will majorly determine your success. The difference between long-term commitment and short-lived effort is the underlying value set. Digging deeper on why you hit the gym and how it makes a difference to your life will make you enjoy the process more. It will also make you more likely to succeed. Most people go about their lives in this fashion:

 

  • What do I want 
  • How do I get it 
  • Why do I want it 

 

With this thought pattern, you will most likely life your life more reactively and less happy. Your body and mind are continuously exposed to external factors. These you can not change that much. What you want on a daily basis is highly depending on your environment. You will be steered by your instincts and emotions. Most of the marketing nowadays is geared towards exploiting this system. If you flog the order to 

 

  • Why do you want something 
  • How do you get it 
  • What do you need to do 

 

The dynamic changes. You will mainly focus on the underlying motivations rather than the external triggers to decide what you do. All of your thoughts and actions are more likely to be connected what matters most to you. This will make you happier and experience more meaning in your life. Once that starts your friends and family will also pick up on it and relationships will improve. 

 

If you are not convinced yet read Daniel Kahneman's book thinking fast and slow. He also has an interesting TED talk which separates the experienced from the remembering self. Furthermore, Simon Sinek makes a very compelling case telling the story of the Wright brothers. Look up his talk on the golden circle.

 

If you are interesting in resetting your mind to be happier and more successful get the Self Journal. For me, it is the single best tool I have to be more productive and positive. It has a major influence on keeping this blog going. 

 

The bench press 

 

The bench press is the most iconic exercise in the gym you can do. Any movie montage in an action or fight movie involves some kind of bench pressing. If you want to speculate on why the bench press is popular you can pick up some of my thoughts on this article. 

 

The bench press is one of three big lifts which form the sport of powerlifting. The other two are the squat and the deadlift. The bench press is usually the one beginners find easiest to perform. For professionals, this dynamic changes as the bench press is the only one of the three where commands are given in the middle of the lift. This is why many professionals find the bench press to be the most technically challenging of the three. 

 

The bench press itself mainly trains your chest, triceps, biceps and back muscles. Depending on how you perform it you can put more emphasis on different parts of your chest. Variations of the flat barbell bench press are: 

 

 

The world record for the raw bench currently hovers around 350kg. There are also some who have bench pressed 1000 pounds in a shirt. Equipped lifting has experienced a bit of a downturn in the last years. Raw lifting is on the rise. 

 

To perform a good barbell bench press follow these steps:

 

  1. Set up the J cups on the rack at the right height. You should be able to pop the bar out by straightening your arms. You should be able to rerack by keeping your arms straight and slightly falling back. 
  2. Make sure that the bar is loaded symmetrically 
  3. Grip the bar depending on your need 
  4. Turn in your elbows 
  5. Squeeze the bar tightly 
  6. Build an arch (if you chose the powerlifting style) 
  7. Unrack the bar 
  8. Get the bar in position 
  9. Lower the bar to the chest 
  10. Press up to lockout

 

Rinse and repeat for excellent results. 

 

The biggest advantages of the bench press are that it is easy to learn and builds your chest. It’s best suited to lower rep work and adding plates. 

 

The biggest disadvantages of the bench press are that it mainly focuses on the chest and does not attack it from various angles. For nice round pecs, attack them with dumbbells from many angles. 

 

Wide grip bench press

 

The wide grip bench press is a very good option to stretch your chest and make it grow. You grip the bar at the outer knurling and do your reps. 

 

This usually lowers the weight you can move. Also ease into the wide grip bench press slowly. This movement is prone to leave stretch marks when overdone. 

 

A wider grip can also be of interest for powerlifters. Especially when you use a shirt that helps in the lower part of the lift. The wider the grip, the smaller your range of motion. Weigh up leverage against a range of motion based on your build. 

 

The biggest advantages of the wide grip bench press are its smaller range of motion and bigger stimulation of the chest muscle. This comes at the expense of lesser stimulation for the triceps and higher risk of stretch marks. 

 

Close grip bench press 

 

The close grip places your hands right at the inner knurling. As with the wide grip bench press you will move less weight. The leverages are less favourable than placing your hands one thumb inwards from the knurling. 

 

By gripping closer, you put more emphasis on the triceps instead of the chest. Often the triceps builds the limiting factor to the max bench press. If you want to bring your bench press maximum up the close grip bench press is probably a better option than the wide grip bench press. 

 

The biggest advantage of the close grip bench press is the impact, not the triceps. This comes at the expense of less pump in the chest and higher risk for injuries if the elbow and wrist.

 

One rep max bench press grip

 

If you are after a big bench press maximum you will grip the bar somewhere between the wide and close grip. This way you get better leverages and full activation of all muscle groups involved.

 

A good starting point is to go one thumb length away from the inner knurling. This way you always set up the same way without too much hassle. After you have learned the bench press proper you can test around this landmark to optimize.

 

Smaller lifters are usually better off going a little narrower while bigger lifters go wider as their bodies otherwise simply get int the way. Look at the suicide grip as a further variation. In this version, you do not wrap your thumb around the barbell. Be sure that you already have mastered the bench press, start with lower weight and have a spotter for big weights when you use the suicide grip. 

 

The biggest advantages with a grip in the middle are that it maximizes strength and minimize injury risk to tissue or bone. At the same time, you will not build an amazing chest or massive triceps. 

 

Where to hold the barbell for the bench press 

 

Start with what instinctively feels safest to you. This is usually somewhere in the middle. Once you have perfected the basic bench press start using the close grip and wide grip based on your goals. Bodybuilders will use the wide grip bench press more while powerlifters will be pulled towards the close grip variation. 

Most popular Rogue bars in 2020

This is an overview of the most popular Rogue barbells per views and click through rates for Marathon-Crossfit.com in 2020. If you want more details on how the data was collected you can dig deeper in what were the most popular Rogue products in 2020.

Most popular rogue bars in 2020

 
This is an overview of the most popular barbells on Marathon-CrossFit.com during 2020. The ranking is as followed:
 
 
That the operator bar was so popular on Marathon-CrossFit in 2020 came as a surprise to me. It is one of the cheaper Rogue barbells which still has a cool name rather than being a variation of the Rogue Ohio barbell. If you want to feel a little more camouflaged in your life, go with this one. You can read the full review of the operator bar via this link.
 
The West side bar is a variation of the Ohio bar specifically for powerlifting. It is very similar to the Rogue Ohio power bar which recently has gotten a little more attention from influencers. This is a solid bar if you do not intend to do the Olympic lifts and stick to the bench press, deadlift, and barbell back squat in your training. You can read the full review of the west side bar via this link.
 
The Rogue Russian bar is another surprise on the Marathon-CrossFit popularity list. While it is one of the most expensive bars you can get from Rogue I personally find that it is more of a collector's item with nostalgia attached to it. It is a great piece of craftsmanship to recreate a bar from the Soviet era. Unfortunately, the collar system is not used in competition anymore and also tenders the bar useless once you lose one of the collars. Rogue also does not provide an option to buy the custom collars separately in case you do lose them. Based on this I would take the Pyrros bar over the Russian bar any given day for this budget. You can read the full review of the Rogue Russian bar by following this link.
 
The Rogue Multi-grip bar is a great additional tool to bring your bench press training to the next level. Especially if you are a big fan of the Westside training method as it asks for many grip variations. This bar might not be your first purchase, but fun addition to your gym once all the essentials are covered. You can read the full review of the Rogue Multi-grip bar by following this link.
 
The Chan bar is my personal favorite if you want to do it all with your barbell. It is reasonably priced, has a cool design, and can be used for Olympic lifts and the big three alike. If you are a CrossFit fan who wants to workout from home, this is a great pick. You can read the full review of the Rogue Chan bar by following this link.
 

Classic barbell

The classic barbell is what you you will find in most gyms. They vary widely in their quality with the York ones being the most cost efficient and therefore at the lower end of the quality range. You might find barbells with bushing or bearing, still most of them will have bushing in your local gym.

If your local gym is serious about lifting you might find specific olympic weightlifting and powerlifting barbells. These have a more aggressive knurl to ensure more grip for the professionals. You will experience these to be rougher on your skin which has the benefit of being able to lift more and the downside of higher likelihood to get your skin damaged.

In addition the knurl marks are slightly different between olympic and powerlifting bars to show you where to put your hands. Usually the powerlifting bars are built to withhold more psi (basically tells you how mch weight you can put on the bar until it breaks) than olympic bars due to the fact that there is more load moved in the powerlifts than in olympic lifts. 

Lifting is not always for beginners. You need proper technique, balance and a bit of strength to do it. Otherwise you might hurt your shins on the deadlift or pulll some muscles when squatting. Improper squatting might also harm your spine. So get proper advise or start deadlifting with other bars.

 

Further reading 

 

Topics: Lift stronger, Bench Press, Fitness, Strength, Barbell