Nice bench. Okay, today we're going to go over incline barbell bench press. There's
a standard way that you want to learn an exercise and I'm going to try to do that
as best I can today with this one. Incline barbell bench press. Each exercise
has two things that you have to memorize. One is the body posture and the other
one is the mechanical pattern or the movements. The body posture is every
piece of your body that doesn't move while you do the exercise and the
mechanical pattern of the movement is all of your moving parts and exactly how
they move. There is a model for each exercise. It is not debatable. It's based
on the study of human anatomy, a joint function and muscle function. So each
person does as best they can according to that model including me. So if I tell
you what the model is and then you see that I'm not doing it exactly right, it's
just because I'm human. All of our skeletons are unique and formed
uniquely, screwed together uniquely and operate uniquely. So we can't really
criticize each other. Other than constructive criticism and fine motor
control just means that we all aspire to do it to that model. So if you're supposed
to have your shoulders down and you see somebody hacking their shoulder up, you
can say shoulder down or like in gymnastics and dance and acrobatics
things I'm deeply familiar with, you say point those toes. We actually
say shoulders down also. So on this exercise, first thing is the body
posture. You sit down on the bench and lay back. The only thing in conscious
contact with the bench is the back of my buttocks or hips. I'm sitting in the
crook of the bench and then it crossed the back of my shoulders. That is the
only two pieces of me that are in conscious contact with the bench. The
rib cage does not lie on the bench or conform to the bench ever. Okay, as soon
as I sit down, I know that that rib cage is supposed to be pushed up towards the
ceiling from underneath. The muscles that are on the underneath or backside of my
rib cage push it up. They're back muscles. The very muscles that push your
rib cage up hold your shoulders down. So that's the best example of kill a one
bird with two stones, two birds with one stone I've ever heard. This is the
correct posture and that's it really. Okay, rib cage up, shoulders down. You may
remember we call this the tabletop. It gets its name because it's level when
the rib cage is pushed up from underneath. It's our upper back muscles. What
they what they're doing in order to push that rib cage up and hold the
shoulders down is they're gripping. Okay, you don't have control unless you grip.
Just like if you were holding a bat or a tennis racket or a golf club, you have
to commit your grip on some level in order to control the movement. Okay, now
the mechanical pattern involves what our arms are gonna do once we get this bar.
Okay, I can't go over that part of this exercise until I tell you how we're
gonna get the bar out of the rack. Okay, there's just a couple things that you
have to know. They too are not debatable. They're based on gravity and stress on
our body and just our anatomy. When you hold a bar, you want the bar resting on
the butt of your hand. Okay, so that the bar is directly over these two bones. Okay,
so when you get there, you do not let the bar sit back in the palm of your hand.
Okay, so you just adjust your hands before you have that committed grip to
where you feel that the bar is down near the butt of your hand. Okay, and the forearms,
the forearm bones are right underneath the bar. Now, the most awkward part here
is to get the bar out of the rack. You know, in a perfect world, the bar would
just magically appear above you, but it doesn't do that. So we do not want to
strain ourselves getting the bar out or in the rack. That goes for any other
exercise. Okay, so it's very important to learn how to ideally mount or dismount.
That's when people strain themselves more often, not the repetitions
of the exercise itself. So on this one, you do that first thing where I've
adjusted my hands to where I can feel that it's gonna be, the bar is gonna be
resting in the butt of my hand. And then the moment that we push the bar out of
the rack, the millisecond before that moment, we have to bring our elbows back.
Because if your elbows are back, your forearms are vertically aligned right
underneath the bar. That's how they need to be to push it up. Okay, so you do both
of those with practice. You do it fairly automatically. And then when you push, you
push against the bench. The shoulders have to be against the bench. That's not
natural. You have to think about it and practice it. What's natural is to push
that bar up and the shoulders come up too. Okay, that is wrong. That's actually an
improper use of your shoulders. Okay, the shoulder joint was not designed to
push like that. So there's, and the shoulder joints in there. So the shoulders
have to be stabilized down against the bench in order to push up. The muscles
that actually push the bar up are those muscles of the rib cage. The ones that
have committed to firmly holding that rib cage up and the shoulders down are
tabletop level. It doesn't change its position at all. Okay, so hands, butt of
the hand, the millisecond before I push, the elbows come back and push. The bar
naturally comes over my tabletop. Okay, my arms are locked out. There's a
technically accurate term for that. It's my elbows are fully extended. Your arms
are straight. The bar is balanced over me. My shoulders are against the bench.
That is the correct body posture. Now the mechanical pattern is what we do with
our arms. We simply bend and straighten them. Okay, but how you bend and
straighten them helps a whole lot to do this perfectly from the beginning. If you
learn these things from the beginning and practice them from the beginning,
you'll always do it well. You'll never have bad habits. Bad habits are really
hard to shake. I'm sure you've heard that. So we want the bar to lower in a
vertical plane. Okay, the way to do that is to first of all keep our forearms
vertical underneath that bar. But to think of the elbows, can't bend the arm
without the elbows doing something. The elbows collapse to the side. So the right
elbow goes to the right and the left elbow goes to the left so that my arms
stay right underneath the bar. I look at the bottom of that bar and I lower it to
my tabletop and back. When you do it that way, the muscles of your ribcage do all
the work. That's what we're supposed to be doing.
It's a balance act. Okay, balance and alignment are the same thing or two sides
of the same coin. Only if that bar swerves forward and back as it's coming
down, is there strain on the shoulders or if they're up off the bench. So right
away you can be a masterful exerciser and maintain your upper body. That's why
we're exercising so that you maintain your upper body. You know, it functions
fairly well when we're young adults and then it just deteriorates after that.
Unless you do these exercises, I promise. Okay, now one other mistake that people
tend to make is on the way up, they're going to recruit those shoulders to help
push. Then they come off the bench and the tabletop sinks. Okay, right away you
know because you program your brain to keep that tabletop up that you need
deductions off your total score. So here's one good one. Tabletop up, tabletop
up, tabletop up, boom. I feel the elbows go sideways and back up. Okay, you
always want to fully extend your arms, straight arms, balance the barbell over
you when you're about ready to dismount. Remember that's important. You don't want
to strain yourself in the dismount. Back and then slowly lower that bar. That's
all we're going to do for the day.
