In a previous question here you mentioned you don’t teach the “bend the bar” external rotation cue for the bench. Is there a reason why?
In a similar vein, I’ve often been told to “row the bar to the chest” or “pull the bar down,” and also to “push the bench away” on the ascent, presumably to help maintain tightness and back arch. What do you think of these?
I ask because my benching is generally a little sloppy, even at lighter weights, and after soliciting help from powerlifters at my gym, I’ve gotten a huge variety of advice and it’s hard to tell the good from the bad.
Do you have any favorite cues? Conversely, are there any common bench cues that you feel are wrongheaded and shouldn’t be used?
Thanks for your time and for sharing your knowledge.
Similar to people “pulling the bar down” across their back in the squat, I’ve seen lots of folks who end up with elbow irritation and pain from using these sorts of cues. If “bend the bar” or “rip the bar apart” is just being used to cue the lats … I’d rather cue the lats more directly (e.g, “tuck shoulder blades into back pockets”).
I have never used (with myself or anyone else) the cue “row the bar to the chest”, because gravity tends to do a fantastic job of bringing the bar down for you. That cue might be more useful if you’re trying to bench 225 in a bench shirt and can’t physically get it to touch your chest, but otherwise I don’t see the utility of it for typical raw lifters. Maintaining tightness and back arch is usually better maintained by 1) cueing leg drive on the eccentric and concentric and 2) directly telling the lifter to “puff the chest up to the bar”.
I don’t have many “favorite” cues, but some of the things that I find myself saying commonly are
retracting and depressing the shoulder blades during the set up (e.g., the “back pockets” cue above),
pressing the bar up and BACK off the chest (e.g., towards your spotter’s head), and
teaching lifters to use leg drive on both the eccentric AND concentric (most people just do it on the concentric).