Bench press, odd man out?

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Of all the lifts BP strikes me as one of the most odd from an ‘evolutionary’ perspective. A lot of our diet and compound movements seem to have been needed in human history. IE picking up a heavy weight off the floor? DL pattern. Squatting down to pick up buckets and weight on your back->squat pattern. Lifting something to a higher level for someone else to throw into a pile->standing press.

BP seems to have one of if not the shortest ranges of motion for a major compound exercise, can’t relly think of a past evolutionary movement for it, and yet its considered a tried and true ‘big three’

Why is this the case, and why isn’t say standing press, barbell row, considered among the ‘big’ three instead?

2

Pressing things off of you and applying force with your upper body horizontally seem to fit your definition pretty well.

The Big 3 is from powerlifting, which is a sport of arbitrary movements.

3

but BP isn’t a horizontal force (most of the time) it’s you pressing things against a resistance including gravity, to the exact same height/point (almost). Seems to be no evolutionary need for this, unlike the other movements patterns

Anywyas peeked my interest

4

A few things here:

  1. Bench press is a horizontal pressing movement.
  2. Evolution is not concerned with movements that do not contribute to reproductive success. None of the exercises we’re discussing are relevant to evolution and I think we should stop using that term.
  3. No one has to bench press, but I wouldn’t make up arguments against it either.