Bench press touch chest or no

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello

for the flat and incline barbell bench predd

for bodybuilding and hypertrophy

Do we get more growth and hypertrophy if we touch our chest on these moves and not bounce, or is it better to keep the bar a little above the chest? Would doing the latter put more emphasis on chest and less on the assisting muscles and thus promote more chest
growrh? Or former promotes more chest growth?

2

We don’t really know, but based on existing literature surrounding mechanisms and contributors to growth, we’d predict potentially more hypertrophy from touching the chest vs not. Reducing the ROM does not put more emphasis on the muscles of the chest. Gun to head, I don’t think there would be a significant difference.