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Modern Meathead Notes:

• People on social make crazy claims all the time for the sake of views. It’s important to trust your gut when you sense that someone is saying something outlandish for the sake of it.

• Any exercise that shoves the arm backward - behind the body - will require all of the chest to contract to some degree.

• Bench press tips for growing the chest specifically:

  • Use a grip which stacks the elbow directly underneath of the forearm at the bottom of the press.

  • Don’t be tied to touching your chest. Use the range that’s comfortable for you with higher efforts.

  • Use the bottom 60-70% of the motion to maximize chest involvement and to minimize technical breakdown which would take tension away from the chest.

  • Add pauses at the bottom position to make sure you’re capturing that position if you’re having trouble doing it.

  • Keep a proud chest by arching your back - but don’t intentionally “pin” your shoulder blades back (allow them to move as necessary).

  • Think about pressing from the elbows, rather than the hands.

Weekly Meathead Deep-Dive - Troubleshooting Presses

People typically have one of these experiences when pressing:

1. “Presses feel amazing. Never had a single problem with any variation. Not even a little.”

2. “Every press I do feels like dogsh*t. Nothing I do works. I have pain in every position and I can’t feel my pecs!”

And neither individual understands where the other comes from.

Today, we’re going to talk about pressing - and how to understand it.

Whether you’re person #1 or #2, I guarantee you’ll find at least one of these 6 tips to be useful in your training.

Tip #1 - Assess Comfortable Joint Position First

People often make the mistake of beginning to press without any concern or respect for what their joints may or may not be comfortable doing.

Range of motion should be specific to the individual. You cannot and should not generalize range of motion as a “more is better” concept.

And many of the pressing implements we use - like barbells and machines - do a great job of allowing us to ‘hide’ behind the constraints of the implement, making it appear like we have total control over the motion we’re performing (while our joints might disagree).

For example: anyone can sit down on a smith machine and begin pressing with a technique that looks like a press.

Why?

Because the machine has a fixed path that we cannot deviate from.

As a consequence, the machine acts as a false representation of an appropriate press for that individual - even when that individual may not be comfortably aligned with how the machine moves.

Even when using dumbbells or cables - pressing exercises that are less constrained - it is common for the individual to be “smushed” by the weights rather than controlling them.

So what does assessing a comfortable position look like?

First, lie or sit down on the implement of your choosing.

Next, pull your arms into the position that you imagine yourself lowering into during your press.

Then ask:

1. Is this a position that I can actively contract into?

2. Is it a comfortable position for me?

3. Can I move through this range without any negative feedback?

If the answer to all of the above questions is ‘yes’, then you’re at least in the ballpark of what might be an appropriate setup for you.

After you’ve assessed that range, you then need to identify the restrictions in shoulder rotation you feel in the bottom position.

Once you’ve done that - and you’ve ensured you have enough ‘wiggle room’ in the bottom position - now you’re ready to load that range.

Tip #2 - Coach the Arm, Not the Weights

Exercise is human motion with added resistance - not the other way around.

Understanding the resistance you’re using - and its direction - is paramount to execution.

However, shoving against the resistance should not be prioritized over understanding how our bones move.

The upper arm bone (the humerus) moves in an arc whenever we press.

This means that the direction your upper arm pivots throughout the range of a press is constantly changing.

If you do not have a clear picture of where the upper arm is moving - and when it changes direction - your brain will organize your body in any number of ways to accomplish the goal of shoving something away from the body.

How many times have you seen someone ‘shrugging’ or ‘rounding’ as they press?

Or ‘crunching’ the abs in an attempt to move more load?

These compensations arise from not paying attention to where the upper arms are moving to accomplish a press.

Tip #3 - Don’t be Afraid to Load

Once you’ve understood - or coached - the two points above, it’s time to add load (assuming that you or your client has no injury or other non-muscular rate-limiter).

Individuals who struggle to press often flop and flail their arms around when not enough external resistance is applied.

If you do not use enough resistance to require someone’s brain to coordinate the motion with pressing muscles, then they gain the ability to perform the press with anything they can.

These kinds of extremely light presses remind me of a fish out of water.

If the weight we’re lifting is too light, the brain is not constrained by the demand of enough resistance to perform a “press”.

If the brain isn’t constrained in what motions it must create, then the algorithm for “press” won’t necessarily be selected.

A similar scenario occurs when someone isn’t using enough resistance to perform a pull-down.

Pull-downs that are too light end up looking like a pull-down that transitions into a triceps extension toward the bottom end of the range (which people usually blame on “poor mind-muscle connection” instead of poor exercise setup).

The same applies to a press - and although using more load is often intimidating for those who have never done it before, their brain will be able to coordinate the “press” algorithm because they have no other option.

Earlier we discussed the potential downside of using machines.

Machines constrain the path of motion that an individual can use while pressing.

But the flip side of this - assuming we’ve accounted for comfortable joint position - is that using machines requires less coordination compared to free-weight alternatives (and even cables).

This is why beginners especially benefit from more constrained motions.

More constrained motions allow for simpler “press” algorithms because a machine will not deviate in how it moves.

And, interestingly enough, when individuals learn to press on machines, they typically have a much easier time coordinating less-constrained motions afterward (like DB and cable press).

This is a strategy that I’ve used with several complete beginner clients that have never lifted before - start with a more constrained press to teach the basic skill, and then introduce motions that are less constrained afterward.

You’ll be surprised at how much easier the free-weight options are to coach after someone has created an internal program for “press”.

To read the next 3 tips, subscribe to the Daily Meathead for just 16 cents per day.

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• How changing grip can totally change the muscle game.

• Why arching your back is a generally good strategy for training pecs.

• Why resistance direction is crucial to learn about and adjust.

• How to coach people that struggle with understanding resistance.

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