• FreeTrainers.com Forums
• General Fitness & Exercise
• Tall Man, Confused about bench press...

Group: General Fitness & Exercise

Tall Man, Confused about bench press...

knuhkles Posts: 62 Joined: 2004/01/25	2004/04/04, 07:56 AM I have a question??(If you havent noticed) On the flat bench press, I dont know where to put my hands. When I took weight tranning class in grade school, the instructor told us all to put on thumbs on the edge where the rivets ended (in the middle of the bar) and then close grip from their, but Ive been working out with some one whos is only average height(6'0) and we started at the same weight. He seems to be progessing more than me faster, is my hand postion a factor on how much im progressing on my weight?? Also, I asked this question because when I was at the gym a personal trainner watched me bench press and told me because my arms are longer that I should bench a little wider than sholder width.......WHAT SHOULD I DO, Who Should I listen to??? Confused......:surprised:
Hellscream Posts: 272 Joined: 2004/02/25	2004/04/04, 04:16 PM I think the wider your grip is, the more it affects the chest, particularly the outer region. The closer the grip is the more it affects your triceps and inner chest. Also concentrate on the stretch and squezing your chest muscles for max growth. The std close grip is 6inc apart of hands and std wide is around shoulder width. But I say experiment with the grip positions and see which is best for you.
bigandrew Posts: 5,146 Joined: 2002/10/21	2004/04/05, 11:30 AM Well. 1st off their are several "styles" of bench pressing lol And I myself have had to change it many times. Theres whats called the body builder style- thats arms wide, and you make a 90 degree angle with your elbows and the bar, this is very good for working chest since it minimizes tricep work.However this can make the shoulder area act up, due to stress. Then powerlifter style- Which is wide, but a tad narrow than bodybuilding, however your albows instead fo flaring out, they come in.( 3 o clock and 7 o clock) This is best for power and strenght, it supports the shoulder better, and you maxamize chest and tricpe work, and the shoulder and lats come in to help support the weight. My suggestion is lay on the ground and do some push ups, if you do wide grip on push ups use that posistion on bench press, all comes done to a matter of preferance. by the way, shorter arms guys will usually be able to bench press a lil more. We have less area to move it, but hay at least you can get rim on a b ball goal, causeI have never been able to lol. Genetics sucks somtimes.:dumbbell: -------------- .......adversity causes some to break, but others to break records! ......minds are not vessles to be filled, but fires to be enlightened ......Confucious once said ,DO NOT play leap frog with a unicorn