Hey Bro, Whaddaya Bench? - The Over-Glorification of the Bench Press

We've all seen it—a huge gym, packed with $500,000 of equipment, outfitted with 20 of the latest and greatest bench press racks and chest exercise machines taking center stage (all in use, of course), and a lonely squat rack gathering dust in the corner. It makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Not because I hate the exercise or the equipment or the idea of having disproportionately large pectoral muscles (actually, I kind of hate that), but because it has been over-glorified to a colossal degree—to the point of negligence towards other aspects of strength, physique, and fitness. In many common circles, the bench press (and to some extent its correlate movements) has become the end-all, be-all, alpha and omega, status defining, holy grail, apotheosis of all strength-related exercise. And the worst part by far is that most people suck at it.

(By Jay_Cutler_bodybuilder_2008.jpg: robbden derivative work: Nesnad (Jay_Cutler_bodybuilder_2008.jpg) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Bodybuilder Jay Cutler has probably benched once or twice before.

First, let me start by pointing out that, despite its ubiquity today, the barbell bench press as we know it has not always been a thing. The style of bench press that we see today, using an elevated flat bench and uprights positioned arms-length overhead (called stanchions) to hold the bar, did not come into popular use until the 1950s. Before that time, most horizontal barbell pressing was either done lying on the floor or sometimes on a standalone flat bench with a pull-over type movement used to bring the bar from the ground—behind the lifter's head—to over the chest before the actual press movement began. In other words, sorry dudes, the Spartans didn't use the bench press to develop those sweet bods (though I'm sure Gerard Butler did). 

To make it crystal clear right off the bat, I have no contention with the use of the bench press in a balanced strength, physique, or otherwise fitness-oriented program. In my own training I perform the bench press and/or one of its variations 1-2 times per week, I program the bench press as a core lift for anyone whom I am training for strength, and I encourage everyone who wants to have a strong and/or muscular upper body to implement the bench press in their training (unless you have awful form, in which case you need to learn how to properly bench before you annihilate your shoulders). Because of the potential for using heavy loads and the compound nature of the lift, the bench press is a great exercise for building upper body strength, especially in the shoulders, chest, and arms. But, as Spiderman's Uncle Ben and Voltaire tell us: with great power there must also come great responsibility.

Aside from the abundance of wretched form (saving that for another post), the “problems” with the bench press can be boiled down to: 1) too much of it, and 2) not enough other stuff.

1.

The general population of gym-goers benches too darn much (frequency and volume). This can lead to a whole host of shoulder, chest, and arm injuries (common injuries include pectoral tears, rotator cuff tears, triceps tears, and general inflammation [tendonitis, etc] in the shoulders and elbows). While improper form is likely the most common cause of such injuries, overuse is also a huge contributor. Muscles and joints need time to heal. When you bench five days a week and supplement every bench session with a dozen other chest and shoulder exercises, adequate recovery will not happen. In addition to overuse injuries, benching too much will almost always lead to stagnated progress and often to regression. In the same way that muscles and joints need recovery time in order to stay healthy and injury-free, they need recovery time in order to get stronger. All bench and no recovery makes Jack a weak boy.

In addition, benching too much, especially when combined with a lack of pulling exercises and/or a lack of mobility, will often lead to bad posture. Bad posture leads to looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, poor leverages (sub-optimal performance), potential for injury, and nagging pains down the road. Don’t be that guy.

(By MGM studio [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Hunchie learned the side effects of too much bench press the hard way.

2.

A good program needs balance. If you are going to bench (a pushing movement), you must also pull. With the proliferation of bodybuilding split routines in which you spend one day working chest and biceps, another back and triceps, another calves and glutes, and so on, it is all too easy to forget that the body is a system. When you perform the bench press, your pectoral muscles and triceps are doing the majority of the pushing work; but a whole host of other muscles, ranging from the lats to the abdominals to the glutes, is making that movement possible—strengthening your base and your positioning, stabilizing, decelerating the weight, etc. In other words, if you don’t supplement your benching with a heavy dose of pulling and other assistance exercises, not only are you creating a visual imbalance (gross) and subjecting yourself to injuries and poor posture, but you are limiting how much you can bench. There are all kinds of ratios thrown out there for the best balance of pushing vs. pulling exercises (I’ve seen everything from 2:1 to 1:3). I don’t think there’s a magic number, but I do think that with a bit of intuition and trial and error it shouldn't be hard to figure out if a program lacks balance. When in doubt, do more strength work for your back.

In addition to balancing pushing with pulling, I am a strong advocate of strengthening the whole body. That means balancing upper body work with lower body work. Gym culture today is stricken with an obsession with upper body strength and appearance. I’ll keep it short: do lower body work, because weak chicken legs suck.

Let me end by saying that my negative feelings toward the over-glorification of the barbell bench press are followed very closely by my negative feelings towards the reactionary nay-saying and mud-slinging of the exercise. Some “counter-culture” hooligans of the day are responding to the obscene popularity of the bench press by condemning the exercise as non-functional, ineffective, and a general waste of time, heaping abuse upon anyone who dares to bench, claiming that “you’ll never find yourself in a situation where you have to press a heavy object horizontally away from you while you’re lying flat against a hard surface, you non-functional jag.” This is horse crap. Strength is functional, and the bench press makes your upper body strong.

So, what is the message of this post? Balance. Bench, but not too much, and make sure you train the rest of your body too.

Balance your swole.