These are the seven reasons we think Bench Press is magnificent;
1. It helps strengthen your push muscles. This is because all of the muscles associated with push movements are recruited to move and control the weights effectively. Bench press is typically done with a bar in the flat position but variants see this performed with dumbbells, and at incline or decline positions for even more gains.
2. It helps to maintain a strong and healthy shoulder girdle. This is because in bringing the bar to your chest and up to the top again requires your shoulders to allow for a series of precision movements throughout the rep. Your upper arms will rotate and twist, which is allowed to do so by the rotator cuff muscle group embedded deep within the shoulder girdle. Bench pressing properly allows these muscles to stay strong and healthy, yielding greater gains down the line.
3. It’s great for improving upper body strength. This is because to perform a text book rep, all of the ‘push’ muscles do the moving of the weight, but they are pushing against all of your ‘pull’ muscles, which are working to stabilise, and provide a strong platform for the push muscles to operate from. This means that the entire upper chain of muscles are utilised in some way, shape or form.
4. It’s good for strengthening the core. This is because just like the squat and deadlift, a good rep relies on your core activating properly. Pushing the bar upwards with your chest and arms, whilst pushing down with your feet at the same time puts the core under greater load and therefore provides a more effective workout for the core.
5. It’s good for muscular balance. Which is great because a sound training program should have muscular balance in mind. Muscular balance is important because this has a positive impact on posture and joint alignment. Better joint alignment sees the consumer reduce wear and tear injuries in joints, and improves proper function of the joints and muscles. This particular gain can boost a persons quality of life significantly, but has no place on a tape measure or weighing scale.
6. It’s good for weight loss. This is because they again use a lot of muscle, which as we know helps burn more calories. Combining this exercise into supersets with other compound exercises would be a great way of making good progress in good time.
7. It’s good for developing shape in the upper body. This is because it is categorised as an upper body exercise. Building muscle mass and definition in the upper body will provide the skeleton beneath with a good shape.