Barbell Bench Press.
The barbell bench press is the primary upper-body push in most strength programs. A medium grip, flat back, and controlled descent build the chest, anterior deltoids, and triceps together in a single compound pattern.
Step by step.
Lie back on the bench with your eyes roughly under the bar. Set your feet flat on the floor and drive your shoulder blades down and together against the pad so the upper back is locked in.
Grip the bar a touch wider than shoulder width, around 1.5-2x shoulder width, so your forearms point straight up when the bar reaches your chest. Wrap the thumbs around the bar fully.
Take a breath, brace your midsection, and lift the bar out of the hooks to a straight arm position over your shoulders. Let it settle before the first rep.
Lower the bar under control toward your mid chest, around the nipple line, keeping the elbows tucked to roughly 45 degrees from your sides rather than flared wide. Aim for about three seconds down.
Touch the chest lightly without bouncing, then press the bar up and slightly back so it finishes directly over your shoulders again. Keep the shoulder blades pinned the whole time.
Lock the elbows at the top, reset your breath if needed, and repeat. If the bar bounces or your elbows flare on the way up, drop the weight and rebuild the descent.
Scapular position is what most beginners get wrong, not grip width or bar path. Before you unrack, drive your shoulder blades down and together against the bench, not just squeezed horizontally, but actively depressed so the traps are nowhere near your ears. Hold that position for the entire set. If your shoulders shrug forward on the way up, you've lost it and you're turning a chest press into an anterior deltoid exercise.
Bar path isn't straight up and down. It's a slight arc: touch mid-chest, press back toward the lower pec and then arc to finish directly over your shoulders. Vertical forearms at the bottom are your checkpoint. If your wrists are inside your elbows, your grip is too narrow; if they're past vertical, the elbow angle is opening past 90 degrees and loading the shoulder joint instead of the chest.
The lowering phase is where most people leave progress on the floor. Eccentric time matters. Three seconds down is a starting point. You'll feel your chest working harder in the stretched position, which is exactly where growth stimulus accumulates. A two-second pause at mid-chest is not a weakness cue. It's a valid technique drill that removes the elastic bounce and forces honest strength at the bottom.
One real number: if you can't control 60% of your working weight for a slow 3-second descent, your load is too heavy for the technique you need. Ego lifts with bar bounce and flared elbows might feel impressive, but they're also how rotator cuff tears start at year four of lifting. On the heaviest sets, leave a couple reps in reserve rather than chasing failure, since that last ugly rep is exactly where the elbows flare and the descent falls apart.
Common questions.
Mid-chest, roughly at the nipple line. This puts the elbows at around 90 degrees and keeps the forearms vertical, which is where the pec has the most mechanical leverage. Touching the bar to the upper chest with a narrow grip shifts load to the anterior delt; touching at the sternum with a very wide grip compresses the shoulder joint at an extreme angle. If you want to feel where the bar belongs, lie flat and hold your arms at 90 degrees with elbows flared about 45 degrees out from the torso. That elbow position points to the correct bar path.
Flat and firm. Feet flat on the floor lets you drive through the legs to stabilize the whole body, which frees up the upper body to press without compensating. Feet tucked back under the bench (a common powerlifting setup) increases arch and can help some lifters engage the lats, but it reduces leg drive contact and takes practice to do without losing lower back support. For most purposes, flat is safer and more transferable. If you're training for powerlifting and want to use a legal arch, learn it as a specific technique, not a default.
The medium grip described here means roughly 1.5-2x shoulder-width, which creates a 90-degree angle at the elbow at the bottom of the lift. Grip width determines where the elbow lands relative to the torso. Too narrow shifts work to the triceps and stresses the wrist; too wide shortens the range of motion and puts the shoulder capsule under stress at the bottom. Most people find their natural grip width within a few sessions of paying attention to where the forearms go vertical at the bottom. If you're using a standard 45 lb Olympic bar, the smooth-to-knurling transition ring is a useful starting reference for medium grip.
Shoulder pain on the bench press usually traces to one of three things: bar touching too high (upper chest or throat area), elbows flared too far out past 90 degrees, or shoulder blades that aren't retracted and depressed before and during the lift. The first two shift load onto the anterior deltoid and the AC joint rather than the chest. The third lets the shoulder blade protract and the shoulder internally rotate under load, which pinches the rotator cuff tendons. Fix bar position and elbow angle first. If pain persists after cleaning up technique, stop and get it looked at before building back up. Benching through shoulder impingement makes it worse, not better.
From the journal.
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