Okay, if I have to endure one more article out there dealing with bench press maladies, I'm going to shoot something! I'm serious! I just can't understand how this exercise is so damn popular when it seems like so many know that it's one of the big culprits behind "winged scapula", the reason why some people who live on the bench can't lift their arms over their head without altering their posture to do it, if they can do it at all! Isn't that a pretty fundamental human arm movement?
Here's another article that, in part, deals with this situation...
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/building_a_powerful_vshape
Okay, he blames one of the photos that I posted this on hunching over to look at a computer. Who's he really kidding? I could be wrong about benching doing this, but I don't think that I am.
Okay, cooler, more rational head now...
I know that any exercise can be done incorrectly and cause an injury. You could easily give yourself a mother lode of tendinitis if you did push-ups in reps that exceed your abilities. You could fall on your head while doing handstand push-ups. You can also get tendinitis in your elbows or pull your biceps while doing chin-ups. Still, I believe there's something else wrong with the bench press. The shoulder problems don't seem to be coming from over-ambitious application of effort and workload while benching. The bench press isn't working the chest and shoulder muscles evenly.
I'll freely admit that I don't know about all the different muscle imbalances that exist and that it's possible that you could give yourself muscle imbalances from push-ups. Theoretically, anything's possible. In reality, how much is it actually happening though? It sure seems like it happens way more with benching than it does with push-ups. It's anecdotal as hell, I admit, but like I said, it's getting hard to ignore the volume of articles written to address imbalances from benching.
One thing that I'm reasonably certain on is that these problems with the bench press could probably be solved by balancing out the workout with movements such as handstand push-ups and military presses as the author of that article suggested. I've seen other articles about using the face pull and the push-up to get some serratus anterior work. Still, it's seems a waste of precious workout time when you could do some pull-ups/chin-ups and push-ups and get the same effect. I don't think that the bench press is really that precious. Training should be about getting a strong healthy body, not one that conforms to some Adonis complex-obsessed society. The bench press seems to be the exercise that embraces the latter.
5 comments:
Interesting post, and thanks for the link. I personally don't bench simply because I don't like the idea of having all this weight in such vulnerable position above your head. Did you hear about the guy who died while benching in his garage? The weight fell on his head. It's not worth the risk.
No single exercise works the whole musculature of the human body equally. Therefore it is very easy to create muscle and strength imbalances by not following a balanced workout regime where all muscles are worked evenly.
Put simply, perform lots of heavy bench pressing, or even heavy pushups, at the expense of overhead pressing, horizontal rowing, etc and you're going to get problems, irrespective of how you train, what exercises you perform or what sort of resistance you use. Bench pressing isn't inherently a 'dangerous' exercise, the problem lies with the fact that the vast majority of gym goers don't know what they're doing and don't follow a balanced workout regime.
The only reason why we see more shoulder impingement problems with bench pressers than pushup artists is because the vast majority of strength athletes bench press, they don't do heavy pushups. If more people did heavy pushups we'd see more shoulder problems associated with pushups and vice versa.
Why bench press? It's the best exercise for developing upper body strength, power and hypertrophy. Sure you could use pushups, but they are harder to add extra resistance to and they're harder to measure progress in.
Train properly and you're going to get little or no problems. There are 1000s of people who bench press regularly who are injury free, can lift their hands above their head, are a damn sight stronger than you and boast of better physiques.
Well, "anonymous", you're right that no exercise works the whole musculature equally. That doesn't mean that certain exercises aren't more balanced than others. Such as the case with the bench vs push-up. Read the article that I threw up.
What's interesting about the bench press is that up until the 1960's, it was a somewhat obscure lift and was barely used by a whole generation of men stronger than both of us.
As for adding resistance, you're just not paying attention. There are far more ways to add resistance and difficulty to an exercise without throwing on more weight. If you care to find out, read through some older blog posts. I did at least three on how to make the push-up easier or harder and none involve tacking on weight, although that is a possiblity.
Speaking of weight, I remember Mike Boyle saying that he considers the push-up superior to the bench press for training his athletes. He mentioned once that if an athlete couldn't do a decline push-up with 40 lbs weight plates on their back, then they have no business touching the bench press.
"Well, "anonymous", you're right that no exercise works the whole musculature equally. That doesn't mean that certain exercises aren't more balanced than others. Such as the case with the bench vs push-up. Read the article that I threw up.
What's interesting about the bench press is that up until the 1960's, it was a somewhat obscure lift and was barely used by a whole generation of men stronger than both of us."
Just because some exercises are less balanced than others doesn't mean that they're completely useless and/or without merit. As it stands bench pressing is a great upper body strengthening exercise, nobody can deny that, and it is only really injurious if you perform the exercise without correct form and/or without a proper resistance training regime.
I detest the fact that many bodyweight exercise pundits will jump on the fact that because some people don't weight train correctly and injure themselves that it is some sort of justification that bodyweight exercises are superior. They aren't, all methods of training have their own advantages and disadvantages.
I can say from personal experience that it is possible to damage your shoulders (particularly your rotor cuff) from doing too many heavy pushups and not enough horizontal rowing.
Saying that bench pressing was rarely used before the 1960s doesn't show or prove anything. RossTraining didn't exist until several years ago, does that make it inferior/incorrect? You could argue that we know far more about our bodies now than then, about exercise phsyiology, anatomy, etc.
"As for adding resistance, you're just not paying attention. There are far more ways to add resistance and difficulty to an exercise without throwing on more weight. If you care to find out, read through some older blog posts. I did at least three on how to make the push-up easier or harder and none involve tacking on weight, although that is a possiblity.
Speaking of weight, I remember Mike Boyle saying that he considers the push-up superior to the bench press for training his athletes. He mentioned once that if an athlete couldn't do a decline push-up with 40 lbs weight plates on their back, then they have no business touching the bench press."
So you're saying that raising your feet up, performing one arm variations, using weighted vests, etc is easier to measure progress and add extra resistance than simply sliding another plate onto the bar?
I dabble in bodyweight exercises and weight training, I can honestly say that if I put 100kg on a barbell I know exactly how much I'm lifting and when I'm read to progress I can simply add another couple of 1.25kg plates next workout. The same cannot be said for bodyweight exercises, I'm forever playing around with scales (ie; to work out how much resistance I'm achieving at certain levels), playing around with weighted vests (ie; removing or adding 10s of 0.5kg weights), using resistance bands to make difficult variations easier, etc.
Also iron is far cheaper than the likes of weighted vests, resistance bands, etc. A decent weighted vest set me back £100 for 20kg. I bought 20kg of weight plates the other day for around £20, they're just as versatile and will last a lifetime.
If bench pressing is so inferior and unnecessary why is it that the vast majority of world class strength coaches use such an exercise? It works and it's easier to progress/measure progress in.
Resistance is resistance whether it comes from iron, bodyweight, resistance bands, etc. They all have their own advantages and disadvantages.
The reason why I mentioned that the bench press wasn't used a whole lot up until fairly recently is part of the reason why it's used by many strength coaches. Around the time that the bench press became popular, there were two, conflicting thoughts about strength training that loosely break down into two lines of thoughts:
1. Train for shape and size. Then, strength will follow.
2. Train for strength and size and shape will follow.
If the bench press does anything well beyond a shadow of a doubt, it makes a sexy, photogenic chest that bodybuilders love. Indeed, bodybuilding changed a lot of perceptions about strength training, and not all for the good.
You say that a lot of strength coaches use the bench press. Well, I don't see Ross, Pavel or Zach Evan Esch benching very often. Mike Boyle isn't as high on it as he used to be. It's still very popular but it's not as ubiquitous as you think it is.
It's not all that its cracked up to be because it doesn't engage the muscles that insert/attach to the lower section of the shoulder blade. It doesn't activate the core like a push-up will. Seriously, when you're doing any kind of physical labor or sport, take note of how often you have to use your abs.
You mention tracking progress. You seem to think that its very important. Really, all you're finding out is how strong you are at that particular movement. The true test of progress in strength training is how well you can do the things that require your strength. That's the measure of your progress, not the plates your hands are pushing through mid-air.
At the end of the day, I think that the allure of the bench press is ultimately built on eye candy and bragging rights. Sure, it could be done safely with the right supplemental exercises. I just think that there are far better exercises than this particular one.
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