ARCHING
IN THE BENCH
What is good arch, bad arch and when is not safe!
I
CyFitness Mag. | Issue 4
29
f you ever use the internet or
social media you definately
see videos with powerlifters setting up with some level of
arch. If you see this kind of videos
probably you have seen also comments like ‘Oh this is too much
you can hurt your back, thats
cheating’ etc. You may also chat
with your doctor and told you
thats not good set up for bench
press, for me probably your doctor isn’t lifting. So if you are not
high level competitor or professional couch it will be great to
save your comments for yourself. So I study and I apply it in
my own workout routine and I
bring you detailed information
for what is good arch, bad arch
when is safe when is not cheating.
First of all, lower back
is made for a lot of movements flexion and extension so
is designed for a lot of motion there.
Lets say for example you lie down on
your stomach and you bring your body
in a prone cobra stretch position. I dont
have feel any problem with that how
about you? Transfer that body posture
into lieing positon on the bench. Same
thing right? When you do, you will realize that the spine can extend and you
are not going to brake your back as
long as you have no pre-extists issues.
Straight compression or axail loading which is a force that trys to
offset the spine and these are the two
ways we are you trying to avoid in lifting and can be dangerous with over arch.
For instance, bring you are hands overhead like you are trying to do overhead
BB press. Most people you will see over
arch their back and can be very dangerous. You have compression and axial
loading plus shear force into the spine.
So keep that arch neutral, squeeze your
body tight your belly in and then do
30
your overhead press. However,
on the bench press the weight is
perpenticular to the plane of the
spine, because the bar is above
your shoulders and you have
no compression or axial loading and shear force is eliminate
too because glutes are sitting on
the bench. As long as the glutes stay on the bench it’s a safe
position. If you do lift your butt
from the bench you change the
position of your spine under
load and that will be a problem.
How arch is benefits the shoulders?If you dont have that
arch position you have a lot
of play here with your scapula - its loose. So you got to bring
your shoulder plates together which will be a strong position for you to lift heavier loads.
So this are the good and the
bad tips during a bench press.
Hope that outwork some
myths and make sense to you.
Issue 4 | Mag. CyFitness