Now all this being said, while getting into position and lowering the bar accurately is important, I think we’ve all seen guys with a terrible setup who drop the bar onto their chest like they want to break their ribs but still successfully press the bar. Your back muscles help prevent the bar from falling on you with the pull of gravity. When benching, we rely on those same back muscles to bring the bar toward our chest in a stable, controlled fashion. The row is a back exercise that relies on your rhomboids, trapezius, latissimus dorsi, the teres major (the muscle that connects to the scapula and the humerus bone in the upper arm), and teres minor (a muscle that makes up part of the rotator cuff) to pull the bar toward your chest. The only difference is that we are currently underneath the bar instead of on top of it, like in a bent over barbell row. Secondly, as you lower the bar toward your body, you are essentially performing a row. This is the position you should hold while benching. You can visualize this by shrugging your shoulders up, then pulling them back by squeezing your shoulder blades together, and then finally pushing your shoulder blades downward. To do that, you use you a combination of your rhomboids (the muscles in the middle of your upper back), trapezius (the muscles along the back of your neck and shoulders), and latissimus dorsi (the flat, wide muscle along the side of your mid and lower back). When you get into the bench press arch position, you should be retracting your scapula. We’ll dive into more detail on this in a moment. And if your bench is struggling, you’re far more likely to find improvement while working on those three muscle groups.īut your back is involved in the bench press in two major ways: getting into position and in the descent, or eccentric portion, of the lift when you lower the bar to your chest. You’re right to think of the bench press as a chest/triceps/shoulders exercise first, because it is. How Important Is Back Strength For Bench Press? Let’s dig into the details of how and how much the back muscles impact your bench. It helps you confidently lower the barbell to your chest as well as to retract your shoulders and scapula (shoulder blades) to get into and maintain an ideal bench press arch.īut don’t go thinking this automatically means doubling your back volume will suddenly help you double your bench press. So does a strong back help your bench press? Yes, a strong back helps your bench press because your back muscles provide stability to your bench press. But the bench press goes beyond just your chest, shoulders, and triceps. You may not automatically think of your back as a key muscle involved in the bench press.
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