Date: March 2, 2017 | Author: admin

What Is A Bench Press Arch & Is It Bad For You?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

My goal on this page and our Women Who Lift Weights Facebook Page is to educate women on strength and lifting weights and this is part of lifting weights and PowerLifting.

The bench press arch is not for everyone.  If you lack mobolitu in your lower back, upper back, and hips this is not a good option for you.  For me personally I do not arch at all.  So lets be clear that this is not for everyone.

The bench press arch is used to help you lift as much weight as possible  It is not to work your chest or your triceps more, quite the opposite.

 

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Arching Wiole Bench Pressing Does A Few Things:

1. It reduces the distance the bar has to travel.  PowerLiftng is all about minimizing movement and maximizing the amount of weight you can lift.  Pushing a bar 6 inches vs pushing a bar 12 inches as a PowerLifter you want the shortest distance possible.

2. The higher your chest goes and your shoulders go back you turn a flat bench position into a decline position.  You can always lift more in a decline position than you do a flat position.  Again the goal here is to lift as much weight as possible.

3. When benching heavy the goal is to maxize full body strength.  You want to use your upper body, hips, glutes, legs, upper back, triceps, pretty much every single muscle you can.

Bench pressing with an arch is not for everyone.  If your goal is to hit your upper body more and focus on the muscle a big arch is not needed or necessary.  As well not every PowerLifter will arch.  However IF you can arch and you have the mobility and flexibility then it can work to your advantage to lift heavy weights, and for the most part PowerLifting is all about lifting as much weight as possible based on the rules of your organization.

Hopefully I won’t see any uneducated comments like “this is bad for her back”.  You can ask the lifter if this hurts her back. 

Is yoga bad for your back?  My response would be it depends.

Is gymnastics bad for your back?  My response would be it depends.

Is PowerLifting Bench Arch bad for your back?  My response again would be it depends.

If I attempted to this my hips would explode and my lower back would be broken for a month. But that is me.

Understand what is good for someone is painful for others.

There is no right or wrong, there is only what is good for that person based on their body, their goals and why they are lifting.

I hope this post educates more on the Bench Press Arch if it does please leave a like and a comment below.

Thanks.

Coach Rob