Bench Press Grip Width - Close vs Wide Grip Bench
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- čas přidán 25. 08. 2024
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I’m a pretty small guy. 5’6. I used a pretty normal grip for my size for about a year, got pretty strong. Switched to a wide grip for me (pinky’s) on the rings. Got strong there but then all my shoulder problems started. Back to my “normal” grip and feel a lot healthier.
If you flare your elbows
Out vs 45 degrees that causes impingement in wide grip. And wide grip naturally encourages this - it’s better to build on a medium grip and stay away from wide - you can bench more but after months or a year it will eventually break down. If young maybe you can last a couple years but it will
Grind eventually using wide grip
Get outta here Doug.
No I know more than you. My comment supported yours but your cup half empty read it too fast
Neither cause impingement
What causes impregnating?
Thank you for giving me a different perspective! I have struggled for so long to figure out why I can constantly lift more and more and more with squats and deadlift but I have not been able to go up in weight for chest in over a year! I almost dreaded doing chest day but I continued to do it because I believed that it’ll just get better, but trying to widen my grip (going off of what you said) I was almost tossing around the weight that I had been struggling to lift for a year!
Thank you!
I am let's say a bigger guy with long arms, and always felt so weak trying a wider grip. I tried to get it wider to reduce the ROM but always felt way better and stronger with a close grip (pinkies on the rings at maximum).
At one point I stopped trying and kept my close grip where it felt comfortable, and then I started noticing that a lot of elite benchers (Maddox, Strickland, Hoornstra) actually have a super close grip compared to their huge build. So I thought maybe it's not necessary true that wider is better...
I'm in the same boat, for me despite being tall with long arms it's alot easier to generate force with the tris from the bottom of the lift.
@@reef9999 JM presses help a lot!!
Based
Thank you for all the great content! Hard to know, what we have done to deserve professionals like you sharing their knowledge for free. Wish to be strong someday. :-)
I train bench 4x a week. 3 days of those bench I do close (fingers on the knurling almost next to the smooth) and the last day I do my comp bench pinky on the ring and I feel it works so well
Totally agree. I also believe that you can train any way and you will adapt. As long as you know why you’re doing it.. and you don’t constantly change anything it’ll work.
Thanks bro. Just recently got back into decline bench and have moved to more of a close grip and noticed pretty good gains after not doing it for sometime. But I am old 55 lol.
Best explanation I've heard so far. Now it makes sense to me why going wide as possible isn't always the best.
I bench with my pinky about 2 inches away inside the rings. It feels better for me and doesn't hurt my shoulders.
He forgot to mention you go wide, you pull your shoulders, they will get injured, and they will take a half year to heal.
Only 145, a year into the process, and I do them both. Wider for PR and heavy sets and closer for volume and lower sets
Great breakdown, love the lighting
Lots of interesting points you make, I will have experiment with them for myself as a relatively triceps dominant presser. also you seem really passionate explaining this stuff and I think that is really sweet. I enjoyed learning from it, thanks.
All around good video
I think that some things were missing
1) Internal moment arm lengths
2) A barbell Bench Press differs substancially in physics from a db Bench Press or a lateral raise because of the lateral forces of the triceps. So when hands are outside of wrists, the triceps (which have a great Internal moment arm at >90° of elbow extension) push outwards, spreading the bar apart, and the resulting force reduces the chest's external moment arm by a lot. Nuckols has a great article on the subject
I'm narrow across the chest and lose more than I gain with a wider grip. In fact, my narrow grip BP is nearly as strong as my normal grip.
i figured this out about myself recently! i am 5’8 and 145 so a pretty lank 67kg lifter. previously had middle fingers on rings and now its pinkies but honestly i might even move closer. thanks for the video explaining what i just discovered!
I'm 5"8, Bench 380 with pinky on the rings
@@MrEverisforever i think its more about shoulder width tho, if ur benching 380 u prob have wide af shoulders?
Pinky on outside or inside of ring?
really helped put in perspective my bench press grip selection. I've been tri dominant for awhile, and i prefer a close press and relatively minimal back arch, despite having long arms at 6'2. (I don't really follow a traditional style for lifting, I don't powerlift and I don't bodybuild either) motto is somewhere along the lines of "lift heavy shit and look good naked" 1 rep max has been hovering around 385-395 for the last 6 months and i've been struggling passing this. As you suggested; really hoping evening out some of the force distribution from the tri to to the pec by a adopting more moderate grip will really help break this plateau... appreciate the tips. I haven't found very many channels that have had actionable insight that was framed in a way i could get behind.
Close grip goes in 6 inches on each side from where you had them. Wrists inside of the chest outside line.
Thank you thank you. Hurt my chest tendon And I was pinky on rings. So going narrower
I'm 6'2" with a 6'5" wingspan, probably not quite as proportionately lanky as you, but I've found the best compromise between power and ability to handle volume with ring fingers on the rings. The narrower grip seems to give me a slightly lower touch point and feels like more pop off the chest.
I've found I get a lot more sensation of pec involvement at narrower grips, and this seems to be supported by the bodybuilding community since your humerus has farther to travel in a sagittal plane at narrower grips. Maybe more of the involvement is of the clavicular insertion which doesn't really help big arch benchers as much who put themselves into an exaggerated decline position, so that's probably another reason why it's not as common in powerlifting (doesn't really help the leverage of your pecs with big arch to go narrow).
I've experimented with max grip in the past, but I always get pec tendinopathy in my non dominant side, and I find it harder to depress my scapula and feel my lats at the wider grips.
I would think a lot of IPF/USAPL lifters may have to narrow their grips with the new bench press rules. I've always thought of grip width as being more related to bench arch than height, I've heard a few guys talk about that perspective over the years (including Eric Spoto).
Im 6'2 myself (long lanky arms) I feel stronger and more muscle tension when doing close grip myself.
This was so good
Dave the Goat🤝
Idk man, I get super crazy pumps in my chest when benching with narrow grip, I pack in my shoulder as tight as I can and keep my elbows close to my body and I get super pump in my chest
I think my bench, currently, looks a bit like you described the position where going too wide makes it harder for the triceps to produce force due to being too extended, that said I would expect to feel the harder reps more in my pecs rather than triceps if that is the case. At the moment I'm kinda awkwardly halfway between arching hard and trying to find a position that feels strong, and clearly for me going 100% for the arch would be the way to shift the most weight but IPF rule changes are limiting that to the point where it's not so clear cut what I should be doing haha
Your close grip, is my wide or normal grip.
I thought that close grip was thumbs next to the smooth....
I used to bench with my grip slightly outside shoulder width (probably medium grip) and i never felt any chest pump even after increasing weights on the bar. Infact my triceps burned out earlier before i could feel my chest getting worked. Yday i tried benching wide ( i think grip was twice my shoulder width) after watching some youtube videos and i got really good pump in my chest and it feels sore even today. But i hear that its bad for your shoulders, dont know what is right or wrong.
A wider grip hits different portions of the pec, shoulder, and triceps but a little of a closer grip your pressing muscles work through a
greater range of movement.
I am a simple peanut and so I just follow jennifer Thomson's cue for width. Pretty damn wide at my ring finger on the ring for me being 5ft6, but really exploded what I can bench.
Always tend to fail on the last 2 inches of the lift, gonna try that thing of keeping elbows under the bar
Dave whats the best accesories for stronger bench?
You say you have long arms at 5"10" - in relaxed standing posture, where does your wrist fall on your body? I am 5'10.5" with, I believe, at best medium length arms, normal length torso, and have been trying to find an appropriate grip position. Only been lifting for 11 months, and weigh 189.4. Elderly (76), but just did 225x3 with spotter help on last rep. Your videos have been useful - my spotter is old school "gauge by pushing against wall" and thinks I flare my elbows too much; it appears from your videos that perhaps I use too narrow a grip, which causes initial flaring, and need to be a little wider and sink my elbows at bottom, but still flare on last half of lift. My initial flaring was also a result of positioning my small hands to get maximum contact with bar over my wrist bones; more comfortable for me. Anyway, trying to interpret all your data and commentary, but am enjoying the process.
Have you got the tism?
helps alot
Quality
Any idea why I feel a little bit stress on my collar bone after bench pressing
Maybe you are hurting the bones feelings and they don't know how else to make you sympathetic to their boney plight bonewise. Are you yelling at bones
@@drinkinouttacups2665 u use those? u crazy! ?
As a 6'1 dude who has kinda long arms I like maximum legal grip. Bending my wrist and leading with my elbows lets me get a lower touchpoint with the wide grip and that's what I found is the best way to bench for me through running Steve DeNovi's program and just doing a ton of benching.
I would actually imagine though that your max width is still pretty “medium” in this context. It’s hard to really define it well, but most people around 6ft can probably go max width and I really wouldn’t consider that wide within the framework I am saying.
I’m very close to max width with my grip, but I don’t consider it a “wide” grip relative to my frame. But for smaller lifters it might be very wide.
@@BrazosValleyStrength yeah exactly lol it doesn't look that wide. My elbows bend a decent bit.
First!! Great video very informational!! Keep up the good work
Doing high frequency and high volume benching has made my pecs feel more sore from bench days and a lot more fatigued during bench days while I'm trying to get the volume done. I'll try narrowing my grip for my next block I think and I'm also upping the bench frequency so I think that's probably the move.
I think you should probably read your own comment back to yourself as if someone else wrote it and see if you find any issues with the logic. Saying you are feeling beat up, but still planning on adding more has never gone wrong for anyone.
@@BrazosValleyStrength fuck you're right. I just need more upper body mass so ik I should probably be doing more. The pecs are not nearly as bad as my back and hamstrings get from conventional deadlifts so ik for sure I am switching to sumo. I'll just try changing multiple variables at once like a dumbass and see what happens because I do want to do more bench volume than I currently am. You got me with that reply lmao.
good vid
Algo 🦴
ive been trying wider grip and i feel the same as u. it gets much harder, but whos to say it isnt just becuase ive trained the same grip for years and wide grip is new. i think im chest dominant aswell so ied assume wider would be better but i have no idea XD
Great video david! if when im getting set up for my bench and my wrists are never at the same position. my right write is always more bent then my right one and i feel an imbalance. probabaly becuase of my scoliosis, but could i do something to improve that?
I bet you noticed in the video, my arms really don’t look the same. I think if it’s something easy, sure. Evening things out is probably a good thing. But we don’t necessarily have to be perfectly uniform.
That’s all without me seeing it. If it’s shockingly uneven then you obviously want to get it closer. But I bet it’s probably ok as long as you don’t feel like you are losing efficiency because of it.
Actually, if the forearms are not vertical, you put all that weight strain at an angle on the wrists, causing you to tire quickly.
The three comments you left on this video might all be dumber than the one before it.
Do you program variations differently for your lifters that bench with a relatively close grip vs those who bench with wider grips?
Yes but I would say I tend to be influenced more by soft/sink for variations first rather than grip width first.
7:50 this might be why i keep straining my right pec/tendon! : o
Paddy the Pimblett got jacked!
Thanks for over explaining! Bench is the hardest compound for me, tall lengthy, very little arch even with shoulder retraction and back squeezing. narrow grip feels a lot better
6’0, about 182 BW.
For me wider feels better for my right shoulder.
All of this is just overthinking, although your conclusion about narrower is better... wide is unnatural. The 100% best thing to do is do not think about what you are doing. Just intuitively put your hands where you think they would be best to lift the weight (/where you'd put them to prevent the weight 'falling on you') and I guarantee that will be the best place for you to put them. You will find that it is the exact same position you would have if you were to push a box or something standing upright.
That’s a pretty stupid way to think there man. Why wouldn’t you want to put some thoughts into things you do. You could say what you said about anything and it’s equally dumb. “Just go out there and swing the golf club, your body will know what to do.” Get outta here.
try a block if training with close grip and you'll probably see some sick tricep and shoulder development. or even 2 months of overhead press as your main pressing movement. I love training disadvantaged lifts as a main movement for a block before I get specific like, bent over row, front squat, or close grip bench.
I would never replace real comp lifts for those lifts exclusively in a block and I’m really just responding to say I don’t think anyone should. But yes. I agree that training with a closer grip pretty often, and taking it seriously, does seem to really help most people.
@@BrazosValleyStrength I wouldn't say replace but use a more disadvantaged lift as your main strength focus to get the develoental benefits and then transfer those to your comp lifts after 2-3 months. Just curious are you worried about losing the skill or the reduced load?
All of the exercises you mentioned just lack the ability to overload in the capacity we need. So the trade off is really bad. You could easily add them in as accessories, but I wouldn’t see any value in replacing the comp lifts for those at all.
So if my arch sucks don't switch to max grip? (I am 5'9 83kg Currently feeling strong with ring finger on the ring but everyone who I train with in my weight class and the one below max grips or bulldogs)
Well there are lots of variables at play. Smaller people (5’9 isn’t that small, especially as an 83) tend to get larger reductions in ROM by going wider. So that’s why I think we see so many very wide benchers in lower weight classes. But it doesn’t always work that way.
My suggestion would be try some wider grip and see if you feel like it has promise. I have never felt like small changes in grip with for some experimentation slow progress down a ton, so doing a day of slightly wider grip in your training is at least worth a try. But I also don’t think you NEED to go wider.
I'm brand new at analysis of bench press so help me out. Is it true that you can bench more weight at a deline than at flat (perpendicular to the floor)? If that is true then it seems to me that arching the back and pushing with the legs is actually turning the flat bench press into a slightly decline bench press. Is that true?
I have a crush
Great information! The "Balance" is very important.
Why is he so pretty
Wide grip effing up your shoulders close grip always better short but smart thank me later
u gay? your voice is a little weird.
tfw the "close grip" bench would have been considered a wide grip bench by 70s and 80s standards.
modern powerlifting is such a joke, its all about shortening the ROM nowadays.
You could just say “I’m dumb and weak.” That’s a lot less for you to type.
@@BrazosValleyStrength yeah but its you that said it lol. wouldnt have known otherwise, lil man!
I'm 6'3" with long arms competing in the 140 kg. I've looked at other big benchers, and everyone else is middle finger or pinky on the rings. In my first comp, I used index fingers on the ring with not much arch. I want more arch, but more arch is affecting my self unrack. Any ideas?