How Much Can You Bench?
The bench
press is the first exercise many young lifters are introduced to when they set
foot in a gym, and has long stood as the measuring stick for upper body
strength and power. It’s a fairly simple movement: Lie on the bench, unrack the
barbell, touch it to your chest and press it out to arm’s length. For many
lifters and athletes it is the core of their programs.
Believe it or not, there was a day when lifters were more interested in the Olympic movements. Strong men made their marks by how much they could jerk, press or snatch, and nobody ever wondered how much they could bench.
As
bodybuilding and powerlifting became more popular, and more people were drawn
to strength training and commercial gyms, the bench press took over as the gold
standard of a lifter’s prowess. When was the last time you saw somebody doing a
clean and jerk down at the gym?
Yet the
Olympic lifts certainly seem like a better way to measure overall body
strength. Is the bench press overrated, just some foo foo exercise that has
skyrocketed in popularity due to the vanity of bodybuilders? Or, is the lift as
important as many people seem to think?
Is the Bench Press Important?
Many
strength coaches will tell you that if you could only do one lift there are
much better choices than the bench press. Squats work your entire body, and
many experts say they elicit a natural anabolic response.
Power cleans
help build physical explosiveness that would benefit any athlete. But the bench
press still ranks highly as an important exercise, and here’s why. Whether you
are a competitive athlete or a gym rat, the focus of most programs should be
increase basic strength and size.
It’s tough
to find an upper-body exercise that accomplishes this better than the bench
press. Benching most directly encourages growth in your chest, shoulders and
triceps, but also in the upper body as a whole. Especially for lifters who need
to gain weight and size, heavy compound movements like the bench press, barbell
row, squat and military press should be emphasized.
Too many
young lifters, and even those who should know better, get caught up with
programs they see in magazines and spend their time on machines or doing cable
crossovers when they should be benching.
So, the bench press is important because it’s the most basic and
efficient way to add lots of muscle mass to your upper body.
But what
about dumbbells?
Dumbbell vs. Barbell Bench Press
The debate
over whether the barbell or dumbbell bench press is more effective will
probably go on forever. On the surface they appear to be the same movement and
should have the same benefits, but there are opposing schools of thought on why
one is better than the other.
Dumbbell
exercises force your limbs to work more independently than barbell movements,
and because each arm needs to control the weight on its own many small
stabilizer muscles are activated in dumbbell versions of compound movements.
Studies confirm this greater level of muscle activation, and it has caused some
experts to conclude that dumbbell movements are more effective.
Proponents
of the barbell bench press argue that the weight is what matters, and nobody
would disagree that it’s simply easier to pile more weight onto a barbell and
go heavy. For this reason alone many lifters believe barbells are the better
choice for increasing muscle mass and getting stronger.
Ultimately,
both movements have their place in a good strength program. The bench press is
an important exercise that should not be overlooked by lifters of any skill
level. Barbell or dumbbell, it’s the best way for an athlete to add strength
and size to their upper body.
However, a
solid strength program should be well-rounded, and include other basic compound
movements that are given as much consideration as the bench press.
So, is the bench press important? Yes! Could it
be overrated? Only if it distracts an athlete from other equal or more
important lifts.