bench shirt. clarify.

[super_rice]

i keep hearing all this fuss about bench shirts. shirts this, shirts that, i'm not wearing a shirt, omg guys look at me.

to my knowledge, it's a relatively hard/thick material you wear around your body/arms and somehow it allows you to push super heavy weights on the bench.

i'm guessing it helps you to keep the bar steady and to reinforce your skeletal structure. (keep the bar steady, maybe if the material was like denim and it was tight enough, even though i don't know how any fabric could POSSIBLY reinforce your bones..).

please clarify what a shirt is karma for people that do!


oh and another thing:
if it does let you add upwards of 200lbs onto your benchpress, would it not be cheating? couldn't i have pieces of carbon inside the layers of fabric that reflex back to help me lift the weight? how would it be a true benchpress? and if all it does is keep the bar/your arms steady, why not just use a smith machine. why can't i just take a piston to the next competition and lift using that?

i don't get it...

 

[Mythicalbeing]

http://www.karinsxtremepower.com/

Basically a bench shirt helps you on the downside of a bench press, the key is getting a shirt that is MADE for you. while many people can get 15-30 pounds over raw(no shirt) with a good bench shirt Karin's DD one can get 75-100 pounds. The shirt gives you support, and keeps muscles tight preventing some injuries.
For me the shirt is the diffrence between 375 raw.
And 455 with shirt.(gonna hit 500 this year.)

 

[donny]

it is not cheating anymore than any other sports equipment, eg. fiberglass state of the art polevaulting poles I like the injury prevention factor

 

[WildGuy09]

I think the shirt gives you more of a percentage value on your bench and not a definite nuber value. As far as cheating goes, it just depends on how you look at it, if you compare it with raw, then yes they have an advantage, but if your comparing shirt with shirt then no. You just have to keep in mind if their wearing one or not.

 

[wtlftr]

I used an Inzer shirt for my best lift. It was super. My max went up 30 pounds in the bench. If you are a competitor and want some more max, try a bench shirt.

 

[Superstar]

as far as I know a shirt works like a spring. the material stretches and the snaps back and helps you push the weight. this is ridiculous. Its like an athlet at the tour de France puts a motor on his bike.

 

[Phreezer_Machine]

We use bench shirts (denim, double denim, poly, etc) to get more out of our lifts... In competition meets We must have our shoulders on the bench, and we must have our butts on the bench also we must have atleast our toes on the floor (some federations require that your feet be completely flat on the floor)..these are the rules, if your but, feet or shoulders ever leave the bench during a lift you are disqualified.. Now, basic knowledge tells us that when we are moving heavier weight the best way to do this succesfuly is to move it the shortest distance possible... the longer the distance the longer we have to maintain the weight, and the longer the distance the more effort it takes to move the weight..and thus increases our chances of NOT making the lift..so in this case..shorter is better...

This is why a good "arch" is so important... We try to get as big an arch as possible, Like sticking our stomachs up as high as we can while still keeping our buts and shoulders on the bench.... We actualy bench off of our stomach's not our chests... And this is where shirts come into play.. We use our triceps more in our benching than we do our pecs... So when the weight is at the bottom (on our stomachs) we don't reallly have a lot of recruitment from our pecs (we still use them, just not as much) so the shirts help get the weight off of our stomachs...basicaly the shirts are so tight that they help reduce the weight a bit at the bottom (the lower the weight goes the farther the stretch across our chests.. and thus giving a bit of a spring at the bottom)....so by taking off that little bit of weight (the tighter and denser the shirt, the more weight it helps take off at the bottom because it'stretched farther) It allows us to be More explosive, and get the weight moving a little faster than we would be able to normaly (the extra momentum we get from this speed burst helps us move heavier weights... The shirt helps in the lower 1/4 movement of the lift, other than that, it's mostly just raw tricep strength...

Does this answer your question?

 

[Tom Treutlein]

Nice post, Phreezer. Karma.

 

[super_rice]

We use bench shirts (denim, double denim, poly, etc) to get more out of our lifts... In competition meets We must have our shoulders on the bench, and we must have our butts on the bench also we must have atleast our toes on the floor (some federations require that your feet be completely flat on the floor)..these are the rules, if your but, feet or shoulders ever leave the bench during a lift you are disqualified.. Now, basic knowledge tells us that when we are moving heavier weight the best way to do this succesfuly is to move it the shortest distance possible... the longer the distance the longer we have to maintain the weight, and the longer the distance the more effort it takes to move the weight..and thus increases our chances of NOT making the lift..so in this case..shorter is better...

This is why a good "arch" is so important... We try to get as big an arch as possible, Like sticking our stomachs up as high as we can while still keeping our buts and shoulders on the bench.... We actualy bench off of our stomach's not our chests... And this is where shirts come into play.. We use our triceps more in our benching than we do our pecs... So when the weight is at the bottom (on our stomachs) we don't reallly have a lot of recruitment from our pecs (we still use them, just not as much) so the shirts help get the weight off of our stomachs...basicaly the shirts are so tight that they help reduce the weight a bit at the bottom (the lower the weight goes the farther the stretch across our chests.. and thus giving a bit of a spring at the bottom)....so by taking off that little bit of weight (the tighter and denser the shirt, the more weight it helps take off at the bottom because it'stretched farther) It allows us to be More explosive, and get the weight moving a little faster than we would be able to normaly (the extra momentum we get from this speed burst helps us move heavier weights... The shirt helps in the lower 1/4 movement of the lift, other than that, it's mostly just raw tricep strength...

Does this answer your question?

that helps a lot. thanks. karma indeed.

 

[Vulgar_Display_Of_Power]

Do you lift Phreezer???


J/k man, Where ya been?