Benching too high up on the chest?

[Hellbore]

My nephew is new to weight lifting. I am helping him learn what I know (which I hope is enough).

I was taught that when you bench press, you bring the bar down to your chest at slightly below your nipples.

However, when my nephew benches he brings the bar down too high, sometimes to the level of his neck.

I try making him do it right but he seems to have less strength if he brings the bar down to his nipples. I try putting on less weight so he can concentrate on his form, and I push on the bar trying to force him to bring it down to the right place and it feels like he's fighting me. I think it must be awkward for him or he can't help it. What can I do about this?

What are the negative effects of benching that way? I would like to give him some more information on this motivate him to do it correctly. For one, I think he will never be able to lift very much if he keeps doing it wrong. But I don't really know.

I do remember that when I was in high school I used to bench up higher on my chest like that and it always felt so difficult. When someone taught me to bring the bar down to slightly below my nipples, it felt extremely awkward. However, I made myself do it and after a little while it became habit and pretty soon was able to lift more weight! After I learned that, my max got the highest it has been in my life.

 

[bignate73]

have him try close grip benches...he'll learn quick after that.

sometimes you gotta let them struggle/get scared to finally open their eyes.

 

[musketeer]

Whare are his elbows? Are the arms held out at about 90 degrees to his body or is he flareing his lats and pulling the arms in closer at about 50 degrees, where they should be? Some people think that to work the chest, their arms have to be straight out.

 

[blut wump]

Two things that I can think of to help him see the light:

1) If the learns to involve more muscles as are involved with bringing the bar lower he'll get better overall torso development and be able to press a lot more than keeping it high. The bench is intended to be a heavy compound movement not some foo-foo shoulder isolation assistance exercise.

2) When he eventually has that one set when he benches alone and fails to press the bar he'll curse and roll it off his chest rather than having his windpipe crushed and leaving the paramedics to re-rack the bar before taking his body away.

You could print out the Bench sticky from the powerlifting forum and show him all the things he can change to have a mightier benchpress.

 

[french tickler]

how about having him lay down slightly higher on the bench?

Therefore if he's to lay the bar down to his neck well he'll be hitting the brackets that hold the bar, wich would ultimately have him adjust his form...

Close grip i can see working as well ...

let us know...

 

[Hellbore]

Great ideas, guys! I think this will help a lot.

Another thing I noticed is he grips the bar wider than I do, and my shoulders are wider than his. I have used the same grip since high school, when I experimented a little with different grips and my coach advised me also. I think he is gripping too wide.

 

[marklm725]

shoulder width apart on the bar, if its olympic use finger next to the pinkey for the circles on the bench bar. come down to the nipple area you are right on this.