Back Arch During Bench Press

Benching with an arched back lets you move more weight.

Back arch during bench press. The arch used by lifters often powerlifters during the bench press tends to always cause a little controversy. One way to arch your back is to get your feet behind your hips but the farther the legs go back the tougher it is to transfer leg drive into the bench without your butt leaving the bench. Another advantage of an arched back bench press is that it restricts your movement particularly through your shoulders.

Improve your arch by strengthening your mid back and performing specific drills to increase mobility. However this stress is not inherently deleterious and is well managed by making sure arched bench pressing does not occur at a higher weekly volume and. The bench press arch is a safe technique if your shoulders and pelvis are anchored into the bench press properly and your position doesn t change while lifting the weight.

While this is perhaps the least important of the reasons mentioned here it s still relevant. However your tight bench press arch will only support the more important leg drive component of your bench press. Fix your low back arch on bench press dr.

1 arching your lower back to an extreme can in fact produce some stress on the sacroiliac joint. Is arching your lower back in the bench press an unsafe practice. When we get weak or lose power to use the correct muscles our body goes searching for different muscles to use when lifting weights to compensate with which will make you look like a worm squiggling about when you re trying to press and we definitely don t want this.

A strong safe bench press requires core stabilization but because you re lying on your back it doesn t foster the necessary stability in your abdominal back and hip muscles. Most of the issues stem from flexibility issues from the thoracic spine. Can t arch my back during the bench press.

You ll note in the description i outlined above i said to stick your chest out by arching your upper back and pulling your shoulder blades. Slowly working on mobilizing that area along with doing specific bench press cues to improve your bench press arch. Although there are literally dozens of common technique errors commonly witnessed during the bench press and variations thereof perhaps the single most common mistake is the use of excessive low back arch and lumbar extension.