How to Bench Press by Eric Spoto

[Sammich]

The world's strongest bencher tells us exactly how to bench:

[YOUTUBE]hZPYTIPb2To[/YOUTUBE]

[SAHD]

Good Vid, Thanks

[0001Delta]

Another good video.

[YOUTUBE]Eju5IC5bXJQ[/YOUTUBE]

[0001Delta]

And here's a write-up I made on all the info laid out on the video Sammich posted plus the one I posted above; for those who might be interested:

Evernote Premium˚k
I. On Warm-Ups:
- Start with some bands and light DBs
- Get blood in your shoulders and pecs; loose them up without fatiguing them.
- Go through motions: Band pull-aparts(front, overhead, rotations), light db dislocates, etc.

II. On gripth width:
- Different toughts on grip width than most benchers;
- Height has zero to do with gripth width;
- The better your arch enables you to go wider.
- It's a very vulnerable position to go wide, then having to bring the arms low; however, having a great arch is not vulnerable, your arms don't go as low.
- The closer the grip the more explosive you are, and the wider the shorter the ROM.
- Bottom line: The better your arch, the wider you can go. Grip is somewhere in between if you throw biomechanics, and everything, but bottomline arch enables wider grip.
- The point is to try to find somewhere where you are stronger, and use that for competition, and also find somewhere where you are weaker, and train that so you aren't as weak. As a rule, you should generally be doing both, no matter what.


III. On feet placement and setup:
- Gonna be mostly individual.
- It's gonna be a give-and-take.

a) Benching with the feet back:
- Able to cut an inch or two off the chest (shorter ROM);
- Enables you to get a better arch;
- Almost impossible to get your butt off the bench;
- Sacrifices balance, stability, and some leg drive.

b) Benching with the feet flat:
- More leg drive and stability;
- Sacrifices lower-back arch;
- The wider you go with the knees, the less your butt is gonna come-off;
- However this sacrifices leg drive as you cannot flex your quad so hard.

IV. On missing lifts:
- Missing 760, thinking back, was important.
- Good that it happened; was able to go back to the drawing board and re-think the strategy.
- Leading up to that meet made about 10 mistakes.
- Re-thinking the approach was able to minimize training mistakes.
- By minimizing mistakes, even while weaker, was able to lift more.

V. On maintaining Upper Back Tightness/Upper Back Arch as weights get heavier.
- Eric's lower-back arch is weak; also benches flat-feet.
- Thinks upper-back arch is far more important than lower-back arch.
- Set's up as far back as he can, pulls scapula as low as he can, chest to the celling, and press.
- Back has to be so tight and able to take so much weight without losing tightness, that if you have just an empty bar on your hands, the arms will not even be able to go down all the way.

VI. On the Spotto Press:
- Not something he came up with, he always lifting that way.
- Saw that it was giving him results so he modified it by doing pauses with it.
- "How much weight (tension) you got resting on you on a paused bench?"
-> With the regular paused bench, tension deloads at the sternum;
- If you hover the bar an inch above the chest, you are holding the whole weight, tension does not deload and there is no rebound with the Spotto Press;
- Whatever you get with the Spotto Press, you should be able to get a lot more when you bench normally.

VII. On being awesome at reps:
- Spotto Press also spawned from this.
- Did 315 for 62 strict "quarter-reps"; 45 of those where locked-out reps.
- Being good at reps was born out of necessity thanks to doing what he liked to do (reps).
- Didn't just happen to be good at rep benching, worked on it all the time
- "Big reps, big pecs."
- Nobody is able to lock out high-reps. Ends up destroying the form and harming the joints; Inevitable.
- Because of this only does Speed Bench with bands.

a)Benching Principles and Typical Workout
- Always believed in lots of flat-benching.
- Low-Reps, High-Reps, always mixing it up
- Likes to do reps in cycles:
> 4 weeks of higher reps; 10-12 reps (sweetspot for growing muscle), try to get some muscle growth.
> Subsequent weeks drops it to 5's.
> Then drops it to triples.

VIII. On Percentages:
- Percentages don't even make sense to him, can't base real strength off a number.
- Go by what you can base off your strength often.
- Progressive Overload is what it's at.
- Always try to beat yourself at the next workout.
- Always beat yourself somehow;
- There will be weeks where you are gonna stay at the same weight;
- If can't beat a weight, do another set with that weight; or back down the weight and hit a lower weight for a rep PR.
- Want to feel like he left the gym doing something better than last time.

IX. On higher rep (10-12) training:
- 6 to 8 actual working sets.
- Of those at least 2 sets of close-grip minimun.
- A lot of times uses the set weight.
- Most of the times won't meet the reps.
- First set might be 11 reps;
- Second might be 10;
- Third might be 10;
- Fourth might 9;
- Won't drop the weight down just to get more reps.

XI. On the Slingshot:
- Sometimes will add a slightshot, keep the weight the same and double the reps.
- Newer lifters should start with the lighter slingshot and work towads the heavier ones.
- If you do something enough times you get better at it.
- It's what works.

XII. On Arm-Wrestling:
- No specific training; Strength is gonna carry you through everything
- You are never conna complain about being too strong on a given muscle.

XIII. On Strength through the years
- 70-80's all everyone cared was about the strongest in the gym.
- Everyone was all about how much you can bench and squat; deadlift came later on;
- 90-2000's all everyone cared was about looking pretty.
- 2010's-onward, people wanna be pretty and strong.
- Comparing yourself to grown men as a kid is what made kids back in the day strong.
- Comparing yourself to strong people is what pushes you.

XIV. More on Speed Bench:
- Only does Speed Bench work with bands.
- When working with bands one learns how to accelerate the weight.
- When using a straight weight however, you can't just accelerate the weight, you have to decelerate it as you drive it to protect the elbows and avoid over-extending.
- Bands allows to train acceleration without harming the joints.
- Gotta be careful when translating to straight weight so to not over-extend.

[0001Delta]

A lot of what Eric says matches other notes I have on info laid out by other great benchers, Dan Green and Eric Lillebridge, which in turn match notes I have on guys like Bill Kaz, CT Fletcher and Ed Coan.

It isn't scientific, but if the info is validated by several different people, then it surely works.

His thoughts on progressive overload is also on the same page as to what Dante has been saying all these years.

And he also confirms what I've been thinking for a long time: flat-benching isn't inherently more dangerous than any other compound movement, people simply don't know their technique and just put themselves in a vulnerable position to press in.

[-AJA14-]

I can never get leg drive into my bench. No matter how much I work at it or try to fix it.
Feet back, feet forward, I just can't get it.

[Sym]

Thanks Delta for that write-up. Your time put into that is appreciated.

[0001Delta]

Thanks Delta for that write-up. Your time put into that is appreciated.

Thanks bro. I can only absorb info from videos if I do write-ups. ADHD is a bitch.

[0001Delta]

I can never get leg drive into my bench. No matter how much I work at it or try to fix it.
Feet back, feet forward, I just can't get it.

How do you setup?

[-AJA14-]

How do you setup?

Feet up underneath

[SAHD]

Great info

[0001Delta]

Feet up underneath

Try going feet forward for a while. with the feet up underneath it's a bit hard to develop good leg drive. Squeeze your glutes hard and try to keep your upper back tight so you don't stay completely flat on the bench, from then just focus on pushing the floor with your heels.

What has cued me into developing good leg drive was a tip I read from Dan Green; doing 3-second Paused Benches, where you try and imagine doing a push press. Pause on the chest, then boom, push with the legs as hard as you can.

Eventually you could start slowly moving your feet back up underneath.

It will take a while of course, but you might get it.

[-AJA14-]

Try going feet forward for a while. with the feet up underneath it's a bit hard to develop good leg drive. Squeeze your glutes hard and try to keep your upper back tight so you don't stay completely flat on the bench, from then just focus on pushing the floor with your heels.

What has cued me into developing good leg drive was a tip I read from Dan Green; doing 3-second Paused Benches, where you try and imagine doing a push press. Pause on the chest, then boom, push with the legs as hard as you can.

Eventually you could start slowly moving your feet back up underneath.

It will take a while of course, but you might get it.

When I go back to benching, I will try it. especially since I will have to start light.

[JodBetetas]

Try going feet forward for a while. with the feet up underneath it's a bit hard to develop good leg drive. Squeeze your glutes hard and try to keep your upper back tight so you don't stay completely flat on the bench, from then just focus on pushing the floor with your heels.

What has cued me into developing good leg drive was a tip I read from Dan Green; doing 3-second Paused Benches, where you try and imagine doing a push press. Pause on the chest, then boom, push with the legs as hard as you can.

Eventually you could start slowly moving your feet back up underneath.

It will take a while of course, but you might get it.

Good advice right here

[Sammich]

Keep in mind that if you're trying to keep feet in front of the bench, commercial gyms might end up screwing you. Most commercial gym benches are so damn low to the ground that putting feet in front of the bench makes arching and generating leg drive extremely difficult, especially if you're tall (over like 5'10" or so).