The Bench Press

bkim24

Well-Known Member
It seems like our guys never do well bench pressing at the combine i'm interested in hearing what you guys about it?

Doyle obviously gets guys strong but why does that not show on the bench? are the muscles involved in the bench not as important as others think?

I personally think the bench press is as important as running 40 yards in a straight line without pads on.
 
I think they should listen to the "Situation" and take some Nox Edge, that would do it.


Seriously though, I agree with you. It measures strength, but not football strength. The same way the 40 measures speed but not necessarily football speed.
 
It seems like our guys never do well bench pressing at the combine i'm interested in hearing what you guys about it?

Doyle obviously gets guys strong but why does that not show on the bench? are the muscles involved in the bench not as important as others think?

I personally think the bench press is as important as running 40 yards in a straight line without pads on.

I guarantee you that Doyle feels the same way. I think the 40 is more important, but I really don't think Doyle places that much emphasis on the bench press, because it really is an overrated football lift. But power clean, squats, etc. are probably VERY important in our S&C program.
 
I guarantee you that Doyle feels the same way. I think the 40 is more important, but I really don't think Doyle places that much emphasis on the bench press, because it really is an overrated football lift. But power clean, squats, etc. are probably VERY important in our S&C program.

I completely agree. I am a Kinesiology major and squats are the most important full body lift, followed by power cleans. However, doing any upper body lift will increase the muscles used in bench and doing 14 is pretty sad. I have high school boys that I train that can do 14 reps at 225 lbs.
 
I completely agree. I am a Kinesiology major and squats are the most important full body lift, followed by power cleans. However, doing any upper body lift will increase the muscles used in bench and doing 14 is pretty sad. I have high school boys that I train that can do 14 reps at 225 lbs.

Would his shoulder injuries/surgeries impacted his reps?
 
Can't agree that bench isn't an important lift. Its the same motion players use in games to block or to get off a block.
 
Can't agree that bench isn't an important lift. Its the same motion players use in games to block or to get off a block.

It's not worthless. But it IS vastly overrated. When you're blocking, the majority of your force comes from your lower body.

Chad Greenway only put up 19 reps. He does just fine. For skill position players it really is towards the bottom on the list of drills/lifts that they need to excel in.
 
You can have all the force from your lower body that you want, but without upper body strength you can't hold a block, try blocking with no arms...its like flag football all over again, it doesn't work.

Defensively you need it to shed blocks, if you let a lineman get to your body, you're toast.

Receivers can get by a bit without as much strength, because they can make up for it with their quickness in that they can get off the line from a jam from the corner.

Chad Greenway was lanky with long arms, longer arms don't do lots of reps with bench. But I am sure he is strong as hell with his upper body.

Its all about being explosive, your suppose to bench with force to mimic what you will be doing in a game and increase the strength in those muscles.

Bench, Squats, and Cleans and your 3 major lifts for football that hit most of your major muscles used.
 
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You can have all the force from your lower body that you want, but without upper body strength you can't hold a block, try blocking with no arms...its like flag football all over again, it doesn't work.

Defensively you need it to shed blocks, if you let a lineman get to your body, you're toast.

Receivers can get by a bit without as much strength, because they can make up for it with their quickness in that they can get off the line from a jam from the corner.

Chad Greenway was lanky with long arms, longer arms don't do lots of reps with bench. But I am sure he is strong as hell with his upper body.

Its all about being explosive, your suppose to bench with force to mimic what you will be doing in a game and increase the strength in those muscles.

Bench, Squats, and Cleans and your 3 major lifts for football that hit most of your major muscles used.

Bench press is good for pass protection. Run blocking, not so much. That's all lower body. And since Reisner is a tight end, pass blocking isn't a huge deal.
 
Have you ever played?

You keep bringing up blocking and nothing else.

Yeah, I've played. And the bench press really isn't that specific to what you're doing on the field, unless you're a lineman on either side of the ball, maybe linebackers. But DB's, WR's, RB's, etc. it really isn't that important.

Look at the bench press results for skill position players. Most of the guys who finish towards the top? Done absolutely nothing in the NFL. Michael Griffin had 16 reps, and he's an All-Pro.

It's not relevant, outside of a few positions, yet they test everyone on it.
 
They blocked with their arms for more then 70 years and they did just fine. Using ones hands is all about HOLDING! That is the only time the bench and strength come into play. The NCAA should change the rule back that you CANNOT use your hands to block. The game would be one helleva lot better. I hate how these OLmen block today. They get up under the players armpitts and lach on and pull them into their chest. It's called CHEATING. But, every team does it but it's still holding and it's cheating.
 
They blocked with their arms for more then 70 years and they did just fine. Using ones hands is all about HOLDING! That is the only time the bench and strength come into play. The NCAA should change the rule back that you CANNOT use your hands to block. The game would be one helleva lot better. I hate how these OLmen block today. They get up under the players armpitts and lach on and pull them into their chest. It's called CHEATING. But, every team does it but it's still holding and it's cheating.

I agree with you for run blocking. Pass blocking does require you to use your hands, though. Even if you aren't holding.
 
On the other hand the bench is good for LB because they use their hands to keep players from getting into their bodys. Strength is very important same with the whole defensive line etc. But DB, SS, Rbs, Wr. it does not matter what ya bench. There strength is in their legs.
 
Football is a hip driven sport. Period. Blocking power comes from the hips, hitting comes from the hips. Explosiveness comes from the hips. Have you ever tried pushing somebody without using your legs? Or better yet, pushing somebody while sitting down? Well, you don't get much power. When you push/block somebody as hard as you can, the majority of that power comes from the lower body.
Bench press is a nice measure of upper body strength, and thats it. Training to your sports specific movements are key in S&C. Which is why squats and cleans are important. Squatting develops your hips, glutes, hamstrings (when done correctly). All important for lower body power. Cleans develop your body's triple extension, which is used in running, jumping, and explosiveness. When in football are you laying on your back pushing something off your chest? Never, unless you are on the bottom of a pile pushing people off you, or you just got laid out, are face down and need to push yourself back up. Yes, bench press is kind of important in overall upper body strength, needed to give your opponent that pop in the chest. But, the vast majority of that "pop" comes from the lower extremities.
The reason bench press is a widely used testing factor for upper body strength is because its very easy to rep out a high number of reps, without the risk of injury. It's also a lift everybody can do, relatively easily. If the combine tested athletes on how many reps they can squat, clean, or deadlift at a given weight, you would see numerous lower back injuries, because once you start getting fatigued your form goes to crap and you start lifting with your lower back. While on the bench press, once you get fatigued you can't really hurt yourself, you just can't do anymore.
 
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Squats and cleans are the most important. Bench doesn't do much at all.
Why do lineman start in a downed position...to explode using their legs and lower body. If it was all upper body they would start the play standing up. My coaches always said squats are the best lift for pretty much any sport, well, any physical sport at least.
 
One of my favorite quotes:
There is simply no other exercise, and certainly no machine, that produces the level of central nervous system activity, improved balance and coordination, skeletal loading and bone density enhancement, muscular stimulation and growth, connective tissue stress and strength, psychological demand and toughness, and overall systemic conditioning than the correctly performed full squat.
-Mark Rippetoe
 
Chitown, thanks for you comments. Well said.

I think some people get really defensive about the bench press because often those are the folks who spend a bulk of their time in the weight room doing bench press exercises. They have the false perception that your benching ability translates to your 'manliness' or athletic ability. Often these guys are really good at this one movement but get winded just picking the weights up off the floor.

The advances in traning employed by top ST today place much less emphasis on isolation exercises which keep the body in a static position. These movements DO NOT mimic real world or athletic demands on groups of muscles which must balance and counterbalance while the body is in motion.

Training to maximize one's core strength/flexibility and leverage (which primarily comes from the lower body) is infinitely more important in football than to push a large mass away from your chest on a straight line.
 
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