Antti
Level 10 Valued Member
Yes, I would agree that the point of the leg drive is to increase the arch and increase overall stability.
Barbell IPF Changes Bench Rules to Reduce "ROM Manipulation"
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Yes, I would agree that the point of the leg drive is to increase the arch and increase overall stability.
Hung
Level 8 Valued Member
Or like powerlifting in Paralympics
william bad butt
Level 7 Valued Member
Keeping the feet on the ground is important though, right? The bench is supposed to be a whole body lift. right? Most don't realize that. My lower body gets worked in a bench press, whether I arch or whether I don't but use Leg drive.
watchnerd
Level 8 Valued Member
Getting out my popcorn for this part....
watchnerd
Level 8 Valued Member
silveraw
Level 9 Valued Member
I've observed a correlation between the two, especially when starting out. But that self test didn't exactly have a control group.
Adam R Mundorf
Level 6 Valued Member
Boris Bachmann
Level 8 Valued Member
Agreed. Look, sports evolve. Technique, judging and scoring, the playing field, implements/equipment, clothing, PEDs, etc evolve. At some point, some sports say "Hold the phone - this is getting out of hand" and then adjust rules to reign things in. PL is no different than a lot of other sports in this regard.
william bad butt
Level 7 Valued Member
I mean, read Power to the People Professional, about how Pavel describes Russian bench pressing almost like a push press. Brian Carroll also teaches this Leg drive. When I bench, I can make my legs pretty sore.
william bad butt
Level 7 Valued Member
10 Tips For A Better Bench -
Think the bench press is merely just an upper-body lift? Think again. When you bench correctly, you’ll use your back, hips, and calves. The day after you bench, you should feel it from head to toe. The bench press starts with a concrete and solid foundation with your feet on the floor. Think of...
www.ironmanmagazine.com
North Coast Miller
Level 9 Valued Member
I’m sure folks have seen this study before:
journals.plos.org
To me another issue is that in life you pretty much never use posterior drive with a forward push. Eg sled push or pushing a car. Feet up increases ab engagement as well. Any peripheral engagement of the lower body will be minimal in the scheme of things.
That said, I don’t feel stongly enough to climb on a soap box, but I do encourage folks to give it a try.
Evaluation and comparison of electromyographic activity in bench press with feet on the ground and active hip flexion
The present study aimed to evaluate and compare the levels of electromyographic activation in the pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps brachii, forearm, rectus abdominis, external oblique, and rectus femoris muscles during a horizontal bench press in two situations: 1) with the feet on...
To me another issue is that in life you pretty much never use posterior drive with a forward push. Eg sled push or pushing a car. Feet up increases ab engagement as well. Any peripheral engagement of the lower body will be minimal in the scheme of things.
That said, I don’t feel stongly enough to climb on a soap box, but I do encourage folks to give it a try.
Absolutely! The thing that most people don’t understand is that when performing the big 3 (or 4 rather) lifts, is that all of them are supposed to be all body. They are compound and the big 3 (or 4) for a reason. And when you perform them it’s because you want to get stronger (period). Why else would you practice/train these lifts for?
So in order to get stronger with each lift you need 3 criteria: greater And safest ROM, using the most mass and lifting the most weight.
The safest ROM for the bench is with retracted and possibly depressed shoulder blades (which in return will give you a thoracic arch). This position keeps the shoulder in a safe position to avoid impingement and injury. Flat benching will put more pressure on it and increase the moment arm of the lift making it more difficult. So when you set your shoulder blades and have that arch on the back it takes care of both; safety and reduces the moment arm (making it THE SAFEST RANGE OF MOTION). But some people take this out of context and of course go with the exaggerated arch and extra wide grip and they are only moving the bar 2 inches. Welp, that only takes care of 2 out of the 3 criteria. It is definitely not the greatest ROM.
Just my 2 cents
bluejeff
Level 7 Valued Member
The rules of powerlifting will likely never affect me. . .however
When I see the arched bench vs the flat bench, the two moves are different enough for me to think of them as two different lifts. As Steve said, though, the rules dictate what the lift "is" for that competition.
When I see the arched bench vs the flat bench, the two moves are different enough for me to think of them as two different lifts. As Steve said, though, the rules dictate what the lift "is" for that competition.
When I think of a squat and a deadlift, they at least resemble something you might actually do somewhere outside of lifting. There's no human movement pattern that even remotely resembles an extremely-arched bench press.
watchnerd
Level 8 Valued Member
I'm familiar with anecdotes.
And the benefit of bracing.
I just don't get the physics that is claiming to happen.
Any axis of force production that is not directly plumb to the bar path vs gravity will be at a hypotenuse vector to the load, and thus reduced in magnitude.
And as for a push press -- you really are using leg drive in that case, as your knees bend for a dip, then you drive. And the drive is inline with the bar path.
Neither of those are true with bench press leg drive, so the claims of leg drive don't make any sense to me, except as another way to discuss bracing.
Antti
Level 10 Valued Member
I agree.
What is often forgotten in these discussions is how force is a vector. Lie on the bench and use your leg drive, where do you move? The force of the leg drive is horizontal, while the bench press bar path is vertical or nearly so. The gravity that opposes the press is purely vertical.
I've also heard it claimed that the leg drive enables one to bring the bar lower and thus typically higher, in which situation the leg drive would move the bar horizontally to a more favourable position to press from, still being higher than if the bar was originally lowered in that position. I'm not sold on that either.
However, the horizontal forve vector is great or increasing the arch and making the whole of the body tighter.
Halfakneecap
Level 6 Valued Member
I struggle to see it as a full body movement when the first step is to lay down? Squat, deadlift and overhead press sure, but not bench. I guess at super heavy weights ( which I have zero experience with ) you’d need to brace your lower body? But with ohead press you need to actively stabilise/tense your whole body. I guess it’s a matter of degree
watchnerd
Level 8 Valued Member
With a horizontal vector on a vertical object in motion, there will still be a small reduced force vector along the hypotenuse of the triangle at a magnitude of (tan) of F.
Of course, this hypotenuse is diagonal to the (nearly) vertical bar bath, so if there was a lot of it it would act to push the bar up and backwards -- which would then require a counter-acting force to prevent the bar path from deviating up towards the lifter's head.
So the more your legs push the bar up diagonally and back, the more your pecs/shoulders/tris have to exert an opposing force in the opposite direction to maintain a good bar path, cancelling each other out.
There's no free lunch in physics.
Watch some good bench pressers in competition. I recall one guy who looked like he was doing a jerk - lowered the bar carefully and under control, paused as required, and then when given the Press command, fired every muscle he could - calves, legs pushing into the ground, glutes, lats. It was enough to make the bar start upwards without really moving the bar away from his body much, if at all. The rules prohibit "heaving" the bar, but you can get away with something resembling that by staying just tight enough on the descent and then getting tighter as you begin to press.There's no free lunch in physics.
I have also seen similar technique used with a kettlebell military press. As long as there is no leanback followed by a belly bump, no starting with bent knees and straightening them, and nothing else along those lines, the technique is a good one, IMO. IOW, it's not as simple as force vectors, IMO.
-S-
watchnerd
Level 8 Valued Member
To be clear:
I'm not saying they don't push with their legs.
The physics supports it being important for bracing.
And, in the math example above, there is a tan (0) force vector in a diagonal direction.
But it's nothing at all like the force vectors of a push press that was cited earlier, where the legs are directly in line with bar bath and the legs are moving a lot in comparison to a bench press.
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