Bench is literally fucking pointless for building the chest

This

strength and mass are directly correlated.
If you get bigger you will get stronger no matter what. If you got stronger while keeping your technique the same, you got bigger

>HURRRR BUT "Insert here X youtuber that is small and strong" IS SO SMALL HOW YOU EXPLAIN THAT?
If that person keeps getting stronger with the same technique, what do you know? he will get bigger.

The only exception are advanced (natural) athletes that have almost reached their genetical potential for muscle mass and only try to perfect the technique

Kek. Savage.

>tfw i'm literally the only one in my gym that pauses
>tfw everyone else blasts it up and down as fast as they can
>tfw i've literally just started so i'm doing proper work but for like 27kg while they do shit work but for lmao 1pl8+

The point is that it doesn't matter and trying to assert your opinion as fact is stupid. People that have been doing this shit for longer than I've been alive would say that Bench press is vital to a big strong chest

>How do you explain "Person who has a big chest without benching"???

I dunno. I mean I'm sure it works for some people, but most people with an impressive chest do bench press, as well as it's variations and appropriate accessory work.

I'm not gonna critique someone for benching faster than me, but I feel like doing it quicker makes it more likely that you're gonna hurt yourself, maybe by fucking up your shoulders.

But what do I know, I don't even lift

So what are you doing here?

>prove me wrong
POST BODY

I like the memes

>27kg

When i see threads like this i just assume it's some 15 year old that just started to worknout but spends more time looking up workout memes then actually working out.

i feel flat bench press is mostly an upper back exercise.
that and deadlift give such good doms the next day when done heavy!

I kekked at that too.

But seriously, my bench is garbage. The bar kinda shakes when I hold it up and I usually barely even feel pressure on my chest, even if I retract my shoulders as much as I can. Only feel my triceps being worked desu lads.

I saw a guy on the bench press machine (the one where you sit upright and push outwards in front of you) literally loading up 12kg and violently shaking the handles forwards and backwards, getting maybe half a rep at a time at most, for like 30 reps while making a very angry grimace. Then he waited 30 secs and did it again. Made a hell of a noise.

The whole time i was doing triceps work with dumbbells nearby and I was not the only one giving him a vaguely horrified look

Cunningham's Law states "the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."

Op doesn't want you to prove him wrong to be a dick, he just wants to learn the science and reason behind doing it.

Well done OP.

how long do you pause?
if you touch your chest and back up it's fine because you use the stretch reflex of your muscles.

problem is those fags at the gym who either bounce the bar on their bellies or dont get even close to the ROM and just push the bar back up when it's nowhere close to the body.

youre wrong because i look better than you and bench all the time

>is getting compliments about strength and size
>how much do you bench user?
>actually i do "x" instead

Sorry user, i don't see the problem, maybe he is fucking right then.

>Get in position
>Hold barbell above you
>Let it down
>Hold it there for a solid three hours
>Push it back up
>Do it again 4 more times

Doing it for any less is just a waste of time desu

>Making blanket statements saying one exercise is inferior to another
>Not understand that different things work for different people
>Also not understand that most people with a bretty gud chest usually does flat barbell bench press

Also I just assumed everyone else's family and friends ask how much they bench, but maybe that's just me.

Pls leave, you are shitting this board
How can they do it fast?

If you lift to heavy for you, you cant go fast
I have seen vids in yt and they dont make a pause

I used to be like you. Do a warm-up without plates on the bar and try to feel your chest.
Your posture is undoubtedly wrong

onto it. I was really just wondering if I needed bench

I have to ask: Is it possible to substitute flat bench press with pushups?

And i can now go on youtube and post a video saying that the best chest exercise is the squat.
Does that video prove anything? No

That said you can skip the pause if you want. The exercise just becomes way easier to cheat because when the weight is really heavy you will just bounce the weight on your chest.
The pause makes that cheating not possible + makes your chest work harder to do the work the bounce was going to do for you.

If you want to impress people on the gym about how much ya bench, then don't pause. Hell you can skip touching the chest altogheter.

If you are interested in progress on the bench press and thus maximal chest development, pause for one second on your chest. It's just that simple man, choose whichever you prefer.

>doing maybe own bodyweight on a compound exercise
>guys I can't grow big muscles guys

It fucking is, I know it is. I'm not even sure where exactly I'm supposed to lower the bar to. Is it my mid chest? Lower chest? Seems like I hit a different spot every fucking rep, christ.

press ups are like benching, right? but it hits your back too.
a normal pressup is about half your body weight on your hands, and if you use weighted vests or a backpack full of weights, you could do the equivalent of bench press to a moderate weight, and it will hit more muscle groups.

why should I bench?

stay btfo

Dunno if srs or not, but I mean, what could it hurt? If you're doing it right then it works your chest pretty well. Worst case scenario, it works your triceps more than your chest.

Worst worst case scenario you don't have the form down and fuck up your shoulders. So don't do it wrong.

If you're absolutely DYEL then sure, but bodyweight pushups can only take you so far. By the time you start trying to do weighted pushups, you might as well just do bench press. It's easier to adjust the weight for it and will undoubtedly give more gains than doing pushups.

There's a good Alan Thrall vid that talks about where to lower the bar to, I watched when I first started working out and it's helped me not fuck up. youtube.com/watch?v=x7m1JW7mg6Q at 2:37

On the long term normal pushups don't work.

If you can do more than 20 pushups in a row you are just not working hard enough for your body to adapt. At that point it just becomes cardio. It's like doing curls with a pencil, you will eventually reach your limit but from being tired, not from your muscles reaching fatigue.

Having said that you can look for push-up variations that are harder, do a deep pushup until your chest touches the ground.... Basically make them harder and aim at reaching failure at 6-12 pushups. That would be better than normal pushups. But in my opinion just do dips or bench press man

It's supposed to touch in a point near your sternum, that is supposing a lower back arch and scapular retraction. Look at the ceiling and focus on FEELING the bar touching your sternum, not looking at it. Then it's just a matter of practise and being focused during the sets.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Thanks lads

>That fucking picture

I fucked my shoulder somehow and can't really bench for shit. I get sharp pain the the shoulder area. It doesn't happen when I am doing push ups. I'll try putting some weight on my back when I am doing them, maybe that will help.

My left shoulder is smaller than my right one. How do I fix this? Dumbbell shrugs?

Where does it hurt when you bench? I used to get shoulder pain when benching until I finally tweaked my form.

idk how you managed this, but I'm sure dumbbell shrugs and dumbbell OHP will help you out.

>how you managed this

Neither do I. My left side in general is weaker than my right side for some fucking reason, including my bicep which is smaller. Fuck.

>Where does it hurt when you bench?
Inside the left shoulder? I'm not a doctor, I don't know the medical term.
Only happens when I bench press. I can do shit like OHP, lateral raises no problem.

I dont touch my chest and dont bounce either

I put it 1 cm or less to my chest and then go up

Chest work more like that

Well if it doesn't happen when you do pushups, it just sounds like your form is wrong.Like I said, I thought I had the form right for a while but always had shoulder pain. Turns out I just needed to fix it a little and now I'm all good.

But if you don't wanna risk it, I guess working around it is fine, as long as it works for you. But I'd look into your form before giving up on it completely.

Isolation
vs.
Multi joint

I'll give my shoulder a rest this week, then I'll try and ease into the bench press again.

Seriously though if a bench is unavailable for some reason is an incline DB press + cable crossover a good substitute?

There is no substitute for bench. All you motherfuckers with shoulder pain need to retract your scapula and have somebody hand off.

I don't have a shoulder injury just a busy gym

true

>There is no substitute for bench
Why not?

Yeah don't go full ham on it if you're having shoulder issues dude. Start with lighter weight, work your way up, and remember to retract your scapula. I'm sure you knew this stuff though.

Ask to work in. Or if you're too much of an awkward autist (like me) just wait for them to get done. While waiting for them to get done, you could do some light accessory work to warm up your chest.

If that's the case then you're probably better off just asking to work in, because waiting for a bench press to free up in a busy gym is like waiting for a gf when you never go outside.

Or if your gym is 24/7, go when no one else would be there, like 1 in the morning.

Just like there's no substitute for any of the other main lifts. Sure I'd say you could work around it and make fine gains, but it's much more practical to do bench and it's variations than to opt out and make the same gains, but slower. Besides, unless you're doing them completely wrong and hurting yourself, there's really no reason NOT to do them.

> 27 kg
> proper work

Oh user ...

Fuckkkkkkkkkkk

>wanting to do cable flyes for 5 rep sets
Lmao

You're from CA aren't you?

Incline Dumbbell presses and cable crossovers are literally fucking pointless for building the chest

bench press is all you need
>prove me wrong

This is correct

.t dyel

Unfortunately that word has spread past just the bay area and now everyone says it

This is the epitome of Veeky Forums a DYEL that benches 60 pounds thinking he's superior and giving advice to people that actually lift

Nah.
Both dumbbell and barbell flat bench allow for a lot of weight to be pushed.
This means it is what your progression should be based on.

Even for you it's not like it would be difficult to simply reply "I don't bench", it's no ones business but your own, you don't need to go around talking about your bench, life is not a highschool locker room.

Plenty of bodybuilders don't bench, it's really not needed. Dumbbell presses are great substitutes, there's nothing magical about muh "main lifts". This is just powerlifting bs, if dips would have been a pl move you'd say the same about that.

Maybe true, but if that's the case then OP's statement of "incline dumbell presses and cable crossovers are all you need" would still be wrong. Also the paradox of saying "Bench is worthless" and then saying "Incline dumbell bench is all you need" isn't lost on me, but maybe I'm splitting hairs here.

I don't do dips because they hurt my shoulders. I'm not saying absolutely everyone should do bench press, but if your only issue is "I don't like them", then you should probably do them anyway. Especially for newbies, since there's really no reason to NOT to do them.

Fucking kek

I built my chest with only flat barbell bench. You can make really good strength gains with it. The only problem is for aesthetics, you might develop slight imbalances, in delts if you push more with one arm like right handed.

as the other user said, dumbell press for volume, barbell bench for strength.

But if you kys you will go to hella

I just bench 5x5 with OHP inbetween sets. And all my lifts.

top kek

Not true, so long as you're using lifting stats to measure strength. A lot of gains in power come from CNS adaptation.

LOST

kek'd

Agree somewhat...I wouldn't dismiss benching completely. To me it's nice to start with to break fibers down then cable crossovers to build a pump. I mainly got a nice chest from lower and upper cables but doing incline and flat shouldn't be dismissed. Also dips are great.

>110lbs
I did this after 2 months.

Your bench went up 110lbs in 2 months? Damn bro, nice!

If you use your chest muscles to lift up heavy things they will grow

Training every other day while eating protein pulver sure helps.

Unless you started with just the bar and went to 155 this is BS

don't be ridiculous user

Lol. When I used to play wow and had a question, I did this. I can confirm that it very much works. Ask a question and everybody ignores you. Intentionally post the wrong answer and everybody jumps all over themselves to correct you.

I wasnt aware this was a ylyl

dumbbell flys can be substituted for cable if you dont pussy out on the weight
Also the point of bench is to increase the amount you can dumbbell press and fly