“Get tight” might be the most common coaching cue you hear powerlifters use, especially for the bench press. Before anyone is about to hit a big lift, you’re bound to hear several large mammals shout, “TIIIIIIIGHT!!!” from across the room.
What exactly does “getting tight” mean? It means putting your body in the best possible position to move the weight and STAYING that way no matter what. A heavy bar on your back or in your hands has a way of forcing your body out of position due to this damn thing called gravity. If you’re into grappling with gravity, learning to get tight and stay tight is crucial for strength and safety.
The Bench Press Setup
When we bench press, there are a couple of setup basics that must happen in order for us to be as strong as possible while keeping our shoulders in a safe position:
- Back arched
- Shoulder blades pinched together
- Shoulder blades pulled into back pockets
Once we establish these three things, we want them to stay consistent throughout the entire lift. When we fail to stay tight, these three things tend to fall apart. The weight of the bar plus our body’s natural inclination to relax causes the following:
- Back flattens out
- Shoulder blades push apart
- Shoulders shrug toward the ears
Bad bench press setup When these things happen, we can’t lift as much weight and it puts our shoulders in an unsafe position.
*NOTE* For more info on the basics of the bench press setup, check out these articles:
The Bench Press Arch: 4 Reasons Why You SHOULD Use It
How to Get TIIIIIIIGHT!
Getting tight during your bench press setup is a bit different than during the squat or the deadlift. There are two types of stability:
- Active Stability: Created by contracting muscles, such as squeezing your shoulder blades together or bracing your abdominals, or by applying force to an external object, such as engaging the lats by taking the slack out of the bar during a deadlift.
- Passive Stability: Positioning yourself against an external object, such as placing the bar really low on your back to get your torso tight during a low bar back squat.
While there are examples of active and passive stability during all three powerlifts, it’s much harder to create active stability during the bench press for one very obvious reason… you’re lying down!
When you’re lying down, it’s pretty easy to relax and let your body flop like a rag doll. Your best option is to use the bar and the bench itself to help wedge your body into the tightest position possible. So besides the obvious ACTIVE stability strategies for the bench press, which are…
- Arch your back
- Squeeze your shoulder blades together
- Pull your shoulder blades into your back pockets
- Crush the bar in your hands as tightly as possible, with emphasis on squeezing the pinkies
- Wedge your feet into the floor as hard as possible
- Take a huge breath and hold it
…you’ll also want to use one of the following PASSIVE stability strategies:
1. Hip Bridge Method
With this method, you’ll start with your feet up on the bench and walk your feet back toward your shoulders, creating a huge arch and stable upper back position. It creates passive stability by wedging the traps and upper back into the bench and trapping them there (no pun intended), so that when you place your feet down, you’ll be “stuck” in a tight arch.
Check out this video, which is one of many from my Bench Like A Beast book:
2. Behind-the-Bar Method
Setting up with your entire body behind the bar allows for a huge arch and lets you get your feet hooked as far back as possible. You also get to use the bar to leverage yourself into position. This also works well for people who use the heels-up foot position.
Here’s another demo straight from Bench Like A Beast:
3. Push Against the Sides of the Bench
Once you’ve used one of the two previously-mentioned methods for getting into your arch, you can then use the sides of the bench to push yourself into your final, super-tight position. Simply place your hands against the uprights of the bench, squeeze your shoulders blades down and back, and push yourself further into your arch without moving your butt or feet. From here, you should be able to grab the bar and stay in this tight position throughout the entire lift.
TOIGHT LIKE A TOIGER
With a combination of these methods, you’ll find yourself in an air-tight bench press setup that will let you move heavy weights without wrecking your shoulders. And that’s the entire premise of my Bench Like A Beast e-book: it’s a one-of-a-kind bench press program that combines a training plan that will add plenty of pounds to your bench press 1-rep max (up to 40 pounds in just 10 weeks in some test subjects), while also including the proper techniques, warm-up drills and exercises to keep your shoulders happy and healthy.
Are You Ready to Bench Like A Beast?
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