New Rule for Bodybuilding #6

What is the most irrelevant question in bodybuilding?

"What do you bench press?"

Who cares?

6. Ask the right questions. Questions are the answer. If one focuses on a poor question, one will get a poor answer. Ask yourself, why was it that I joined this gym in the first place?

Ask questions like:

"How do I bench press (or squat, or deadlift...)?

"What does my chest look like after doing this particular chest exercise once a week for a couple of years?"

"Am I getting the results I signed up for?"

If not, relearn how to do the exercise correctly. In fact, skip bench press all together if you want. Some bodybuilders don't do bench because they hate it. There are many ways to workout the pectorals. Do machines or start with light dumbbells, then get heavier with more experience, as you improve your mind-muscle connection.

Did you know? It is possible to do bench press almost entirely using one’s arms and shoulders. It is possible to learn to bench press 2 or 3 times one's body weight while the chest does not grow at all.

"[Bench press] is properly performed while lying on one's back with one's shoulder blades pinched together" "Not pinching one's shoulder blades together causes the anterior deltoids (frontal shoulders) to take over."

So the goal is not to just push the weight up, the goal is to lift the weight by fully contracting the pectorals.

So the "How much do you bench?" question, most often asked by clueless people, contributes greatly to popular misconceptions about what one is supposed to be doing in the weight room. It is the question most responsible for all the wannabe powerlifters you see at the gym. Barrel-chested and stout is not what you want. You want to look better naked, not worse. Remember your first concern is not larger numbers your first concern is about a better body. Your measure of progress is not the number of plates on the bar, is it?

Begin with an obsession for numbers on bench it will begin to pervade all the other exercises too so that they're all done incorrectly with too much weight. And, I'm not saying that anyone asks that question maliciously, it's an example of another worthless misconception.

I used to relish each and every five-pound increase in my one-rep max for bench press but what I really wanted was what many guys want--bigger chest muscles. So don't get me wrong--observing one's own measurable progress is one of the great joys of exercise. But I wasn't doing myself any favors by lifting very hard yet incorrectly and ultimately not getting results. Start out with good form. Don't rush things. Ask yourself, "Why is it that I'm doing this, again?" "How could I do this more effectively to get better results?"