Anyone ever used a Bench Press shirt before?

the_dude00

I've heard people say they lift quite a bit more weight in them. Wondering if one might help me build my chest a little more quickly?

georgina1970

What, fill a shirt with a body and bench press it??
My husband used to do this with the kids :-)

SideSteel

I don't know of any reason or data that would show a bench press shirt helping to develop your chest faster.

As far as use of a shirt, ask ChrisDavey, pretty sure he's worn one.

n3ver3nder

A bench shirt starts to work at the bottom of the lift, making it easier to get the weight off the chest, then when you get to lockout it's all you. So your chest would be doing *less* work, as the shirt will be doing a lot of it for you.

Assuming you want to 'build' you're looking at hypertrophy rep ranges, which you're unlikely to be able to rep a weight with your triceps that is sufficiently heavy enough to get the bar down to the chest.

With a shirt you actually have to pull the bar down to your chest - you're working against the shirt, you're loading it like a spring - so you need enough weight on the bar to help get it down in the first place. With that amount of weight, if you attempt to rep it in the 8-12 range, you might end up damaging your triceps, elbows etc and also increase the likelihood of bailing the lift, which in a shirt tends to mean the elbows flying up and the wrists going back, dumping the bar on the face. You'd need a very good, fast, experienced spotter.

danimalkeys

I agree with n3ver. I have used several different types of bench shirts in my competition days. They are not going to build up your chest. If you want to build your chest then do exercises that work your chest more. Cambered bar bench, DB bench, extra wide grip bench, those fly things.

Lifting with a shirt is all about technique and hammering your lockout power in training. Lots and lots of board presses with really heavy weight to work your triceps and delts. Lots of back work to provide a strong base. Analyzing your weaknesses and strengthening them- knowing what lifts to use to fix an area that is weak..

JeffseekingV

Bench shirts won't help you with getting stronger. They are used for safety and will help you lift more as said. They only thing using one during traing is to get used to using one as they are really uncomfortable . Also they are a royal paint to get one and off

gweneddk

Echoing the others, really only useful for max strength/powerlifting competitions. Not so helpful for hypertrophy/muscle growth.