Floor Press and its Applications
By Aaron DiPrima
For EliteFTS.com

After suffering my first of two minor pec tears I eliminated full range bench pressing from my routine and relied solely on the floor press for my bench press training. After suffering my second I have re-evaluated this and am doing full range pressing again, I did however pick up some things along the way.

At the time of the transition to doing solely the floor press I was following, and still am following, the Westside Barbell protocol. The methods have always been beneficial, but one drawback I always seemed to deal with was irritation, pulls, and then finally a tear in the pectoral major close to the insertion (armpits). The pulls would occur a few times a year, almost always on speed day, and almost always with a close grip. And close grip speed work is exactly what I was doing when the injury occurred. At the time I had official Bench presses of 410@220 523@275 and 505@308. 

During my rehabilitation I started to do floor presses to de-emphasize the reversal out of the bottom portion of the lift. This seemed quite effective and within a few months of only doing floor presses I posted an easy 500@242 and shortly after that an even easier 500@220 with some shirt/equipment problems with 530 on a third wich would have been manageable otherwise. I stayed away from any regular bench pressing for about two years all together and ended up with a 550@275 and finally had a tear in the other pec attempting 600 weighing 295.

During the two years of training like this right up until the tear, I never strained a pec, which was usually a monthly or bi monthly occurrence. So this seems easier on the pec insertions and shoulders as you are taking the hard jarring out of the bottom of the lift. I feel the plyometric like speed work in the touch and go style can beat up some lifters, especially those with larger pecs and longer arms. That hard ballistic bench is not a requirement for a big bench press. If you look at some of today’s top Squatters many of them do mainly box squats, which, like the floor press is a dynamic overcoming static state. If Chuck V. and Mike Ruggeria can squat over a grand not doing any ballistic squatting then why is it necessary for us to do this hard reversal on the bench press when the shoulder girdle is not nearly as stable as the hips? Also I noticed that with the floor press I was able to handle large amounts of band tension for extended periods of time without problems. I eventually got carried away with this leading to a dislocated shoulder and it possibly led to the second pec tear. But nonetheless a lifter can handle more bands and for longer periods of time when using a static overcoming dynamic exercise. This may be a contributing factor as to why many lifters can use bands on their dynamic squats almost continuously.

Though there were several contributing factors to the second tear, I feel one may have been the complete elimination of full range movements. I am now alternating floor press and regular bench every other week and as recommended by WBC will do a full range mini cycle on the max effort day every month or so. 

In my case the floor press, and especially the floor press with the inclusion of bands increases my bench press more than regular bench pressing does. This is due to the fact that I am extremely fast and strong off the chest, and extremely poor at the lockout. The floor press allows me to focus more on what I am bad at, taking my leg drive and explosion out of the lift and forcing me to work in a different way. I also do board presses like this. It seems to overall be easier on the body allowing for more gains and recovery. I believe someone could develop a good bench press doing minimal bench presses as long as they do some heavy full range rep stuff after their dynamic effort and once a month on max effort.