The Stand Press Helps The Bottom of Your Bench
This movement can serve many purposes. The one I’m going to write about for you here is to help the bottom technical end of the bench press.
Many will say this is like a floor press while on a bench. I disagree because I feel the legs should be straight on a floor press to take them out of the press. With the stand press, your legs are still in the movement.
The biggest technical training aspect of this can be seen in the pictures. I set the elitefts squat box (yes, they are used for more than squatting) up so with the addition of one mat they are even with the bench. I believe the best way to keep your shoulders healthy is to not let the elbows drop lower than the bench pad. For most, a good start is even to the pad - thus, the same arm position as the floor. If your torso is big and/or arms are short, bring the stand up higher.
The bar is a couple inches off my chest
The bar is now on my torso because I didn't lower the bar more I brought my torso up
You want the bar to be 1-2 inches off of your chest while triceps are on the stands. From here, you want to figure out what you need to do to get the bar to touch your torso. In other words, bring your torso to the bar while keeping your ass on the bench. This can be done by pulling more air in the belly (or chest - or both), driving your heals down if you tuck. If legs are out, it could be pushing through your heals instead of toes.
It could also be your back tightness, or how high you are positioned on your traps and rear deltoids. It could be many of these together.
The thing is, when you find the most optimal position, the bar will be on your chest because you figured out how to get your torso to meet the bar on the way down.
This leads to less shoulder rotation, a stronger bench, tighter bench, shorter push, and healthier position to press from.
This can be used as max effort work, submaximal training, dynamic effort work, or simply just a teaching tool.
The stands I use are the elitefts Squat Box with one mat on top.
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