I am really enjoying seeing the resurgence of equipped benching with these new band shirts. From someone who started his powerlifting career donning a bench shirt that took about 20 minutes to get on. Which I only got about 40 lbs out of and that was damn good those days.
Seeing the changes in bench shirt technology has been exciting. There are many lifters out there who don't think it's fair. That their numbers will look diminished in comparison. Come on people, do they put asterisks next to golf stats now because the game was once played with all wood clubs. How about car racing technology. Let it go people.
Honestly, I never thought I'd put another bench shirt on, but people keep telling me how much fun these new shirts are. Plus, they look pretty damn easy to put on. Perhaps I'll give one a shot.
However, the bench shirt issue that drove me to raw lifting still prevails. Not being able to touch weight. It just looks so unnatural. Seriously, it's like gravity is broken. It looks ridiculous when people can't touch the weight to their chest. I strongly believe this is part of the reason geared lifting turned into a joke and has little support.
I don't get it, touching the weight to my chest in a bench shirt was never an issue for me. Perhaps that's because I always trained to my chest. It's crazy how many people I see doing nothing but board presses in their shirts. Then at meets they hover over their chest for 20 seconds before you'll hear "Take it, take it, take it!"
If one of the most difficult parts of the lift in a shirt is touching the weight, don't you think that's where most of the training time should be spent. Ah, what do I know, I only benched 900 lbs and that wasn't even in a new fangled band shirt.
Now I can already hear it "But I go down to a one board and even a half board, with more weight it will touch." Nah, sorry. Pressing from a board is distinctly different. Lifters allow the weight to crash into the boards. It's a false sense of security. If you want to work the top part of the lift, by all means do so. Just make sure to do your full range work also. And, if you really want to touch. Check out my article The Art Of Triples
People, if you want to take up geared benching, have at it. I support all lifting. But for the love of God, start actually training the full range of motion so you don't look like a clown on the platform.
