Barbell Bench Press
More lifters hurt their shoulders on the bench press than on any other lift, and it is rarely the weight that does it. It is the elbow angle, the bar touching too high on the chest, and a shoulder blade that slides forward on every rep.
Below are the seven bench press form mistakes that come up most often, with the mechanical reason behind each and the correction to make on your next working set.
| Primary muscles | Pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, triceps |
|---|---|
| Secondary muscles | Lats, serratus anterior, upper back |
| Equipment | Barbell, flat bench, rack |
| Level | Beginner to advanced |
| Most common failure point | Two to five centimetres off the chest |
| Best camera angle for a form check | Side view, level with the bench |
Lie down, pull the shoulder blades back and down into the bench, and keep them there for the whole set. This is the platform you press from — if it moves, the shoulder takes the load.
Keep a natural arch in the lower back with the glutes in contact with the bench. Plant both feet flat, roughly under or slightly behind the knees, and push them into the floor.
Grip so that at the bottom your forearms are vertical. Squeeze the bar hard — grip tension recruits the triceps and upper back. Unrack by pulling the bar out, not by pressing it up.
Bring the bar down to the sternum or just below the nipple line, with the elbows at roughly 45 to 70 degrees from the torso. Control the descent; do not let the bar fall.
Make light contact with the chest and hold the tension. Bouncing the bar off the ribcage removes the hardest part of the rep and puts a compressive spike through the sternum.
Drive the bar slightly back toward the face as it rises so it finishes over the shoulder joint, not over the chest. Keep the shoulder blades pinned all the way to lockout.
A side view at bench height is the only angle that shows the bar path and the touch point at the same time. A phone on the floor pointing up distorts both.
Elbow angle is genuinely hard to judge from the side. If flare is your suspected problem, film one set from above or from the head of the bench.
On the replay, ignore the bar for one viewing and look only at whether the shoulders stay pinned to the bench through lockout.
Elbow flare and blade collapse appear when the set gets hard. The first rep of a warm-up will tell you nothing.
Film the set, and Stance returns the specific fault and the correction instead of a raw video to interpret yourself. The clip is analyzed and then deleted, never stored.
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On the lower sternum, roughly at or just below the nipple line for most builds. Touching higher forces the shoulders into more extension and is the single most common cause of bench press shoulder pain. The exact point depends on your arm length, so use the position where your forearms end up vertical at the bottom.
Most often a combination of elbows flared near 90 degrees, a bar touching too high, and shoulder blades that are not retracted. Fix all three together: tuck the elbows to 45 to 70 degrees, move the touch point down to the lower sternum, and set the blades back and down before you unrack. If pain persists at low loads, stop and get it assessed.
A natural arch, with the glutes staying in contact with the bench, is normal and protects the shoulder by putting the chest in a better pressing position. An extreme arch built only to shorten the range of motion is a powerlifting competition choice, not a hypertrophy one, and it demands a lot from your thoracic spine.
Both have a place. Touch-and-go allows more load and volume; paused bench removes the elastic rebound and exposes weakness at the chest. If your paused bench is far below your touch-and-go bench, the bounce is compensating for a real gap and a paused block will pay off.
Yes. Film one working set from the side at bench height with your whole torso and the bar in frame. Bar path, touch point and lockout symmetry are all readable from that single angle. Stance analyzes the clip and reports the specific fault, so you get the correction rather than a raw video to interpret yourself.
This guide is general training information, not medical advice. Stop and consult a qualified professional if a movement causes pain.
