Arching Your Back During a Bench Press or Chest Press

Why it might not be the best strategy for you...

So much of the current advice we use for weight training is given to us by bodybuilders and powerlifters.

But many things that apply to these individuals don’t necessarily apply to us. You know, regular people who weight train for longevity, and not for competition.

During a movement like a Barbell Bench Press or Dumbbell Chest Press, you’ll often see people really arching their backs, and squeezing their shoulder blades together as they press.

And for a competitor, this makes a lot of sense. Let me show you why.

When we arch our back, lifting our ribcage up, our range of motion for pressing becomes less.

You can see here on the left I’m arching my back, and on the right I’m not. Hopefully, you can clearly see the difference in reach.

When you’re arching your spine and squeezing your shoulder blades together, you quite literally don’t have to press the weight quite as far.

And these few inches can make a BIG difference when you’re competing and lifting hundreds of pounds.

BUT, if you’re not competing, I think it’s far more important that we consider which position is best for the shoulder joint, than which position allows you to put up the biggest numbers…

So, let’s talk about why your shoulders might not love the “arch-backed position”

When we arch our back, our ribcage lifts up, putting it in a flared position (meaning the ribs are externally rotated).

This puts our humerus (upper arm bone) in a position of relative extension and internal rotation, compared to the position of the ribcage.

You can test this yourself by trying to internally rotate your shoulder in this position.

You’ll most likely feel that this movement is limited.

It’s limited because you’ve STARTED in a position of relative internal rotation. You’ve already taken up some of that range at the starting point.

Now take some deep exhales, reaching your finger tips toward the ceiling on the exhale.

You should feel your spine and lower ribs melt down toward the mat.

Now go ahead and retest your shoulder internal rotation. You’ll most likely have more, because you’re starting from a neutral position.

Okay, but why do I care?

Now that we’ve established that arching our back puts us in relative internal rotation at the shoulder, it makes sense that we wouldn’t want to repeatedly chest press from this position.

Pressing weight when the shoulder is internally rotated can lead to potentially higher risk for rotator cuff irritation and shoulder impingement.

Now let’s move onto “squeezing the shoulder blades”

This one is a bit simpler to understand. When we reach forward to press, our shoulder blade should protract (meaning it moves away from the spine).

When we move our arm back, the shoulder blade should retract (meaning it moves back toward the spine).

By squeezing our shoulder blades together, we prevent normal scapula rhythm.

And for some people, this can cause shoulder irritation.

So what SHOULD I do?

When starting to Chest Press, I like to cue individuals to take a nice deep exhale, and feel their spine and ribs melt down. This ensures they’re starting from a neutral position.

Then, instead of pressing BOTH weights at the same time, I encourage an alternating press- meaning as one arm is pressing the weight up, the other arm is lowering the weight back down.

When we press bilaterally (both arms together), it often encourages us to go back into that extended spine position.

By alternating, we encourage more natural, reciprocal movement- creating ribcage rotation.

And while I don’t always love the phrase “functional training,” I do think an Alternating Chest Press is truly “functional” when it comes to human movement.

What do your arms do during walking, running, or punching?

They alternate.

One goes forward, as one goes back.

I hope you found this post helpful, and you see WHY we teach our Chest Press the way we do inside of Loa Movement classes.