Topic: Silver olympian Chigishev doing 500 lbs bench!

[igorheren]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbJxt1ukv-U

Bench press in a BB style, as a additional excercise for weightlifting.

[Chuck Lopez]

pretty amazing! especially considering that if he'd had his feet on the floor and given leg drive he'd probably be doing 235kg easy.

this to me proves the whole 'bench makes you tight overhead' thing is a wornout myth, just like the 'knees over toes are bad on squats' farse.

[Matt Erdman]

pretty amazing! especially considering that if he'd had his feet on the floor and given leg drive he'd probably be doing 235kg easy.

this to me proves the whole 'bench makes you tight overhead' thing is a wornout myth, just like the 'knees over toes are bad on squats' farse.

I figured you would be happy about this. :)

[Ryan Wilkinson]

pretty amazing! especially considering that if he'd had his feet on the floor and given leg drive he'd probably be doing 235kg easy.

this to me proves the whole 'bench makes you tight overhead' thing is a wornout myth, just like the 'knees over toes are bad on squats' farse.

leg drive (& the subsequently ridiculous back arches) for a bench press are lame crutches. the bench press isn't a whole body lift. it is a slow motion, largely non-technical variation of a better lift: the press.

And....Chucky - did you get a t-shirt from Art?

[Chuck Lopez]

Matt - you know it, gotta justify my benching when I can training again somehow :D

Ryan - I tend to agree, but the feet on the floor just adds a more stable base so even if he wasn't using leg drive I think he'd be doing more with his feet on the floor, I would think the feet on the floor that he's doing to isolate the upper body though obviously.

Art isn't the one selling the shirts, Jessica is for $10 each, I still have to get one; they look simple but nice.

[Matt Foreman]

There has obviously been a lot of criticism of bench pressing in American Olympic Lifting for years.  USAW has actually marketed a t-shirt that says "We don't bench press."  Well, this guy benches and he does a 460 total.  I have a video of Kolecki benching 400 pounds in training.  I believe Mark Cardinal from Canada told a story once where he was missing snatches at an international meet in the 1970s and David Rigert told him he needed to do more benching to strengthen his upper body.

I do think benches can negatively affect flexibility in certain people.  Body types are different and certain athletes struggle more with flexibility in the wrists, elbows, etc.  I think benching can cause some problems for these types.  But generally, I think it's a good exercise for general upper body strength. 

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

I think doing a very small amount of moderate weight bench presses helped my snatch a little bit- started doing them again (first time since high school weightlifting) in 2001ish and snatched 112.5@62 not long after that in the 02 Sr Nats, and after a considerable layoff after my shoulder surgery I believe (memory of injuries and various layoffs due to injury or poverty get cloudy).

I also hate the we don't bench press shirts- pointless and counterproductive to selling our sport.

[walt lampert]

I always felt that a moderate amount of benching would never really hurt.  It always made my upper chest , frontal delts and triceps feel toned and strong and I never felt tight when snatching.  I realize its an individual thing.   And I totally agree with you Chris on the "We don't bench" t-shirt nonsense.  I hated it as soon as I heard about it.

Walt