Stop Tucking Your Elbows (bench press)

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Now you may read the title of this video and thought - flaring my elbows out too much when bench pressing can lead to shoulder impingement - which is correct, and we'll get into that soon. This may have led you to conclude that in order to avoid flared elbows and therefore shoulder impingement, you need to tuck your elbows during the movement - which is actually incorrect. While flaring your elbows out too much places your shoulders in a vulnerable position, tucking your elbows in too much will put you in an inefficient position. So for this video, I’ll go through the problems created by flared elbows, the problems created by tucked elbows, then at the end, I’ll explain how to get into an optimal position for health and strength - without even having to think about it.

First things first, let's go over why you shouldn’t let your elbows flare out. A 2016 study showed that decreasing shoulder abduction - or elbow flare - helps to decrease compressive forces at the shoulder. Meaning the chances of the dreaded shoulder impingement are decreased. When the elbows flare out closer to 90 degrees in your bench press, your shoulders are forced into a more internally rotated position, causing the long head of the biceps tendon and the supraspinatus to impinge between the head of the humerus and the acromion process. The acromion process being the bony protrusion of the scapula situated directly above the upper arm. When the head of the humerus is driven up because of elbow flare, we get a closing of the subacromial space, causing the muscles and tendons I mentioned earlier to be painfully compressed, and causing the AC joint to potentially impinge as well - the AC joint being the space between the acromion and clavicle that is separated by cartilage. In addition to the compression and impingement potentially caused by flared elbows, the position also causes a pretty extreme stretch on the shoulder joint. The closer the elbows get to 90 degrees with the torso, the less range of motion comes from the elbow joint, while range of motion demands are increased at the shoulder joint. And while some stretch on the shoulder is certainly helpful for stressing the pecs, an extreme stretch under load probably isn't the best idea for long term shoulder health - so lets stay away from any extremes.

OK. So clearly it's not a good idea to flare your elbows out like crazy when you bench if you care at all about your long term shoulder health. So why not tuck your elbows while you bench? The answer is efficiency. Look at the position actively tucking my elbows gets me into at the bottom of the rep. My elbows are now in front of the bar, meaning a moment arm at the elbow is created and unnecessary energy must be expended to keep the bar from collapsing backwards. At the bottom of the rep we want stacked joints, meaning you should be able to draw a straight line from elbow, to wrist, to bar. This is your most efficient position - and this is a position where no energy is being wasted trying to balance the bar in an awkward position. Check out this clip of me benching from the other day and you'll actually see my body defer to this efficient position as the fatigue of the set increases. I was making the mistake of over-tucking my elbows, however, when the weight started to feel heavy on my last rep and the bar began to slow down, without even thinking about it my elbows flared out to finish off the set. I was able to maintain the inefficient tucked elbow position up until my fatigue and the fear of death created by no spotter, unconsciously flarred my elbows out and directly under the bar. But I wasted a lot of energy in the previous reps by twisting my elbows in front of the bar and balancing the weight in a position that isn’t optimal for balance. So don’t waste energy and awkwardly twist your elbows like I did here.

So, all i've told you about in this video is what not to do, now, let me wrap things up by giving you suggestions to avoid the excessive elbow positions we've been talking about. As you can tell by now, wrenching your elbows in or out will create issues with shoulder health and efficiency. So right off of the bat, lets stop forcing our elbows into unnatural positions. Let them fall where they comfortably fall, and your elbows will naturally stay under the bar without your conscious thought. But this raises the question: how do I ensure my elbows aren’t flared or tucked too much, even if I’m not consciously flaring or tucking them. And the answer is you need to set a correct grip width, and you need to hit the right spot on your chest. Lets address grip first. The wider your grip, the more your elbows will flare in order to stay in their intuitive position - again that being directly below the loaded barbell....