My 3 Favorite Cues for a Bigger (and Safer) Bench Press
Learning proper weightlifting technique is like honing the fundamentals of personal finance:
You “invest” (hopefully early on) the time it takes to develop good habits that’ll pay dividends for the rest of your fitness journey.
Weightlifting cues are great for this because they’re simple reminders that help you focus on a key aspect of your technique.
Sometimes cues seem obvious, trivial, or even silly, but when used properly, they can boost your strength, fix form problems, and reduce the risk of injury.
Here are three of my favorite cues for the bench press:
1. “Break the bar in half”
Think about squeezing the bar as hard as possible, as if you’re trying to bend it in half.
The goal of this cue is to maintain tension in your upper body, which keeps your shoulder blades pulled “back and down” (their proper position) and stabilizes your torso.
2. “Screw your feet into the floor”
Think about pushing your feet into the ground and twisting them out to the side at the same time, as if you were trying to “screw” them into the ground.
You know you’re doing it right when your thighs, glutes, and lower-back feel activated.
This helps maintain lower body tightness, which in turn helps stabilize your torso and maintain balance, enabling you to generate more force to drive the bar upward.
3. “Don’t crack the egg”
Imagine there’s an egg resting on your sternum, and think about lowering the bar until it touches the egg without breaking it (and then press the bar upward).
This will remind you not to lower the bar too fast or bounce it off your chest, which not only reduces the effectiveness of the exercise but can also increase the risk of injury.
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Go for it!
