Bench Press Shirts - Questions about them

[TheNinja]

I didn't want to totally hijack spamela's other thread and I was reading up on bench press shirts and was wondering if anyone has experience with them. The main reason I ask is b/c I have a really bad left shoulder that always hurt when doing bench or incline press. I have a feeling I'll need surgery or rehab soon but I will probably wait until after summer . If it was an elbow or a wrist I could always wrap it for support and to keep it feeling tight during a lift but I can't find a "shoulder wrap" so to speak that would keep my shoulder feeling tight. Would a shirt like this act like a knee wrap for my shoulder at all?

Pricing: Many different prices
How to bench for power: small section on bench press shirts

 

[Howard]

If it hurts why do you keep doing them?

 

[Anubis]

Questions about them

like WTF are they

 

[Jhill]

Originally posted by: Anubis
Questions about them

like WTF are they

yeah, what do they do?

 

[Trygve]

Originally posted by: Jhill

Originally posted by: Anubis
Questions about them

like WTF are they

yeah, what do they do?

A bench shirt is typically a very tight shirt made of some strong material (denim is common) that squeezes your shoulders together and forward and straightens your arms enough that it can be difficult to bend your arms or move your arms out to the side if you're not supporting several hundred pounds. In competition, they're generally tight enough to require assistants to put them onto you and they will generally leave bruises and broken blood vessels when you get them off.

Why wear one? The official reason is that they're "protecrtive gear" worn for safety reasons. The real reason is that they can add well over a hundred pounds to how much you can lift.

 

[Spamela]

if you have an injury, then you're going to have to get the injury treated, period.

basically, bench shirts let you lift more weight, safely,
saving wear & tear on your shoulders in particular.

bench shirts are made of material that compresses as you lower the weight & "spring"
the weight off your chest. this allows most people to lift 35-150 lbs more.

some have an open back, secured by velcro, but most are like an extremely
tight t-shirt & they hurt like hell to put on & take off (you usually need
a helper or two).

plus, you get huge bruises from the material compressing in your armpit/pectoral
area.

the ones that rebound the most are made of stronger materials or have a different
design or are made of multiple layers of material. these can be so strong that
you have to have a very heavy weight on the bar before it will go down to your chest
(you still have to be very strong to bench it, though). i've seen people who had to
pull the bar toward their chest, but it wouldn't go down all the way.

using them is such a major PITA that most people don't train with them until
the final (heavy) portions of their training cycles.

they also wear out & are not cheap.

 

[Sluggo]

Shoulder exercises such as these can go a long ways towards rehabbing a shoulder to prevent surgery.

Do them with light weight and high reps, after a few week you should see quite a huge difference in the amount of shoulder pain you feel. Keep doing them and the rotator cuff muscles continue to get stronger.

To ease the stress on your shoulders while doing bench presses try not to let your arms go down past your chest (your upper am and lower arm will be at a 90 degree angle), once your upper arms drop below your chest you begin to get into the shoulder area more than the chest area.

 

[TheNinja]

Thanks for all the feedback fellas. I guess I was a little off on the true purpose of a bench press shirt. Do they make shoulder wraps like they do for knees/elbows?