Dr. Squat - Dr. Fred Hatfield

Man,
There really is a lot to working in a shirt. I'm not sure I even know where to start. Its not so easy on paper if you know what I mean. At the gym I trained at I always had folks coaching me through every workout and you learn different points at different times. It takes time to get everything down.

A bench shirt doesn't even need a back. Thats why most of the guys who compete in the UPA for example use open back shirts. You have to keep it down in the front. Thats what the belt is for.

The support of the shirt makes it tight around your arm pits and forces your arms to stay forward. The support spans across your chest. When you lower the bar the shirt stretches around the chest and arm pits and absorbs some of the force making it easier on the bottom of the lift. Its good to start off with a loose shirt that gives less support until you get more experience; then you can use a tighter shirt that gives more support. Additionally you can pull the shirt down in the front for better support.

Anyways, you use your belt to hold the front down. You pull the shirt down in the front and then pull the belt down to your waist. That way the belt holds the shirt down but you still have room for flexibility to get a good arc.

Always use a wide grip while using the shirt, hands outside the rings. You want to keep your arms as wide as possible in order to keep your elbows under the weight. Otherwise you won't be able to get the weight back up. There are exceptions to both of these points but those are for special cases. If your arms are really really short, which is rare, you can use a closer grip. And if your shirt is really really tight, offering 200-300 lbs of support, you will be forced to tuck your elbows in in order to get the weight down at the bottom. But like I said, those are special cases and obviously don't apply to you. So keep a wide grip and keep your elbows under the bar.

Shirted benching isn't easy. One thing important to any good bencher is to keep your shoulders back during the movement and to keep a good arc. Because of the support of the shirt it becomes really hard to do both of those things. This will never get easier. It will only get harder as you get stronger and when you use shirts that are tighter and offer more support. So you have to fight it. There really is only two things you can do about it. You can practice and practice and that will make you stronger and better at holding that arc and your shoulders back. Another additional option I thought of is to include assistance exercises that will help strengthen the muscles involved. Any sort of horizontal rows are good. I like wide grip on T-bar rows because it involves the posterior deltoids more. Another exercise I thought might help is any sort of horizontal shrug such as heavy seated cable shrugs or 45 degree barbell shrugs.

If I were to sum things up there is a few main things you should focus on the most. You need to work on your arc. And your breathing must be right too. Hold your breath during every rep in order to stay tight. You can take a breath at the top of your reps if you want while the weight is locked out. Its recommended to hold it for up to 3 reps. Also, always use wrist wraps while using the bench shirt, otherwise you can get a hand injury. I had to learn that the hard way.

Other than that I just have to say you have a lot of hard work ahead of you if you want to get good with the shirt. It took me several months to get good with mine. I learned to get up to about 180 lbs extra out of my shirt, which is nothing when compared to the guys who get 300. I also have to recommend that you have spotters, otherwise there is no point. I used to have 3 spotters every week, one to do the handoff and another on each side just in case. Thats the only way you are ever going to bench serious weight. I can't see how I ever would have benched as much as I did without spotters and team support. I can't see how my friends could have benched world records on their own either. You can do raw without a spotter if you do it in the power rack. But not for geared lifting; it isn't the same and isn't safe.

Hi Nick, the grand adventure begins eh? Good stuff. Here's my take:

Lose the under shirt, it may affect the effectiveness of the shirt...

The pain and marks in the armpit are normal, you get used to it, and as the shirt breaks in it does lessen somewhat.

The blast shirt is an easy shirt to use, ONCE YOU GET IT ON. Its a tough one to get on because it doesn't hav ethe floppy back like some of the newer designs . It also won't give you as much carryover as the newer shirts, but its a good one to start!

I think you should try to plan on having someone help you put the shirt on and off every session, even if they aren't spot worthy (my wife did this for me, but refused to take responsibility for spotting.)

When putting the shirt on, here is what I did to make the blast as easy to work with as possible. Roll the body of the shirt up to the arm pits, then slip your arms into the sleeves as far as rthey will go. Try to align the seams before you pull it past the elbow. Have someone pull the back (rolled up) over your head while you duck under and into the neck hole. Seat the shirt on the arms and shoulder girdle while the body is still rolled up. This allows your assistant something to grab and pull while you adjust it. Once it feels right (seams seem to be right, it feels balanced, collar not choking you) unroll the body of the shirt and tug it down (I found having my light weight assistant put their elbow intot eh last roll and put their weight into it to be the best method).

When the shirt is on, it should force your arms up and in, so you look a bit like frankenstein. How far down you pull the front will determine how far down your torso will be the optimal touching point. The lower the collar, the lower you will optimally touch. Cinch it down moderately and lock with the belt and shoot for touching just below the sternum to start with, and adjust according to feel.

Ok, shirted up and ready to go!

Hopefully you remembered to load the bar first.

Set up firm, arch big, get those feet under you, drive the traps hard into the bench and squeeze the shoulder blades together. TRy as wide a grip as you can get out and still be legal. The wider the grip teh shorter the range of motion.

With no spotter, hav ethe rack set so that with your arch, you can touch the bar to your chest, but if the arch collapses, the bar hits the spotter rails.

Take a big breath...hold it....pull teh bar out disrupting your set up as little as possible.

Follow the path of most resistance! Find the pain and pressure and follow it, this is the shirts groove. It is likely this will be a lower path to touching than you are used to. you will feel a lot of pressure across teh chest and into the armpits. Do not let this pressure cave in your arch, hold that arch and let the bar drift down, be patient, but stick to teh groove.

When the shirt starts to lock up (meaning it won't come down anymore) start to tuck your elbows in a bit, to your side...imagine laying your upper arm/triceps onto a shelf formed by your outer lats).

Once you touch, explode upward..you are trying to generate enough momentum on the bottom, where the shirt provides support, to blast through the mid range, so that you will be moving upward when your triceps and shoulders take over for teh lock out.

It may take a few sessions to get a tight shirt to touch. You can lightly moisten the chest plate once the shirt is on to help break it in, but with the blasat shirt, this is not likely to be necessary.

To jack that shirt up, once you start to get the hang of it....Pull the collar farther forward to move the touch point lower (this helps if you have a BIG arch)...Go into the shirt palms up, moving the seam on the sleeve farther to the back of the tricep, this will help tighten the chest plate on a looser shirt, or increase the tension overall if it isn't loose.

You will likely find it easier to use with heavier weights than 5 or 10 kilos above your raw numbers. try something like 15-20 kilos over your max raw bench, follow the path of most resistance to load teh shirt up, and once again, don't let it cave in your arch, and be patient.

Here is a warning....if you let the bar drift up towards your face, you will lose the support of teh shirt, and find yourself doing a really heavy skull crusher. I try to press straight up, but you would be ok drifting back at the top once your triceps are in good position to take over the weight.

Nick,

that is definitely the beginner's model. I guarantee you that you will want to upgrade before the year is out. But, the Blast is the easiest to use and learn. If your Federation allows it, then cut the back of the shirt so you can jack it - pull down on the front so that you have cleavage. It make a world of a difference. After you have toyed around with it, look at some of the other sites to find used gear. But, do not do this until you have learn to master the Blast.

Willis Lewis, Jr.
"The man that dreams success is already successful"

Yeah,
you can't relax at all through the movement. No relaxing at the bottom. You have to stay tight. It is natural for you to want to relax at the bottom and go around the resistance in order to get the weight down, but don't do it! Hold your breath throughout the entire movement, stay tight, and control the weight down to where you want it to go.

When you relax at the bottom you create a lot of problems. It makes the bar path longer, it puts the stress more on the upper portion of your chest which is weaker, and it makes the shirt looser taking away some of the support.

Other than that all I have to stay is its going to take practice. Shirts are uncomfortable and you have to make your form perfect. Heels down, belly up! On top of that you have to try as hard as you can throughout the entire movement. If you don't know the movement as well and are trying to learn it can easily take away your focus on the heavy weight. Its just going to take you time to get used to both at the same time, to focus on perfect form and to try as hard as you can.

Your lockout is something you are going to have to really work on. Personally I always thought just practicing in the shirt was all the work I needed in order to get it right. You figure if my best raw is 320 and my best shirted was 495, what ever I was doing definitely was working. The guys on my team believe in a lot of board presses and pin presses, but I never bothered with any of that very much because I hated it and didn't think it would help me much. I mean, a 500 lb bench press after only working out with the shirt for 6 months and never specializing in the bench press prior to that, that fast progress! So like I said, I must have done something right.

The lockout won't be easy at first and it won't get any easier. New weight is always going to feel funny at first and you might have a lack of control over the weight. But after you try it a few times you will get used to it and become more confident to keep your form tight and perfect and really try. The first few times I tried 495 I was deathly afraid until eventually I had the confidence to keep my form tight and try harder. When you hold it steadily it really feels like the weight is going to drive you through the floor. It really is heavy!

So the thing I'm getting at is that you should be able to get a lot more weight up than you think. I don't know how much support that shirt gives, but you should be able to learn how to get the maximum out of it easily. That heavy top weight can easily be a lot on your bones at first and it probably will hurt, but you will get used to it and your bones will get stronger. Don't forget wrist wraps otherwise you can get an injury!

Nick,
Check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ3ihlBbMjQ

Notice how when he sets up he grabs the bar underhand. Then he backs up until he feet are way back. You can't see the feet position as good, but this is what he does. Then while keeping his feet back he moves his body into position. Holding the bar the way he does forces the scapula into the position you want it, retracted and depressed. Then he puts himself down in the bench as high on the shoulders or neck as possible. Also the way he feet are held back, when he moves forward it pushes him into an arched position. You should be on your toes, providing you aren't too tall. Then throughout the movement you can drive your heels down in order to maximize the arc.

This is the easiest and fastest way to do it. You should be able to even get more weight up raw your first time, even if you haven't gotten it perfected yet. It took me many many workouts in order to finally get it right. Even after over a years worth of work I still was finding ways I needed to improve my form. You have to work on one part at a time. You work on fixing one part for a while until you get it right, then you critique and fix what's next. It doesn't happen over night.

Got another 10kg out of the shirt. Getting to grips with it now, can feel when I've got it on properly and 'grooved'. Another 10kg to come when I get the hang of keeping my elbows in more.

Nick

Yes, I'm pleased with the way it's going. Thing is, I've had a lot of good advice and I've managed to implement most of it.

Thanks for your help. Got a meet in just under three weeks, so the shirt might make a debut there. I think making the pause will be slightly easier with a shirt on, because I'm taking the bar down more slowly.

Nick