MrRippedZilla
Retired
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2014
- Messages
- 1,706
- Reaction score
- 3,522
- Points
- 153
Since benching is on my mind, a couple of papers with intriguing results to share (PM for full paper as always):
Effects of Pre-exhaustion on the Patterns of Muscular Activity in the Flat Bench Press
- Pre-exhausting a muscle (chest, front delt or tricep) before benching only increases the activation, the whole point of pre-exhausting, of the tricep, not the chest.
- This was accomplished via 4x10 lying tricep extensions before attempting a 95% 1RM. Incline fly for chest & front raise for delts did nothing of note.
Effect of Barbell Weight on the Structure of the Flat Bench Press (free to read)
- Here they looked at the muscle activation levels of the prime movers during the bench press (chest, front delt, triceps & lats) across a range of intensities from 70%-100%1RM for a single rep.
- Chest maxed out at 70%1RM before dropping once they got beyond 90%1RM.
- Front delt & lat activation steadily increased, maxing out at 100%1RM.
- Triceps basically equalled chest for max activation at 90%1RM and then overtook everything at 100%1RM. Basically, triceps are the most active muscle group when maxing out on bench.
Interesting results. For a variety of reasons I think
Effects of Pre-exhaustion on the Patterns of Muscular Activity in the Flat Bench Press
- Pre-exhausting a muscle (chest, front delt or tricep) before benching only increases the activation, the whole point of pre-exhausting, of the tricep, not the chest.
- This was accomplished via 4x10 lying tricep extensions before attempting a 95% 1RM. Incline fly for chest & front raise for delts did nothing of note.
Effect of Barbell Weight on the Structure of the Flat Bench Press (free to read)
- Here they looked at the muscle activation levels of the prime movers during the bench press (chest, front delt, triceps & lats) across a range of intensities from 70%-100%1RM for a single rep.
- Chest maxed out at 70%1RM before dropping once they got beyond 90%1RM.
- Front delt & lat activation steadily increased, maxing out at 100%1RM.
- Triceps basically equalled chest for max activation at 90%1RM and then overtook everything at 100%1RM. Basically, triceps are the most active muscle group when maxing out on bench.
Interesting results. For a variety of reasons I think
Last edited: