horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty high old silver, the Lone Ranger. Masked rider of the planes led the fight for law and order in the early Western United States. The stories of his strength and courage, his daring and resourcefulness have come down to us through the generations and nowhere in the pages of history can one find a greater champion of justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver. The Lone Ranger rides again. Come on, Silver, I think. Tad Wilkins walked along the crude boardwalk which served as a pavement in the pioneer town of Elbow Bend. His eyes, as he again read the letter he had received, were worried. His forehead wrinkled with a frown. He slowly opened the door of an office whose large weather-beaten sign read Well Spargo. He went in to join his assistant, Lane Tolliver. Howdy, Tad. Been down to pick up the mail? Huh? What's eating you? You look like old man trouble himself. It's nothing Tolliver, just a letter, that's all. What's in it? Bad news? No, nothing like that. It's puzzling. It's from Avery Baird. He's coming to Elbow Bend on the day stage. Avery Baird, huh? He's district manager for Wells Fargo, ain't he? Yes, he wants me to meet the stage. Let her say why he's coming? No, it says he's coming. That's what puzzles me. I've been in charge of this office for three years and he never visited me before. Maybe something's wrong and he wants to check up on it. What do you mean? Well, I heard that the last time Baird came here to look the office over, it's before you and me were hired. It was on a kind of shortages in cash. Shortages in cash? The man who was in charge of the office went to jail. Brickney's still there. Now see here, Tolliver, if you're accusing me of stealing the company's money. Well, I ain't accusing you any other than Ted. Just tell me what I heard. Well, maybe so, but I don't like the way you said it. Well, cool off. That letter is giving you the G.B.'s, which you need as a drink. Baird couldn't be coming here because there's money missing. At least I don't think he could.  I thought I told you to stop drinking during office hours, Tolliver. Come off of it, Ted. A little snort once in a while. There's a man of world good. Here, drink this and see for yourself. I don't want it. Oh, drink it.  Oh, all right. You look better already. Tolliver. Yeah? Maybe there's something in what you say. I mean, about there being something wrong. Well, of course, it's only a guess. We've still got two hours before Baird gets here. If any mistakes happen, mate, I want to know about him. I got the books you've been keeping and I'll get mine. Wait a minute. You mean accusing me of stealing cash from the county? Of course not. One of us might have made a mistake in our bookkeeping. It ain't like that. Well, you check my books and I'll check yours. That way, we'll... What's the matter? My head feels kind of funny. I get strung to spam. Maybe you ought to go home and lie down, Ted. I want to go over those books. You're the boss. I'll get them. I don't know what's come over me. I never felt this way before. Here's my books, Ted. I'll check over yours. All right. Let's see here. My eyes... I won't focus. All your figures are just a blur.  Here's to me.  I'll meet him at the stage and explain everything. All right, Toliver. I'll leave it in your hands. That's a ticket. Just leave everything to me, Ted. And you won't have to worry about a thing. Howdy. I reckon you must be Mr. Baird. Yes, that's right. You, Mr. Wilkins? No, no. My name's Toliver. Lane Toliver. I'm Ted's assistant. I don't understand. My letter I expressly asked for Mr. Wilkins to meet me. Well, Ted went home. Said he had a headache. I shouldn't wonder if he had. What I suspect is going on in his office is true. Let me take your bags. I'll show you to the office. When did Wilkins' headache occur? I reckon it commenced about the same time he got your letter. He was mighty worried and upset when he read it. Oh, he was, huh? Yeah. Then he got out of his account book so as to correct any mistakes he might have made. I see. I hope there's nothing wrong, Mr. Baird. There's something very definitely wrong, Toliver. It looks as if I may not be long in tracing the trouble. Oh, here's the office. I have a chair, Mr. Baird. I reckon you're tired after your trip, so make yourself comfortable. There'll be time enough for that later. Right now I want to look at Wilkins' books. Yes, sir. I'll get them for you. Have you ever noticed anything strange about Wilkins' behavior, Toliver? You mentioned it. He's acted kind of funny on several occasions. Like he was doing something he didn't want me to know about. Yes, I thought so. These are Wilkins' books, huh? Yes, sir. We each keep our own accounts. There's no point in my looking further now, Toliver. Everything I wanted to know was right here in black and white. You mean there's something wrong with Ted's account? Not just wrong, but criminal. According to these records, he's been stealing money regularly from the company for the past six months. Soon as I've had dinner, I want you to take me to Wilkins' house.  Some time later, an Indian astride a paint and a boy who sat on an all-white cold rode along a wagon trail not far from town. They were Toto and Dan Reed, the Lone Ranger's nephew. Is it very far to camp now, Toto? Maybe three, four miles. Lone Ranger, make camp in a royal. We get there plenty soon. Golly, I hope there'll be something good for dinner. I'm starved. Long ride makes you plenty hungry. Oh, Victor, hold on. Hey, who do you suppose fired that shot, Toto? I don't see anybody, do you? Shot come from behind trees. House on the other side. Maybe shot come from house. Oh, gosh, maybe we'd better investigate.  There, house. Toto, look. There's a horse hitched out in front. Uh-huh. We'll ride to back a house, Dan. Maybe not be seen. Hold it, Toto. Hold it. Wait here. Wait here, but why? Me look in window. Me see man bend over body on floor. Maybe him murder. A murderer? Oh, you wait. Lone Ranger not want you to risk danger. It's not safe to come. All right, Toto, if you say so. You lift hands. What? You'll not make move or me shoot. Toto. Toto, don't you remember me? Oh, you once outlaw.  You tell him you reform. That's right. Lefty Harris is a name. I've kept my word. I have reformed. Well, I didn't shoot, Tad. I found him like this just before you saw me. Tad Wilkins was my friend. He asked me to visit him tonight. Oh, him dead? Yeah, he's dead. If I ever get my hands in the pool, Caddo killed him. What's happening? Me not know yet, Dan. Me see. Oh, here. It's a note. What does it say? Maybe it tells who the murderer is. There is no murderer. Tad killed himself. I don't believe it. Tad wrote this note. He says he's been stealing cash from Noel's Fargo for months and that he'd rather die than rot in jail when he's found out. The note says that all that's left of the cash he stole is in a box on the shelf over the wash bench. I'll go look. Now here, gun on the shoulder. Was it Tad's gun, Toto? Well, it got initials on it. T.W., yeah, you're right.  One bullet fired. There was cash in that box, all right? Didn't amount to an awful lot. To think that Tad was robbing his employers doesn't make sense. He must've needed money awful bad to do that. Oh, that's strange. What, Toto? Note written with pen and ink. Yeah, that's right, pen and ink, and dried with sand. Ah, me look, me not find pen and ink here. What? Now that you mention it, I don't see ink or pen around here anywhere either. Oh, I don't savvy. Ink dried with sand, but no sand here either. That doesn't beat everything. There ought to be at least a shaker of it on a desk. No pen. No ink, no sand. Watch, it's plain as day. Tad couldn't have written that note. Ah, him not suicide, him murdered. Murdered? Got it, I better keep this note then I'll take Tad's gun, Toto. We had some clue to the killer. Me look outside, maybe find Frank. I'll go with you. I'll wait here, Toto, and look around inside. We'll revenge you, Tad. We'll find the killer. We won't rest till we see him hang. You've got three on your side. I'm a hunch before we're through, there'll be a fourth. A lone ranger. What, Sheriff? What's going on here? He's dead. What's that? He's dead all right. Drilled through the heart. Back when Tad learned you were coming, Mr. Baird, he made up his mind to cheat the law. So he shot himself. So you think it's suicide, huh, Tolliver? Stands a reason, don't it? Found himself trapped after stealing all that cash, so he took the easiest way out. Well, there's no proof of that, Tolliver. It ain't. Maybe you expected him to leave a note or something. Why not? Do you think it's suicide usually do? Well, there ain't no note. There ain't no gun. It appears to me it ain't suicide at all, but murder. Murder? Well, that's ridiculous, Sheriff. Who would want to murder him? I've got a pretty good idea. What are you looking at me for, Sheriff? You don't think I... You used to be pretty handy with the gun, Lefty. I've reformed. I'm traveling straight now. I haven't packed a gun since I was on the prod. Maybe so. But if you don't mind, I'll see for myself. Whoa. Never mind, Sheriff. You don't need to search me. I'm thinking differently. I'll help you, Sheriff. I'll handle this myself, Tolliver. What's this? That's Tad's gun, Sheriff. I found it beside him on the floor. I can see it's his gun. It's got his initials on it. But what are you doing with it? I... Well, I... Ah, one shot fired, eh? Reckon there's no doubt that he did it. Rebs, he learned that Wilkins had a lot of cash. He stole it from Wells Fargo, Sheriff. He stole it from himself. That's a lie. Tad Wilkins was my friend. So you and Tad were friends, eh? Yes. He asked me to visit him tonight. Two of a kind. A reformed outlaw and a swindler. You found out Tad was lifting money from the company so you blackmailed him.  Looks to me like a clear case of murder. It's not true. I tell you, I'll prove it. Just before you came, there was an Indian with me. He's outside now. He was here with me. And Indian and a boy.  There was just one horse hitched in front when we came, Lefty. And that's yours. But I'm innocent, I tell you. There's the dead man. We found you alone with him. Here's the gun with one shot fired. I didn't do it. I don't know anything about it. All I know is I got enough evidence to hang you, Lefty. Come on. I'm taking you to jail. The curtain falls on the first act of our Lone Ranger story. Before the next exciting scenes, please permit us to pause for just a few moments. Continue our story. That night, two figures crept stealthily to the cell window of the small jail in which Lefty Harris was imprisoned. Lefty Harris? Who is it? Who's there? Me. Tonto. Me bring Dan. Tonto, I thought you deserted me when you didn't come back to Tatt's cabin. We didn't desert you. We waited in back and overheard everything that went out between you and the sheriff. We bring message from Lone Ranger. Message? What's he say? Him say you not worry. Him find way to get you free. You mean he doesn't believe I murdered Tatt? He believes I'm innocent? Of course he does. I wasn't sure. I mean, he knows I've been in alcohol. I thought he'd figure I broke my promise to him. Went gunning for Tatt. Lone Ranger not believe that. Him suspect other fellow murdered Tatt. Other fellow? What do you mean? He doesn't cover. The low down skunk. The sheriff will only listen to him. Him not listen without proof. But he's got to. They're going to hang me. He's got to know the truth. Him no truth.  You bet he won't. You get that proof, Lefty. You just wait and see. Sometime later, crouching in the shadows of the world's Fargo Express office, the only way we can be certain of Tulliver's guilt is to examine those books. Not right. Dan will signal us from his watch post if the noise attracts attention. I'll use my gun, but the sound wasn't very loud. Which desk belonged to Tulliver? I don't know yet. Let me try this one. Here's something. What you see? Some of Tulliver's belongings. There's no doubt about this being his desk. Let me see it. You got suicide note? Yes. We'll compare the handwriting. There's the proof, Tutto. The handwriting is the same. Tulliver wrote this note. Him try to make Ted appear thief. Yes. When he learned that Baird was coming, he had to cover himself. So he murdered Ted and left that note to convict him. It was a simple matter for him to convince Baird by merely switching the books. Making Baird believe that his own dishonest accounts were Ted's. Ah, him plenty smart. We use book to catch crook. I have a better idea. But first, I want to talk to Baird. He's heavy. My plan works. Tomorrow we'll trap the killer. The windows. They left that way. There they go. Say up, Tulliver. Ain't a chance of catching them, too, Tulliver. A night swallowed them up. Who were they? Mess men and an injured, Mr. Baird. I was passing by the office when I saw the lamp. Indian, eh? Lefty Harris mentioned an Indian when I arrested him. That's right. These two must be some friends of the outlaws. What were they doing here? We'll try and rob the safe, I reckon, Mr. Baird. I saw him working over it. Yes, you're right. Lucky you happened along when you did, Tulliver. They might have gotten away with the cash. I would have stepped in and caught them red handed the minute I saw them, Chef. But I wasn't carrying a gun. Even so, the company will appreciate you a quick thinking, Tulliver. We'll have a talk in the morning. I believe I can safely say that tonight's work will not, uh, go unrewarded. The next day, Lane Tulliver and Avery Baird, district manager for Wells Fargo, sat at a table in a cafe. It was a nice job you did last night, Tulliver. Thanks, Mr. Baird. It's, uh, too bad that you weren't equally observant in the office. I, uh, don't know what you mean. According to the accounts, Tad Wilkins stole the company's cash regularly over a period of six months. But what's that got to do with me being observant? You'd kept your eyes open, Tulliver. You'd have noticed the shortage. But we each kept our own books. Besides, Tad was a manager. It was his job to oversee things. Just the same. It isn't possible that Wilkins would have gone without giving you some clue. After what you did last night, Tulliver, I intended to recommend you as manager of the office here. But in the light of your failure to suspect Wilkins... I did suspicion Tad wasn't on the level with the company, Mr. Baird. And some of the things he did struck me as being on the shady side, but, hell, I ain't a man to make trouble, unless I'm sure of my facts. It's easy for you to say that now. And I, myself, might believe it, but I couldn't persuade the main office to believe it. They didn't suspect anything was wrong until they saw the reports. You mean, if I'd notified the company of my suspicions, I'd get the promotion? That's right. I was going to notify them when I learned you were coming to Elbow Band. Can you prove that? Sure, sure. I wrote down everything suspected about Tad Wilkins in the letter. But you didn't mail it, huh? No, no, I didn't. I was all set to when I heard you were coming, so I figured there wasn't any use. Yes, I reckon I have. Don't recollect thrown it away. Well, that puts a different aspect on the letter. You mean I'll get to be manager after all? I don't see why not. I'll forward your letter to the main office as proof of your alertness. That'd be first-rate. Well, I have some business to attend to now, but I suppose you'll have the letter ready for me at the office this afternoon? Sure, Mr. Baird. I'll have it ready. You can call forth this afternoon any time you want. Do you need to find the letter, I hope? No, no, I have it right here. Hmm. You write a nice neat hand, Tolliver. Thanks, Mr. Baird. And a handsome signature, too. Well, I always kind of prided myself in the way I signed my name, even if I do say so myself. Well, I think this letter will suit my purpose very well. Is it everything you thought it would be? Yes, Tolliver, even down to the last detail. It was dated two days ago. That's when I wrote it. Naturally. Oh, by the way, Tolliver, which of the account books that you kept? Uh, why, these here, these are all mine. And these others on this desk, I presume, are the ones Wilkins had charged on? You should know that, Mr. Baird, you found the fake entries in them yourself. Oh, so I did, so I did. But there's nothing like making sure, huh, Tolliver? You're acting mighty peculiar all of a sudden. Like you maybe had something up your sleeve. Maybe I have. Open the door, Tolliver. I'm expecting some guests. It's a sheriff. Inside, Lefty, don't try any wrong moves. Seems to me you've taken care of that yourself, Sheriff. What's Lefty here doing here? He's been sentenced to hang. You'd like to see that happen, wouldn't you, Tolliver? Don't savvy. What's this all about? Well, I brought Lefty here just like gas, Mr. Baird. But what for? I'll be hard-tired if I know. You'll find out very shortly, Sheriff.   Now stand over in that corner where I can keep an eye on you. See why you brought me here in the first place. Who's that? Another guest, Tolliver. Well, it's the engine. The one I saw in the office ran around the safe. Lift your hands, Redskins. You don't need that gun, Sheriff. I invited him here. Ah, you get latter. Yes, Tolliver. I have Tolliver's note right here. That good. What in thunder's this all about? I brought all of you together at the suggestion of a mask friend. In order to expose the murderer of Tad Wilkins. Are you local? Lefty Harris has already been tried and sentenced as Tad's killer. Thanks to you, you yellow-libered snake. I've got evidence, Tolliver, to prove that the man who killed Wilkins is the same who stole the company's cash. Tad stole the cash. You saw how it did it. Is it count books, huh? Of course. What more proof could you want? Me, fine body with Lefty. Fine suicide note. Let me see that, Redskins. What do you mean by taking that paper with you and interfering with the law? Here, note. You take good look. It's just what you said it was. I don't see nothing peculiar about it. Let me explain, Sheriff. This is a letter written by Tolliver. What about it? It's dated two days ago. The chances are it was written this morning. That's a lie. I wrote it on the date it says. Tolliver, in fact, is you wrote it. It bears your signature. Sheriff, I want you to compare the handwriting in this letter with that in a suicide note Wilkins is supposed to have written. Let me see now. Say, they're exactly alike. Ah, them written by same man. Don't believe them, Sheriff. They're trying to frame me. You framed yourself, Tolliver. You wrote both notes. Stay away from me. I tell you it's a trick. You can't prove a thing against me.  The lion. The bookshower. Your bookshower shortage for six months, Tolliver. Your scheme nearly worked when you switched the records and claimed Tad Wilkins' books for your own. But the mask man you saw on here last night wasn't trying to rob the safe. He was checking the handwriting of this suicide note against your accounts. The handwriting match. Don't believe them, Sheriff. He's framing me. It makes sense to me, Tolliver. You were grafting the company regular. Then when you saw you were going to be found out, then to keep Tad from revealing the truth, you killed him and made it look like suicide due to a guilty conscience. You're not taking me? Yeah. Make a move and I'll use it.  You can't get away. Yes, again. Your tin-star tenderfoot. I'm doing it. Stop him. Don't let him get through that door. Just try to stop me, Lefty. Put a slug square between your eyes. Happy hunting, Jim. Grab him. You'll not get away now. Dog's gone in. Somebody in the outside had to build a gun out of my hand. You're going to stretch your rope, Tolliver. Oh, an earth could have fired that shot. That lone ranger. Dog's gone tooting it was. There ain't another hombre within a hundred miles who could show as pretty shooting as that. I've just heard as a copyrighted feature of the Lone Ranger Incorporated.


The technique series is brought to you by Barbell Logic Online Coaching. Did you know that you can get 100% free form check from one of our expert strength coaches? Seriously, absolutely 100% free. No credit card needed, no questions asked. Just go to barbelllogic.com slash technique and sign up for the free Barbell Logic experience now. Do that right now and then enjoy the show. Welcome to Barbell Logic Rewind. This is the Barbell Logic podcast. I'm Scott Hamburg and I've got Matt Reynolds with me as we always do. And we're at the Baymont Inn and Suites in which stuff all is yet again. And Matt just poured some a drink for us. But today is going to be about the bench press. We're going through all the big four lifts. Are we talking about the bench press? Yeah, we're talking about the bench press. We're talking about cues. We're going to talk about cues in a while. We've got three shows to do. Let's talk about the wisdom. Come on, let's get a hand in. Wait a minute, what's this say? Well, you didn't tell me. What's it? This is the bench press. All right. There's 63. So we talked about the squat. We've talked about the press. Yep. And today we're going to talk about the bench press, the other pressing motion. Deceptively simple. It is. You know what's interesting about the bench press is that I would say the vast majority of clients who sign up for online coaching, they all do a test workout, right? All of them do. And the majority of them do their bench press within 90% of correct on the first day. Okay. All right. But that last 10%. That last 10% is really hard, right? Yeah, it is. And so, I mean, probably a lot of that is because of just there's been some neural efficiency, like motor pattern developed there for a lot of people because a lot of people have bench pressed more than they've done anything else, right? So people have been pressing high school, they've been pressing college. And so let's walk through the big pieces. And let's save the 10% that they're going to screw up for the second part of this podcast. Right. So, you lay down on the bench. You lay down on the bench. The first part is you got to get tight on the bench. So how do we get tight on the bench? Well, is that the first part? Is it where you set your eyes? Well, I have the lifter laid down on the bench. I have them roll the bar out to the front of the hooks. Okay. So stop. We actually haven't talked about that. So for those of you who lifted before, this is common, but if you haven't, this is actually something you should be doing on all of your lifts, right? Would you agree on the squat? Roll the bar to the front on all the lifts? I do. Do you not? No. Okay. I do on all. Now, I take the bar out of the back of the hooks on the press and the squat.  I don't think we can be friends anymore. I have to push into the bar so hard to get it down low on my back. I can't pull it out of the front of those. Okay. So on the squat, I totally get it, right? So on the bench press, for sure, you should be rolling the bar forward to the front of the J-hooks. That's right. And we roll it forward because if we take it out of the hooks from the back, we're more likely to hit the bottom of the hook when we're on the way back up. Exactly right. So I have them roll the bar to the front of the hooks. If it's a lady, I have them take, I have them measure from the inside neural with their thumb and that's their starting grip for most ladies. And then most men, I'll have them put their pinky or maybe even their ring finger on the first ring. Okay. So that's where we start. I have them take it out, lock their elbows, take it out of the hooks. Hold on. I'm going to back up. So we established where the bar goes in the rack first. That's right. The next step is we have to establish where we line up with the barbell. Oh, that's true. So where do you line up with the bar? I'm sorry. Yeah. So we have the lifter. Almost every time we scoot them four inches down the bench forward towards their rump and they move off the end of the bench such that when they look at the ceiling, their eyes are on their, the same side of the bar as their hips. Yeah. It's just just below your eyes are going to be just below the barbell is below the right word. Yeah. I don't know. It's a so we, we, we press out of a rack often, right? Yeah. We're off the front of a squat rack and so you're going to move down the bench away from the squat rack. Yeah. So your eyes won't be on the rack side of the bar. They'll be on the outside of the bar. Yeah. So the eyes are mostly going to be underneath the bar. They're going to be a little bit to the far side of that. So, and again, the reason for that is the same reason we take the bar out of the front of the hooks is to make sure that when the, when the going gets tough, our bar path is going to keep, is, uh, was going to be free of the hooks. We're not going to hit the hooks on the way up. Okay. So now before you go to the grip, then I want to, let's talk about getting tight on the bench because really before you go to the grip, I want to get tight on the bench, right? Man, I just can't get tight unless I got the thing like on my shoulders pinned back by the weight. What are you going to do with an empty barbell? Not much. Well, I mean, you can still facilitate. This is what we're going to try to do. So let's talk about what you're going to try to do. So you're going to try to, you're going to try to like pinch a dime between your shoulder blades.  They're going to be kind of pulled together. You're going to get as much of your posterior delts on the bench as possible. Right. If our, if our shoulders are in shoulder blades are in protraction, you know, they've spread apart to spread apart. Your shoulders are up off the bench. We've got more range of motion than we need in the surface area of your back that's in contact with the bench is not very much. Correct. If you pull those shoulder blades back together, there's probably 10 times the surface. I mean, literally like 10 X surface area laying on the bench. So you're a lot more stable. It takes a lot of the left to right wiggle motion out of the thing. Sure. Reduces the range of motion.  Have a little bit of arch in your lower back. A little, we don't bridge a lot. And so some arch, right? So you said it. I want to make sure. So there's going to be some air. There's going to be some space underneath the low back. You bet. There needs to be a space underneath there. I need to be able to put my hand under there, but I don't need to be able to put my fist under there. Yeah. That's, and some of that depends on how skinny you are and how mobile you are or whatever. So, and then your feet for most of us. Now we may disagree a little bit on this. I don't know that you and I do, but some people, I like my feet flat on the floor. I do too. But walked back as far kind of underneath my body as I can get them while still being flat on the floor. Does that make sense? Yeah, I agree with that. So I don't want my feet way out in front of my body. I want them nice because I, so I, what that does when I walk them back, I feel some tightness in my hip flexors on the front of my hips. It creates the lower. Which gets a Charlie horse, by the way. Yeah, right. That's where your hips will cramp. It creates the lower half, the inferior side of the arch on the bench press. So you've got the kind of superior side and you've got the inferior side. And so we get just as tight as we can on the bench press when we get everything tight, right? In the same way, it is squat or deadlift or press. We make everything tight because when it's not tight, it's an energy leak. It can also be an energy leak on the bench press. I just want to get as tight as I possibly can. Now take us to the grip. Now take us to the grip. So like I said earlier, the ladies, you know, typically I have them measure from the inside and they're all one thumbs length out. A little wider grip, right? Or sorry, a little narrower grip than the men. Unlike on the press, the men and the women take pretty much the same grip on the press. It's not very much difference. And then men, I'll have them either put, depending on how broad shoulder they are, either they're pinky or their ring finger on the inside ring on their power bar. And that's where we start. And then we really don't know, right, until we take it out of the rack and they touch your chest and then we can kind of figure out where it needs to be. Right. So I would agree. Exactly. So women, if everybody in the press, since we did the press in a previous episode, takes a grip, basically they put their hands where the neural starts. Females are going to tend to take a grip about a half a hand width wider than their press grip. Half a hand width.  Right. Now obviously, again, that's just a starting point. We don't know that that's where they're going to be. But the things that we can do is they start to bench press that tells us whether we're right or wrong. So get ready to go. Yep. And so remember, we put our shoulder blades in retraction. We put our chest way up and we're taking this grip that we've already described. And all of those things should help us have optimal mechanics, you know, that angle of attachment with the peck and the humerus. That's going to be about as good as we can get. Right. And then we're going to have them lock their elbows out and then swing it out over their shoulder joint. Right. So the balance point in all of the lifts where we stand up is the middle of our foot. But on the bench press, we're not standing up. Right. So it's not the middle of our foot. I'd like to see him try it. That's right. It's the gleno-humeral joint. It's your shoulder joint. Right. That's the fancy term for it's essentially where that the head of the humerus goes into the glenoid fossa. Is that right? The glenoid fossa. And so Nick approves. Nick's over here drinking our whiskey and shaking his head. I can say yes. So that's the balance point. Right. So at the top of when you first get the take the bar out of the wreck, that's where it is in balance. That's where it starts and that's where it finishes. That's right. So a lot of people, particularly older people, they want to put that thing over their eyes. Yup. That's not where it goes. In the beginning, it's going to feel like it's too far forward. It's going to feel like it's too far over your tummy or something. But no, it's over this shoulder joint. Your coach is going to put it where it needs to be. Yup. That's a pretty good one. Now you're going to look up at the ceiling. You're going to take a mental picture of where that bar is in relationship to the ceiling.  A ceiling tile. We have a pro wrestling poster on the ceiling above our bench. From the 1990s? Yeah. From the 90s.  Steven Gunn gave it to us. And so you can see where the bar is in relation to the ultimate warrior up there. And then you're just going to go down, touch the bar at about your nipples, maybe just a little bit lower. And then press it right back up into that same position on the ceiling.  And when you touch, your forearm should be perpendicular to the ground and totally vertically. In both planes. Just about. Yup. Although I'll explain the nuanced piece of that. No. No. And then you press it out. Yeah. Press it right back out. A few times. Then we rack it. Okay. So that is how you press, bench press within 90% of correct. Let's talk about the little tweaks. All right. So if I take the bar out of the rack. Yeah. Yeah. So you say get it 90% right. I don't think you can get 100% right till it's close to your body weight. Well, that's fine on the weight. I'm still talking about form. So if I'm talking about, I'm just talking about form. So if you take the bar out of the rack, it's a balance over the shoulder joint, you know, you know, as we break at the elbows and shoulder, we can't let the bar come straight down over the glenohumeral joint right now. Everything that we know about physics says that a barbell moved in its most efficient manner is moved in a straight vertical line because gravity pulls straight down and I want to work against gravity. Anything that I'm not doing that's not vertical is not working against gravity. Yeah. If you keep a completely vertical bar path here on this bench press, you're going to tear some stuff up. Yeah, you will grind the head of your humerus and your AC joint. The same thing that you'll do if you stick your elbows straight out to the sides on a press. The same thing, you impinge the shoulder, the soft tissue of the shoulder. It's really what it is. It's the tendons of the rotator cuff getting pinched there between the head of the humerus, which is the top of your upper arm, for those of you guys who don't know what the humerus is. And that bony bump, on your shoulder, you can feel that's your AC. And so we can't do that. So in order to clear that, those of you guys who are watching our video, if you're listening to us now and you take your arms and you put your elbows out so that your forearm's right at a 90-degree angle perpendicular to your torso, you can actually feel that pinch at the top of your shoulder. And if I just drop my elbows down about 15, 20 degrees, we don't know exactly where that is. It depends on anthropometry. It clears that. And now it's fine. Now, if I drop my elbow, if I tuck my elbows 15 to 20 degrees, that's going to make the touch point of the barbell no longer directly in line with my shoulders, but down closer towards the bottom of my breastbone. Now, here's the problem. We can't really use an anthropometric point to say where we touch, right? Because I can't say touch the bottom of your sternum or inch above your sternum because we've all seen the guy that's got a sternum that's 12 inches long. It goes halfway down his belly. He can't touch there, but you get the general idea, right? And the bigger the chest is, like the closer that they can put it in to the shoulder, of course, right?  And so it rotates. The more you're able to do that, the closer you get that touch point in line with the shoulder joint so that you take out some of those inefficiencies of the bar path and the bar still mostly moves vertical, right? So the bench press, no matter what, no matter how perfect you do it, is the only lift we teach that is not going to have a perfectly vertical bar path. Okay, the power clean is not going to have a perfectly vertical bar path either. We don't talk a lot about a power clean, but if you do it, if you do a bench press exactly right, it's still not going to have a perfectly vertical bar path. The bigger chest you are and the more you can arch, the more vertical bar path you'll have while still being able to tuck those elbows and that humerus at a 15, 20 degree, 25 degree angle somewhere in there and you'll clear the shoulder. The shoulder stays clean. Everything is healthy, beautiful and you get a nice tight clean, mostly vertical bar path. I hope you're enjoying this episode in the technique series of the Barbell Logic podcast. You know, at Barbell Logic we believe that barbell-based strength training is literally for everyone and the only thing holding most people back from all the incredible benefits that come from it is good technique, inconsistency and we can help with that too. And whether you're just getting started or you've been lifting for a while, it's difficult to know if you're performing the lifts correctly or if there's anything you can do to make your lifting better. We have tons of free resources online from basic how-to videos that will get you lifting safely and efficiently right away. The podcasts, articles and videos that will help you shoot common errors. All you have to do is visit barbelllogic.com slash technique to see our best technique-focused content in one place. And while you're at it, you can sign up for a consultation with a Barbell Logic coach. This is a free form check and a chance to ask an expert all your training related questions. There's no reason you should be struggling to get started or to make progress. Check out barbelllogic.com slash technique for more information and sign up for Barbell Logic Experience. Again, it's 100% free. There's nothing better for your training than knowing you're lifting safely, training efficiently and on the right track. All right, let's get back to the show. You know, we have our rules that we use to pick our lifts, right? Most muscle mass, longest effective range of motion. Correct.  We get a little bit of arch in our back. One, I think, so you may correct me here. One, so that we get this optimum bar path if we can. And two, so that so that we can push more efficiently. All right, so they get the chest up more. If we can optimize the angle of attack that the pack pulls on our humerus, then we get a better press. But we're not really trying to shorten the range of motion. So we're not taking a super wide grip on the bar. We're not bridging more than we need to for good mechanics. Correct. We're not artificially short in the range of motion. A power lifter would do and it's okay. Right. So again, we've talked about this before. A power lifter that's competitive is going to get rid of that greatest effective range of motion criteria. We're trying to get people generally strong. Therefore, we use the greatest effective range of motion. A power lifter is going to move the bar the least legal range of motion. Well, the least legal range of motion for bench press means it has to start with the elbows locked out. It has to touch the chest. It has to pause actually on the chest. Right. And it has to finish locked out with the elbows locked out again. The greatest grip that they'll let you is that the rings have to be covered. So that means your index fingers have to be on the rings. Right. That's really wide by the way. It's really wide. Right. Nice big giant arch.  We can talk about that why that is. And I can throw it back as much as I can and I can basically turn it into a little more of a circus lift. No. Well, I mean it's I get it. Do you understand what I'm saying? So we'd have our guys and ladies train very strict long range of motion. Sure. Bench press and then we'd have them practice the wide grip pressing. That's right. There's a difference between the competition version of the lift and just the normal I'm trying to get generally strong version of the lift. By the way, it's the same thing with the press. We talked about the press what last week, two weeks ago, whatever.  Is that the kind of press that's going to get me generally the strongest? No. There's a lot of press who are competitive pressers who press at, you know, strength lifting meats. I would absolutely argue that there needs to be some strict pressing in their training. They need to be standing strict pressing, maybe seated strict pressing, maybe low pin press, press lockout sort of pressing that where there just isn't any of that momentum in order to build the strength in a full range of motion. And so Bench press is the same. So here in a moment I want to talk about the advantages we get from lowering that touch point. I want to talk about leg drive and maybe also some supplements to bench press. Okay. So you mentioned moving that touch point down. So we'll hear about that. Okay. So yeah. So let's talk about the touch point. Let's talk about the bar path. So there's something that we notice with power lifters that the bar path for most power lifters bench press is far less vertical than what we teach. Yep. There is an enormous amount of horizontal movement on the bench press. And I'll start by saying this is absolutely theory and I'm not entirely sure why that is. I've thought about it out. There are a couple things that occur. One, for years power lifters use bench shirts. Yeah. Right.   Right. And usually be made out of out of denim or canvas or really type polyester. And as you lower the bar the chest plate of this shirt, the chest. It doesn't really stretch. It's just it doesn't have any stretch to it. And so it would load a lot of energy in it as you lowered the bar. Well, it was easier to touch lower and load that chest plate the way the cut of the shirt was. I'm not buying that. Really? Well, I mean I'm sure that's true. But if I if I leave the touch point down I can throw more in a t-shirt. Okay. No, that's fine. But so these were the first guys though it didn't happen that much like the touch point changed a lot out of the best shirt years of the nineties and early 2000s. And then we started to see the raw lifters did the same thing. Right. And so the shirt comes off and you think, well, we've got to touch high. And then these guys start to experiment with this like low touch point. They still touch low and they still bench press more. Yep. Now the question is why? I think the leg drives more efficient. Okay. So I think a couple things occur. So if you get this arch get this arch and then you kick the more perpendicular, you know there's an asymptote that asymptote is the more efficient the leg drive will be. Okay. So I think there's actually some muscular physiological reasons as well. I actually think that the front delts are able to contribute to the bench press more. Yeah. I agree with that. For sure. Right. So if you still, if you still, if you tuck your elbows about the same amount on this like kind of low touch point and they may tuck just a little bit more. Right. The pecs are still getting stretched a lot. Yep. They might not but they contribute quite a bit. Two other things do occur though.  So now the front delts and pecs can contribute to the throw off the chest from a muscular standpoint, more than they would with a higher touch point. I can touch the bar low. I can use, you mentioned leg drive so we haven't talked about leg drive. So leg drive is interesting because the bar, this kinetic chain of the movement goes through the arms into the shoulder joint and into the bench. It really shouldn't have anything to do with the body below the shoulders. That's what the kinetic chain is until the instant the bar touches your chest and then the kinetic chain is different. It goes from the area you're exactly right. Now, but here's the thing. Even when the bar touches low on your chest, would you consider the legs part of the kinetic chain? At that point it is. But in general, most people don't. Right. But it is. It contributes. What are the legs?  So remember we said we like to wear our squat shoes when we bench press and that's because we have that big flat sole. It's like a racing slick maximum surface area to the ground. So we've got our feet flat on the ground. Some people don't but that's the way Reynolds and I like to do it and I learned from him so of course I like it. And we want to apply force to the ground. It's like you're going to scoot your feet away because you don't let them slide. Right. And you do that to push your knees back towards your shoulders.  So it drives them down and back into the bench. And what it will often do is then you'll get some energy transfer off of the chest where the bar is sitting where the bar is touching.  This is not a balance.   So if your body is making an arch where the ends of the arch that are rooted is your rump and your shoulders and then you shove with your legs you can essentially move the ends of that arch closer together. Correct. If you move the ends of that arch closer together the top of the arch gets high. Right. Just like a longbow just like a longbow we talked about in a press it's actually the same arch that lifts the chest when the chest lifts there's a kind of dynamic explosion there and the bar comes flying off your chest. Now here's the other thing most of those power lifters don't lock the barbell out directly above their shoulder joint. I'm not ready to talk about that yet. Okay. I have one more thing to say about that leg drive. Okay do it. Man you taught me that leg drive very very well and I can now press more paused than I can down. I think that's going to be universal. If you learn the leg drive you can bench more paused than you can without it. I think so too.  Yeah. It's worth 15 pounds at least. Yeah I would agree I'd agree. If you don't lock it out yourself why did that lock out superior or north of or above the shoulder joint a little bit lock it out of your eyes? Yeah you don't actually lock it out of your eyes so that's no I mean that's a Q right that I'll give somebody that's one of those over corrective cues right so what actually happens is it ends up locking it out just a little bit superior to the shoulder joint. I know the question is why you know does anybody really know we're fitting to speculate yeah I'm going to get it on your chest peck peck peck triceps lock out okay okay so I've got two muscle groups really there doing most of the work a little doubt like you said but if I can lock it out north of that there's a point where I can use the flexors of the is that right yeah this is the flexors of the shoulder is that right extensors this is shoulder extension yeah that's right okay good yep the flexors of the shoulder to help move get that bar no I understand what you're saying sure so it's two things my range of motion is lesser if I move the thing back over my head okay hold on your range of motion isn't but the amount of work you have to do against gravity that's right two different things that's right if I touch the bar directly over my shoulder joint which I've explained already will cause problems right you simply can't do it you can't do it right you're going to impinge but let's say you do really close your shoulder joint and then you lock it out directly over your shoulder joint that's actually the least range of motion that you can do against touching against gravity right but what we're talking about is touching lower down at the bottom of the breast bone or even the top of the belly and then locking it out superior to north of the shoulder joint yep now that's a much longer range of motion in general less work done against gravity less work done against gravity now why is it less work done against gravity well because and the ultimate travel from the bottom of the rep to the top of the rep is lesser correct now it travels more distance laterally sure but in vertical distance is decreased that way sure and so if I can decrease that amount of work done and recreate the flexors of the shoulder as I get up over that joint I can add a little muscle mass to it and I can lock the thing out yep and because we can move the thing we can float it back and we can actually extend our elbow as we do that without doing work against gravity that's right so you can get past that hard point that's right without actually working against gravity this is super important everybody understands now listen what he said was I can actually make my elbows continue to extend as I take the bar from low over the chest to high over the neck elbows will extend just you can try it right here the elbows are super super bent much more straight with the bar over my neck and the bar didn't go up any it didn't travel above so here's here's how we figure this out when I start playing with this is you guys have to understand how big a deal this is it's a big deal it's a big deal nobody's ever talked about okay so one of our favorite supplemental lists for the press is a press lockout right we put the press at like eye height or forehead height or above the head or whatever and we press it straight up well power lifters I learned from that sort of stuff when I did competitive power lifting type stuff one of the accessory movements or supplemental movements we did was the same thing for the bench press so you lay in the bench press you put the bar on the pins and you would press straight up and you would lock it out and you know there'd be four, five, six inches range of motion and so what I would do is I would roll the bar down directly over say my nipple line and I would load the bar up with I don't know 10% more 15% more than I could actually bench press 440 something like that and I put it over my chest and I press and it doesn't move by the way nothing hurts worse bicep tendonitis forearms all sorts of stuff then when that thing doesn't move off the pins and I couldn't figure out why so I was like man I know I can lock this much weight and I started to roll the bar up the pins closer to my chin that's funny and boom it locks out I'm like why does it do that and so I you know over the shoulder joint it locks out a lot easier roll it a little north of the shoulder joint boom locks out even easier what you start to notice is as you roll that bar so you don't change the pin height so let's say the pins are 8 inches above your chest 10 inches above your chest whatever the more I roll the bar closer to my face I roll it superior to my to my body and I lock it out the bar moves less yep so when it's over my mouth that lockouts only an inch and a half but when it's over my shoulders it's a 3 inch lockout yep and when it's over my chest there's too much moment arm to overcome there's a moment arm at that point in a regular bench press the bar should have already floated up over the shoulder so I was trying to put it over the spot originally where I would touch at the chest that doesn't make any sense there's too much moment arm to overcome so what we found we believe is that for those people who are competitive bench pressers competitive we can touch a little lower we can take a little wider grip we can get a little bigger arch we can touch a little lower on the chest and we can throw it back what we say is we say throw it back over the face I don't know that you're actually throwing it back over your face I don't want to push it back towards your eyes or whatever and so again it's probably an overcorrective cue what they're probably doing is locking it out over their chin or their throat somewhere in that ballpark and the bar moves a little less against gravity and what you do is you lock out the elbows and then you've got a moment arm there and your shoulder joint but after the elbow locks I can just move the bar back over the shoulder joint settle back in get the rack command if I'm bench pressing out of power if you meet rack it and I'm good to go yeah your lats are plenty strong to do that yeah so the way to test this is with a spotter yeah and the next time you start to bench press and you start to really grind on a rep and a rep really slows down six inches seven inches eight inches off your chest and you can't get it just start floating it back over your face make sure you've got a good spotter yeah right make sure you've got your pins in the racks you're not going to drop it on your face and kill yourself and try it what most people will find is most people think they should just keep pushing up but if they push up and back and they let it float back those elbows will lock out and they'll lock out more weight float back is the key because if you think push it back they often can't but if you think float back somehow they can so what I've been doing for people that come to me for a first session will work up to what they think is going to be one set there and I'm giving them this talk about this the whole time we're talking about the shoulder flexors we're talking about all this stuff and then I'll put more weight on it and they'll do their next their next set and it's really tough yeah and they're like we're going to do five more and they're like oh yeah because you're going to learn how to get back you're going to float it back and I'm like don't panic I'm right here do not panic be patient with it float it back I swear to you to lock out we'll leave it yeah yeah there's a video if you go to Michael Wolfe you know very well known coach hey Wolfe he has a video on his Instagram probably about yeah she was probably in my house eight or eight months ago or so somewhere in there and we did this very thing and he he had a new max attempt I think he was benching 450 or 440 or somewhere in that ballpark mid 400s and he missed the first rep we got a great video of him missing the first rep and he pushes it straight up and I said look man I'm standing right here I'm not going to let you drop it on your face when it starts to grind get it back keep floating it back over your throat over your chin over your mouth and so we waited seven, eight minutes and he did it again and he locked it out and we got a great video so you can actually see the before and after if you go back to Wolfe Instagram what is he at better screw I'm going to screw this is it Wolfe strength I think it's Wolfe strength that sounds right yeah and so if you think about you have a vertical bar path off your chest you're touching below your shoulder joint you have a vertical bar path off your chest it's a little bit of a tricep extension oh it's all triceps and you don't get to use your pegs you don't get not like you should and you don't get to use any of those shoulder extension do you think that that's BS I think what's BS do you think you get do you I mean my I mean I've stared at netters I've watched hundreds and hundreds I mean thousands of mid-press reps and they get to use that shoulder flex or they get to add a little bit of mass I think it's both for sure I think that's the shoulders with the triceps yeah yeah put the triceps in an advantageous position then where it's so much easier to lock it out right again how much more if you're just going to if you're going to do a pin press a pin bench press and the bars only going to move two and a half three inches how much more can you do than you're bench press which is which is the shoulder that's the front delts is the flexors job to get the bar back over that throat needs to be and then the triceps can take over and just smack and they just lock out smack that's all they do hey man I think that we've talked about this one pretty well hey one other thing I want to talk about frequency real fast just because as we mentioned am I still on you're still on you know sound funny in my ears and I do think that the bench press long-term shift you know we start by squatting three times a week in linear progression and one of the first moves will make when we have to start trying to elongate linear progression is we usually take that Wednesday squat day we make it a light day that kind of tends to be normal and then eventually we'll move to like a four-day split we'll drop the light day and now we're squatting twice a week and deadlifting twice a week and benching twice a week and pressing twice a week and one of the first and by the way it could be another press session but the press beats you up more than the bench press does now that's just again that's not everybody and there's always going to be outliers has not me but what we found in general is that most of our clients as they become late intermediate and advanced lifters make the best progress pressing twice a week and benching three times a week and so don't be scared and by the way I've seen people bench four times a week or crank up the frequency on that bench press it's probably the best way to get volume in on the bench press so rather than benching five sets of something six sets of something seven sets of something eight sets of something add another session of three or four sets and it gets that same volume so it tends to work really well we do that automatically when we move to the four-day split we add a half session on both bench and press and then we add another a fifth correct and then we add another yeah and so if we've got a competitive lifter that's doing a strength lifting meet by the time the last eight weeks of the strength lifting meet going to the strength lifting meet I'll bench twice and I'll press three times right now it won't be a straight press like maybe it's an actual competitive press and a strict press and a press lock out you know something like that but just on the keeping your back in your mind we're like man my if you are a late intermediate advanced bench presser and it's stalled for a while one of the first things I would do is I would kick up the frequency and then I'll press three times please we have recently learned a friend told us that the rankings on itunes are largely determined by how many new subscribers you get at a given week not total downloads so hey tell a friend get them to subscribe and give us a five story view if you've got time but with those two subscribers we're like make like 15 or 20 accounts and subscribe and I'll love them that's fine too that's fine but thanks for listening we'll talk to you soon