Metal Militia, Westside - showing my ignorance

[Wood]

Both of these groups talk about hand placement inside the rings, pinky on the rings, outside the rings, index finger on the rings etc.

Which ring on the bar are they talking about. There is the most inner ring where the smooth area meets the gnurled area, then there is the first thin smooth ring inside the gnurled area, and then a bit further out is one more ring.

Which one is THE ring that all of this is in relation to.

[archive_kook]

usually they are talking about the outermost ring

in a powerlifting bench usually they talk about an illegal bench which is i think 36 inches between your index finger, which off the top of my head i think is the distance between the two outer rings, so sometimes they train with an illegal bench or they have a pretty close grip, they like training all grips

just going off of memory, don't quote me

[Curious George]

They are talking about the outer rings. Joe and I talked about this today. Comp grip is usually with the index finger on the rings. I usually train all my lifts with pinky inside or closer.

Take Good Care,

Cg

[archive_LuckyDog]

I usually put my ring finger on the ring. It's just most comfortable for me. Unless we're doing coil bench, close grip or something of the such. CG, the only reason you put your pinkie inside or closer is because you're 5'5". heh heh, but it's alright. I don't discriminate


Wood, the way that MOST bars are is that they are gnurled in the middle with a smooth sections almost al long on both sides of the middle gnurled area. Then from that point to almost the ned of the bar the rest of the area is gnurled except for a 1/2" section that is often called the "Ring". There are bars that have "Rings" 3 or 4 times out on both sides of the bar but those are far and few between. I'll try and do a picture for you...lol

(((((((******|*****------******------*****|******))))))) Wow that sucked, but the (((( and ))) are the loading part of the bar, the asterisks are gnurled areas and the lines are smooth areas. Man is that horrible but I hope you can kinda get the point.


LD

Education is a continuous process ending only when ambition comes to a halt.
-Col. R. I. Rees

[This message was edited by LuckyDog on 06-21-04 at 05:24 PM.]

[Curious George]

First Monster....then Mr N, now you?????


*sigh*.....Guess I'll go make some Keebler cookies with the rest of the elves. Joe? You there?

Take Good Care,

Cg

[joepalooka]

hey hey now! Just because I resemble dwarf and after yesterday's ostrich move I might be even shorter! You know Monster would steal all the cookies after shaking us out of kebler elf tree.

CG is slightly taller than I am so I am the midget of the group. But any how. Some bars do have additional notches in them besides what lucky dog posted. Who ever came up with this idea should be shot. It confuses the hell out of me sometimes on hand placement. But the rings are

(((((((******|*****------******------*****|******)))))))

[joepalooka]

I posted by accident before I finished typing. I will copy lucky dogs picture once again

(((((((******|*****-------******-------*****|******)))))) this is a normal looking olympic bar.
(((((((******|*****--------------------*****|******)))))) this is another normal olypic bar
(((((((**|***|***|**------******------**|***|***|**)))))) The gym CG, Monster and I train at has bars like this floating around and when encountering this type of bar its the middle ring. The person who did this type should be shot! We use them occasionally because there brand new and not bent well at least not yet. The " | " is the ring. Notice all have the ring in the same spot. This is the ring you want

I don't know the approximate distance between the rings. Metal militia considers anything inbetween the middle ring by the last example to be a close grip which includes pinky on this middle ring, comp grip is index fingers on the middle rings, this is the maximum placements the hands can be in competition. Wider than this is illeagally wide. Index fingers on the middle rings to most people would be considered a really wide grip because most persons bench with pinky on the rings or ring finger on the rings. Moving your hands out takes time to get used to. It will shorten the range of motion and that is what you want for maximum bench pressing. Close grip for westside from what I gather is anything narrower than your competition grip. Not to confuse competition grip with index fingers on the rings but your most comfortable hand location for maximum lifting ie maybe ring finger on the rings and so on. I consider close grip to be a thumb's length away from the smooth portion of the bar and is slightly shorter than my shoulder width and on other sites this kind of grip is considered a mid-grip or medium grip. I don't ever use index finger on the smooth my wrists cant take this joint angle. I am not condeming this position if you can do this then by all means, it just causes me to much pain in other areas. I used to use a close grip like that back in the day but no way in hell now! My close grip is what I used to use for my max's benching about 6-7 years ago and is a medium-grip just slightly wider than my shoulders and is about 2 inches from the middle ring. I am short in stature with average length arms for my height as I compounded injuries as I got stronger on the flat bench I had to push my hands out. I usually alway's use pinky or ring finger on the rings except rack lockouts I will use a medium grip and if I want to show off a little I will put pinky's on the ring. In the board press when it starts getting harder I will slide my hands out to ring finger on the ring to comp grip. I would suggest training with every different grip until you find what is comfortable for you. I don't think there is any wrong hand placements because I believe this depends on how you bench press and where your weaknesses are. And the type of bencher your are, a flat back bencher or slightly arched to the golden arch of the McD's sign your hand placement can be different.