Starting Strength, 3rd Edition - Mark Rippetoe [153]
For presses, set the pins at the desired position, from chin level (just off the shoulders) on up, even as high as slightly below lockout, and press the bar off the pins with your standard press grip, keeping the bar close to your face with good elbow position and your chest up. Before it leaves the pins, tighten up against the bar, taking all the slack out of your elbows and shoulders before you try to make the bar move up. Make sure you preserve the critical movement of the torso under the bar. The higher the pins, the heavier the weight can be. The heavier the weight, the greater the instability at the top, the harder it becomes to prevent excessive layback, and the more stress the shoulders and abs will receive. A belt is a very good idea here.
Figure 7-6. Pressing from different positions within the range of motion inside the rack.
Resist the temptation to do lots of sets with weights heavier than you can press, especially the first time you try this. Pin positions in the middle of the movement – where most people get stuck, the point at about the top of the forehead where the transition from delts to triceps is trying to occur – are good places to apply this kind of work. And as a general rule, any partial exercise is quite useful when applied to the sticking points in its parent movement, and most of the partial exercises were developed specifically for this purpose. Reps can vary from sets of 3 to 10, but don’t get carried away with the volume. Sets across from a dead stop will beat your shoulders up, so pick a weight, do it for the number of reps you want to use, and then adjust the weight in your next workout if you picked it wrong.
The bench press can be used the same way, with the bar loaded on pins set at the desired height above the chest. Carefully center the flat bench so that it accommodates the correct position under the bar, with your head on the bench and your chest and elbows in the same place under the bar and in the same position they would be in had you pressed the bar off your chest to this level. As with the press, take all the slack out of your elbows and shoulders before you push the bar up off the pins; this is important for correct mechanical execution and to prevent excessive dynamic shock to the tendon insertions on your humerus. Sets of five work well for both presses and bench presses, but again, just use one heavy set. These are very stressful, and you will develop pec insertion tendinitis if you do too much work on partial exercises that allow the use of heavy weights. Shoulders are easier to injure and more susceptible to overuse than knees and hips are, and dead-stop exercises with heavy weights tend to inflame the attachments pretty badly if they are used too often or at excessive volume. But if you don’t get carried away by the glamour of the heavier weights that are possible because of the shorter range of motion, partial benches can make you very strong.
Figure 7-7. Rack bench presses allow for the use of heavier weights at different heights above the chest. They must be respected for the amount of stress they can produce if overused.
You can also start either pressing movement from the lockout position at the top by setting the hooks inside the rack at this height, unracking the bar and then lowering it to the pins, pausing, and driving back up, as with the rack squat. And as with the squat, a bounce off the pins defeats the purpose of the exercise; its value lies in the fact that it allows sticking points to be worked