There are many different errors one might make while pressing the bar, either overhead or from the bench: poor eye gaze direction, too wide or narrow a grip, no leg drive, driving your ass up off the bench, and the list goes on. As coaches, it is our job to see which issues are happening, order them from most to least important, and instruct or “cue” the lifter to success.

We must also be cognizant of the lifter's ability to take in and process information; in the midst of a training session, we cannot overload a lifter – especially a novice – with a 15-minute lecture on why we want some moment arms but not others. We need to fix them, now. Because of this, we have to focus on the fundamental parts of the movement, while saving some of the less egregious errors for another day or another session, a juggling act that can be tough to pull off, but one that nonetheless comes with the territory of being a coach.

What's harder still is the novice lifter trying to figure it all out on their own in the garage – I've been there, and I know the challenge. You've watched the videos, which are well-made, concise, and focused on the fundamentals. Maybe you've purchased the book, which is absolutely packed with well-articulated arguments for why and how we do what we do based on the most up-to-date information we have in the field of strength training.

Perhaps you've been able to attend a camp or seminar, giving you an edge over most of the other trainees in your similar situation. All of those are great, but none of those measure up to being coached by an SSC. So you're doing the best you can, and maybe you're doing really well, but many of the little details go unthought of and unnoticed. For those novice garage warriors out there who have a nice grasp on the fundamentals, here's a very brief overview of what we're trying to get the elbows to do in the pressing movements.

Elbows in the Press

The elbow positioning in the press plays a crucial role in a successful rep. We're really looking for two things: 1) The elbow is just in front of the bar when viewed from the side, and 2) the elbow is directly in line with the fist allowing for a vertical forearm at the start of the movement, when viewed from back or front.

The elbow position relative to the bar – slightly in front of it – affords us the opportunity for an efficient bar path, which becomes more and more necessary as the weight on the bar increases; small bar path deviations in the squat or the deadlift, for example, are inefficient and should be avoided, but can often be overcome with enough grit. If the bar path is out in front of you an inch on a PR Press, you're not making that rep. We have all experienced the glory of grooving a Press PR that left us thinking we had 10 more pounds in the tank only to come back 2 minutes later and fail to get the bar above our nose. Bar path will make or break you in the press, so get that handled early.

Placing the elbow (the olecranon process, the proximal end of the ulna) just in front of the bar creates a vertical radius (the other bone) – the radius-part interfaces with the wrist, and is what carries the drive to the bar. A vertical radius effectively eliminates moment arms between the grip and the elbow, between the elbows and shoulders, and between the grip and the shoulders. It also forces you to build tension within the system; the elbows will not just stay where we want them to – attention must be paid, and work must be done to make this happen. By working to keep the elbows and armpits tight we're also going to build tension, making this a “kill two birds with one stone” type of situation. Keep them in tight and bounce the triceps off the lats.

Elbows in the Bench

Just as with the press the elbow position in the bench press really cannot be overlooked. Again, we are looking at a couple aspects of the elbow position: 1) The elbow/olecranon process needs to maintain its position directly under the bar when viewed from the front or back and 2) the angle at the armpit, made up by the humerus and the torso, changes throughout the movement, from lockout to chest and back; this angle should be essentially zero at lockout and somewhere around 75 degrees when the bar touches the chest, though this can vary quite a bit depending on an individual's anthropometry and flexibility (back arch).

Similar to the press, keeping the elbow under the bar and the forearm vertical allows for optimal force transfer to the bar; if we can avoid the creation of moment arms between the bar and elbow, we avoid the need to overcome unwanted leverage created by these moment arms.

The elbow position relative to the torso – the armpit angle – is the one we concern ourselves with for the sake of shoulder health. The act of pulling the elbows down a little from 90 degrees to somewhere around 75 degrees doesn't actually make the movement more efficient. This position avoids impingement of the shoulder, which will happen if the armpit angle is kept at the more mechanically efficient 90 degrees. We give up mechanical efficiency for a better chance of keeping the shoulders out of harm's way.

The Point of All This

Of the many potential errors a trainee can make, how the bar comes down in the pressing movements is one that can cause serious issues, but largely will go unnoticed if training alone or with other inexperienced training partners. After all, we're just letting gravity bring the bar back down, right? Well, kind of, but there's some nuance: I am not suggesting you radically slow the descent of the bar when you bring it down in the pressing movements, but I would have you control the bar on the way back down to prevent unnecessary momentum from accumulating.

The cruise control in your car, for example, can be set at 10 mph or 80 mph, but in both cases, the pace is controlled. How fast the bar travels back down will vary depending on the trainee; find the pace that doesn't fight gravity too much and also allows you to control the bar path on the way down. Here's how I like to think about controlling the bar on the way down.

“Lead with the elbows.” What does this instruction mean? Well, for the press – if we've done our job at taking the setup seriously and getting into the correct position before the bar is unracked – the elbows are good to go for that first rep. Elbow under the fist and tucked in tight to the torso. You step out, get a big breath, throw the hips, and throw the bar through the ceiling, finishing with a hard shrug to lock out the rep.

Now what? Well, what many lifters do at this point is simply let the bar drop down toward the start position with no regard for the elbow. The problem with this is that often times this pushes the elbows down behind the proper start position – behind the bar – and sets up the lifter for an inefficient bar path that will push the bar away from their shoulders and mid-foot on the next rep.

The distance between the bar and the shoulder is the critical lever in a press. You can probably get away with this early on in your training career because the weight is light, and you can grind through a shitty bar path to lockout. But the ability to grind through it will not last long. At this point the best-case scenario is that you adjust between each rep, get the elbows back in their rightful position, and salvage the bar path for the rest of the set. But again, this will not last. The press is hard work, and standing there wasting precious seconds adjusting your elbows between each rep is a losing strategy.

Do this instead: After lockout, pull the elbows back down into the start position. Let the elbows lead the bar back down. If you get the elbows where they should be you'll have put the bar back where it should be – two birds, one stone. Now, it is important to understand that I am not suggesting you waste energy by artificially slowing the bar down as you move from lockout back to start position, but we can allow gravity to do its thing and use the elbows to steer the bar on the way down.

Same for the Bench?

Even though the bench press, unlike the press, starts at the lockout position at the top, the same principle of leading with the elbows still applies. From the lockout position focus on leading the bar down to the touch point with the elbows. Another way to think of this is to pull the bar down to the touch point. Again, this does not mean you should be moving the bar slower than is necessary; the goal here is to control the bar while leading it to the touch point with the elbows. Cruise-control, remember?

The cool part about this is that by leading the bar down with the elbows you have a great probability of keeping them under the bar as well as maintaining the correct armpit angle, since the elbow position controls this angle. When you hit the touch point on the chest you must have also kept the appropriate angle of the humerus, the two are tied together (I don't want to keep using the same bird expression, but you get it).

The How – Not the Why

To be honest, I don't really care too much if you understand why the elbows should be positioned in the way we advise or not – at least not right now. When you want that knowledge, I suggest you pick up a copy of the Blue Book from The Aasgaard Company. My goal is to try and do for you what many other great SSCs have done for me and give you easy instructions to follow that will significantly improve your performance. If you're having to reset between each rep on the press or your touch point in the bench is all over the place, try Leading With The Elbows the next time you train, because a better down makes for an easier up.

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