In the event you’re critical about constructing muscle and energy, the bench press is probably going a staple in your routine.
However, for those who’re like most gymgoers, you’re in all probability overlooking a vital bench press approach that may enhance your efficiency and good points: leg drive.
What’s bench press leg drive precisely?
Opposite to fashionable perception, correct leg drive doesn’t contain pushing your toes into the ground and squeezing your glutes to drive your hips upward.
As an alternative, leg drive is about utilizing your legs to stabilize your physique, generate additional energy, and press extra effectively.
To get leg drive proper, it’s essential to perceive the way it works and the way to apply it in your bench press setup.
And that’s precisely what you’ll be taught on this article.
What Is Bench Press Leg Drive?
“Leg drive” is a weightlifting approach that entails utilizing your legs to extend stability and generate energy within the bench press.
The fundamental thought behind bench press leg drive is that as you press the bar upward, you drive your toes into the ground as for those who have been making an attempt to slip your physique up the bench (although your physique doesn’t really transfer as a result of it’s pinned down by the load in your palms).
Regardless of its potential to extend efficiency, many gymgoers neglect utilizing leg drive, viewing it as an “superior” approach reserved for powerlifters seeking to press as a lot weight as potential.
Whereas it’s true leg drive requires ability, it’s easier to carry out than most understand. And provided that it could allow you to raise extra weight safely, it’s a worthwhile approach for anybody seeking to achieve muscle and energy.
Why Is Leg Drive on the Bench Press Vital?
The principle good thing about utilizing leg drive on the bench press is that it can help you raise extra weight safely, which is critical as a result of, typically talking, the extra weight you possibly can raise, the extra muscle and energy you achieve.
Driving by means of your legs on the bench press achieves this in two methods:
- It will increase whole-body stability.
- It helps you employ a extra environment friendly bar path.
Let’s talk about every in additional element.
Leg Drive Will increase Complete-Physique Stability
You could have heard that sustaining an arch in your again whereas benching is smart, and that is true.
For many weightlifters, arching your backbone to create a fist-sized hole between your again and the bench helps preserve your shoulders protected and “tightens” your torso for additional stability.
There’s just one caveat: That is solely true for those who additionally use leg drive. In the event you arch with out pushing by means of your legs, your setup really turns into much less secure.
Why?
With out bracing your physique by pushing by means of your legs in the other way to the descending barbell, the load of the bar is normally sufficient to break down your again arch and shift your torso out of place.
Whereas these adjustments in posture and place are sometimes minor (generally too small to note), they lower your total stability and hinder your potential to press.
Driving by means of your legs, nevertheless, offers stronger foundations in your again arch, enabling your higher physique to remain inflexible, balanced, and secure, which helps you press extra weight with a decrease threat of injury.
Leg Drive Helps You Use a Extra Environment friendly Bar Path
Transferring a barbell in a straight line from level A to level B is usually probably the most environment friendly technique to raise weights.
For example, to maximise your efficiency within the squat, deadlift, and overhead press, shifting the bar in a straight line all through every rep is paramount.
The bench press is totally different.
Making an attempt to press the bar straight up and down over your chest creates a “second arm” between your shoulder joint and the bar. This forces your muscle tissues to work considerably more durable and limits how a lot weight you possibly can raise.
To counteract this, it’s essential to appropriate your “bar path.” Right here’s how:
- Start with the bar immediately over your shoulders.
- Decrease the bar in a mild arc to your decrease chest.
- Press the bar up and towards your throat.
- As soon as the bar is over your shoulders once more, end the rep by urgent it straight up till your arms are straight.
Right here’s a diagram for example this:
Utilizing an environment friendly bar path is feasible with out involving your legs, however it turns into considerably simpler whenever you incorporate leg drive.
That’s as a result of leg drive lets you use your whole physique to propel the barbell within the path you need it to maneuver (towards your throat), boosting how a lot you possibly can raise.
How you can Use Leg Drive within the Bench Press
Most gymgoers assume leg drive means driving your toes into the ground to push your hips immediately upward.
That is incorrect.
The aim of leg drive is not to push your hips towards the ceiling—doing so will increase the probability that your butt will raise off the bench, which reduces total stability by eradicating one in every of your factors of contact with the bench.
In aggressive powerlifting, lifting your butt off the bench additionally invalidates your raise. Whereas this isn’t a problem in a non-competitive setting, it nonetheless falls into the class of utilizing “sloppy” kind to raise additional weight, which, like half-squatting and round-back deadlifts, typically isn’t wise.
To reap the advantages of leg drive, you have to use your legs to push your physique up the bench. In different phrases, take into consideration driving by means of your legs to slip your physique towards the highest of the bench.
The diagram under illustrates this level. The image on the left exhibits what not to do (drive your hips upward) and the image on the appropriate exhibits the path your ought to be pushing:
To make use of leg drive within the bench press successfully, you have to first discover the very best foot place for you.
For many lifters, there are two choices:
- Lie on the bench and place your toes flat on the ground shoulder-width aside or just a little wider and turned barely out. Whereas protecting your soles flat on the ground, pull your toes towards your head till your heels really feel like they’re starting to raise. For most individuals, this shall be when their toes are below the knees or barely additional again.
- Lie on the bench and pull your toes so far as you possibly can below your physique whereas nonetheless protecting your toes in touch with the ground.
Right here’s how these foot placements look. Choice one is on the left, and choice two is one the appropriate:
Choice one means that you can produce probably the most leg drive and doesn’t require excessive flexibility, making it the very best resolution for many.
The advantage of choice two is that it means that you can create a pronounced again arch. Some powerlifters choose this as a result of it could vastly scale back the gap the bar has to journey to finish a rep, permitting them to raise the utmost weight potential.
For many “life-style” weightlifters, nevertheless, it’s much less secure and prevents you from producing as a lot leg drive as you in any other case may.
Timing Leg Drive
To maximize leg drive within the bench press, it’s essential to grasp its timing. A great way to do that is to match it to how you employ your legs whereas squatting.
For example, you employ your legs to regulate the eccentric (decreasing) section of the squat with out pushing in opposition to the load. This adjustments on the backside of every rep, when your legs drive in opposition to the bar that can assist you arise.
Leg drive within the bench press follows the same sample.
As you decrease the bar to your chest, your legs stay engaged to buttress your again arch and stop your physique shifting out of place. As soon as the bar touches your chest, you drive by means of your legs as arduous as potential to heave the bar upward.
Bench Press Leg Drive: FAQs
FAQ #1: Is leg drive dishonest?
No, leg drive isn’t dishonest, offered you retain your butt on the bench. It’s a reputable approach that many weightlifters use to stabilize their physique and generate extra energy throughout the bench press.
FAQ #2: How a lot will utilizing leg drive enhance my bench press?
The impression of leg drive in your bench press depends upon your present ability degree and approach. Many novice weightlifters report that utilizing leg drive permits them to raise considerably extra weight as a result of it improves their stability and helps them use a extra environment friendly bar path.
If you have already got a strong bench press setup and a clean bar path, including leg drive in all probability received’t produce dramatic good points. Nonetheless, it could nonetheless provide a modest enhance in your bench press efficiency and decrease your threat of harm by enhancing stability, which ought to allow you to construct extra muscle and energy over time.
FAQ #3: Do bodybuilders use leg drive?
Some bodybuilders use leg drive within the bench press, although many discover it hinders their “mind-muscle connection.” They could have a degree, too—research suggests your pecs, shoulders, and triceps are ever-so-slightly extra energetic when benching with out leg drive (presumably due to the higher stabilization calls for).
That’s to not say benching with out leg drive results in extra muscle progress—muscle activation is often a awful predictor of hypertrophy. But it surely does recommend that benching with out leg drive is a legitimate method for bodybuilders preferring it. Simply keep in mind that it doubtless means you’ll have the ability to deal with much less weight, which can restrict the muscle-building potential of the train considerably.
+ Scientific References
- Van Every, Derrick W., et al. “Biomechanical, Anthropometric and Psychological Determinants of Barbell Bench Press Strength.” Sports, vol. 10, no. 12, 5 Dec. 2022, p. 199, https://doi.org/10.3390/sports10120199. Accessed 14 Feb. 2023.
- Kristiansen, M., et al. “Inter-Subject Variability of Muscle Synergies during Bench Press in Power Lifters and Untrained Individuals.” Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, vol. 25, no. 1, 24 Dec. 2013, pp. 89–97, https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.12167.
- Chia, Justin . Leg-Drive Does Not Affect Upper Extremity Muscle Activation during a Bench Press Exercise. Mar. 2019, www.researchgate.net/publication/331535577_Leg-drive_Does_Not_Affect_Upper_Extremity_Muscle_Activation_during_a_Bench_Press_Exercise, https://doi.org/10.13189/saj.2019.070103.
- Vigotsky, Andrew D., et al. “Greater Electromyographic Responses Do Not Imply Greater Motor Unit Recruitment and “Hypertrophic Potential” Cannot Be Inferred.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, vol. 31, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. e1–e4, https://doi.org/10.1519/jsc.0000000000001249.