The most popular lift in the gym is the Bench Press. It's the upper-body exercise that lets you lift the most part of your body weight. For Bench Press you should lie on an upright support bench or a bench inside a Power Rack. Then unrack the weight and lower it to your chest. Press the bar up until your arms are locked properly.
Bench Press is affected by varying grip, grip width, bench angle and weights put on it, so you should take some factors into consideration. First of all remember to be in a tight position during bench press from start to end. While starting, you should check the grip width. If it is very narrow then you'll lose strength and if it is too wide then the distance to which the bar travels shortens. For a correct bench press grip width should be about 50-75 cm depending on your build. You should also take care of the grip of the bar. You can secure the bar with your thumbs by rotating your hands in.
Hold the bar in between the palm of your hand, close to your wrist. If you put the bar close to your fingers, you can get wrist pains. You can give a solid base to your body for bench pressing by squeezing your shoulder-blades before getting on the bench and keeping your shoulder-blades back and down. While bench press you should also consider the risk of the bar falling on your face. Your arms are strongest when your elbows are locked properly. You should not allow your chest to go flat or shoulders to roll forward as you can lose upper-back tightness, losing power and increasing risk of shoulder injury. So keep your chest up at all time for correct position.
Also consider that your forearms should be perpendicular to the floor when the bar touches your chest. To prevent extreme arching of your lower back you should use a wide foot stance to increase stability on the bench. Put your feet flat on the floor and keep your weight on the heels and lower leg perpendicular to the floor. You should bench press in a straight line. For this you can fix a point at the ceiling where you want the bar to go and don't look at the bar while pressing. You should consider your elbows while bench pressing. Keeping elbows too high is not apt for your shoulders and also keeping them too low is inefficient. Put your elbows perpendicular to the bench and parallel with your torso. Also you should tighten your neck muscles, without pushing your head into the bench, to avoid neck injury.
While bench press, if your shoulders roll forward then it is considered to be a bad technique and can result in shoulder injuries. So to avoid it, you should keep your chest up, shoulder-blades back and down and upper-back tight.
The Bench Press builds upper-body strength like no other exercise but if it is not done properly then it can cause severe shoulder injuries.
