2. Bend the bar!

 

That’s one of the first things people told me at the gym in 2008 when I laid down to bench. It bothered me. I thought, I can’t bend the damn bar why do they keep telling me that??

I certainly wasn’t aware of the vast wealth of technique that unfolded behind that quote... 

As time went by, I began to understand why they insisted. And now, after around 1.300 pressing workouts and a combined equal amount of squat and deadlift sessions, I think I’m ready to explain why you need to

bend the bar in the 3 main lifts. And how it’ll help you get stronger when you combine it with proper kinetic linking. 

The main character here is the bar. And how we use our body to become one with it. 

1. Bench press 

•Find your grip. 

•You want to squeeze the bar as hard as you can, then supinate by turning your elbows inwards. The internal rotation will force your elbows to stay tucked in. Keep your traps down and squeeze your scapulas together before you unrack the weight.

•The torque will make the weight rest on your triceps and your lats. So now you have a base. Shoulder blades and lats are your platform.

•Arch your back. You want to create something similar to a decline bench leverage. There are people who set up the same way, stay super tight and don’t arch their back. Personally, I try to. But I’m not that flexible. I’d say I take away a couple of inches at best from my bar path. If you’re getting lower back pain from arching too hard, flex your glutes as well. Don’t forget, you want to be super tight everywhere. The less comfortable you are, the better you’re doing it. Unless you’re one of those super flexible people. In that case, lucky you.

•I like to place my feet back and stay on my toes, it gives me great tension. Some people keep the feet flat, others flat and spread them. And others back but squeeze the bench between their legs. Whatever you choose, they need to be as tight as possible. If your upper body is tight and your legs loose, you’re breaking the kinetic chain.

You also want to push back with your legs. Have that wave start from the ground and travel through your body towards your chest and ultimately your press and lockout.

It’s a great tool for competition IF you can time it correctly. I’ve seen people fail attempts cause they sank the bar after the press command. So if you want to practice it, definitely do so at lighter weight.

•Take a deep breath in your stomach, flex your lats and un-rack the bar. Make sure you’re supinating your forearms and keeping your scapulas retracted throughout your set. 

•Start descending from a position where you’re ready to bench. Bring the bar down in a straight line. Press the bar up in a straight line again. There’s an argument between the J bar path and the straight bar path. I believe that the straight bar path takes away that slight movement in your shoulders. And to me that’s important not only do to the many years of wear and tear, but also cause I bench alone and I set myself up really high in that bench. I want my shoulder blades to not come out of position during the un-racking.

At the same time, there are people who bench much more than me and do very well using the J bar path so I’m speaking for myself. I’ve done both, I’m able to execute both with decent form so in my case it’s about ability and preference. Perhaps I should cover that in a separate article.

2. Squat

My favorite exercise. Nothing like having weight on your back. Even better, when you execute it properly, heavy or not, competition or training session. This glorious compound movement demands your respect. Ok, they all do… but give me a break and allow me to praise it. Thank you. 

•Find your grip and get under the bar. To me grip is as important as foot position. Its your hand position and your mobility that will define how well you place the bar on your back. And ultimately, how you will descend. Since the bar sits on top of you.

I used to hold it quite close, then noticed it would affect my bench in training and especially in competition since I always do the whole meet. So now I go all the way out. No matter how much stretching and mobility I did with bands wrapped around my delts and chest etc, I was never able to be comfortable enough to hold it very tight. 

Not to mention that it bothered my tendon in the right bicep with which I’ve had trouble on and off for a decade. You can definitely work to become more mobile, sure. But it’ll always be individual. Some people just can’t be as flexible as others. 

•That being said, no matter how wide or close your grip is, try to bring your elbows down and then bend the bar. That internal rotation will activate your lats, tighten your upper back muscles, securing your thoracic spine. Bring your chest up and you’re set.

• As I mentioned above, notice I wrote hand position and your mobility define how well you place the bar on your back. I wrote that because bar positioning much like stance width are an individual choice. I can’t dictate if you should place the bar high or low, or how wide you should stand. But as far as you do the above then you have secured a bar that’s ‘glued’ to your body.

•Brace your abs and nothing can move you. Everytime I brace for the 3 big lifts I get a mini stroke. I brace like my life depends on it. Bracing creates a 360 degree pressure that secures your lumbar spine and the connection between lumbar and thoracic spine. Mid section stays tight, upper thoracic stays tight.

Credit must be given to my former coach and elite powerlifter Valdimar Richter (Valdi Kerfis) who in 2015 walked up to me and pulled my pinky off the bar. In a way where it’s tucked underneath it. This allowed me to bring my elbows down without any strain on my scapulas or deltoids. Still use it to this day. 

It also allows me to use a very low bar placement since I place my hands all the way out.

3. Deadlift 

Let’s start from the bottom of the lift, since the bar is on the floor. Bending the bar in the deadlift means you should take the slack out of the bar before you start pulling.

•Bracing is key, yet again. Maintain a neutral spine and shoulder position exactly as if your waiting in line somewhere. Make your upper body rigid by bracing and keeping that neutral position. Breathe into your stomach and drive your hips through as you begin to sit back. It causes the bar to elevate before you stand up with it. This counts for conventional and sumo. I pull around 550lbs. I can make around 350lbs elevate a couple of inches off the floor, before I start driving my hips all the way through. As you brace and get yourself tight and in position, the bar will bend. And that’s our goal. 

•By bending the bar, we avoid wasting energy resetting after we tug it. How many times I’ve heard those violent tugs in competition and training. You can hear the actual metal sound that the bar will make once you tug it. This throws off your position. You waste energy from zero resistance to full explosion and that’s one of the reasons a lot of those lifters start slowing down at knee height. You have only so much time to finish the lift before you start slowing down. 

It might also force your back to get rounded, since the tug compromises your position and adds stress to the spine.

Mind you, there are many high level lifters who deadlift with a rounded or slightly rounded upper back. But this is just habit and the fact that they’ve done thousands of reps with heavy weights has secured that position. So don’t worry about them.

That can also happen to heavier lifters. Where the belly gets in the way of their legs especially in the conventional stance. That’s understandable. Nonetheless, I feel obligated to explain what an optimal spinal position should be. Myself, I stand about shoulder wide for conventional since my gut indeed is in the way.

•I pull both styles, with both stances being really close when it comes to 1 rep max. For the conventional, I brace in a standing position and start pulling as soon as I have a good grip on the bar. But I always hinge at my hips. I never ‘pull’. Chris Duffin, Ed Coan, George Leeman, Andy Bolton, Dan Green, Chuck Vogelpohl and many more great athletes support that theory. Cause it makes sense. I never pulled the deadlift with my upper body. My upper body stayed super tight and rigid, the lockout was always achieved by bending my legs, shoving my hips forward, firing my glutes and posterior chain as I sat back and locked out. I tried to drive my hips forward and my feet through the floor. 

•My sumo is pretty much the same. Although I can be super fast with it, I train at regular speed. I can shove my hips towards the bar very quickly, but I feel like I can’t get the glutes to fire on time if I just rely on my hips. Nonetheless I pull relatively fast in competition. What I do is when the weight gets heavier, I’ll keep my shins 1 inch away from the bar. Cause back in 2016 when I started pulling sumo I’d drive my hips through so fast that my shins would hit the bar. That’s really bad cause it forces it to swing forward. And that means the weight is pushed away from my body, forcing me to shift towards my toes and change leverage, making it much harder to pull. Not to mention the unnecessary stress on my spine. 

Imagine somebody gently pulling the bar away from you as its rising off the floor. Even an inch can ruin the lift. And cause injury. So we definitely don’t want that. 

So that’s your sweet spot. As you sit back and your hips are in optimal position, bend that bar and lock out. Guys with longer arms won’t have to sit very low as they’ll lose the tension. Just make sure everything is perpendicular to, or behind that bar as you look from the side.

Final notes : 

1. In the bench, I grip the bar around 5 inches from the smooth in competition. Although I alternate my grip every week. Moving my hands even half an inch in or out makes a big difference.

2. I stand a bit wider than shoulders with a low bar in the squat. My feet are angled about an inch outwards. My hands will usually go out to the collars. 

3. I stand very wide in the sumo deadlift. Used to stand around 4 inches away from the plates, then went to a Boris Sheiko/Kirill Sarychev seminar in December of 2018. Was the next morning after a competition. He told me my form was very good and suggested I stood even wider. Then the weight flew up. Thank you Boris. 

Update: as of 2022 I've closed my stance quite a bit, after spending a few months utilizing my quads via leg press and quad extensions. I try to mix it up. 

4. I stand shoulder width for conventional. At 300lbs, I find it very hard to maintain a rigid upper body and brace with a belt on if my feet are closer than shoulder width. The power keg gets in the way...

5. I wore my belt high for squats and deadlifts for 5 years. And around my waist for bench. The high belt position made me feel like I was bracing even harder. Especially in the sumo stance. The buckle would be around 2 inches under my chest.

In 2021 I switched back to low belt placement. Frankly, it doesn’t really matter anymore. I even take it off entirely for some of my heavy sets.

I train my abs and obliques 2 times per week for many sets and reps. If there’s something I can brag about, that’d be my abdominal strength. Its kept me safe and in one piece especially after 14 years of training and competing. 

We want the most efficient way to execute the lifts. What I always tell people when I coach them is that all 3 lifts demand one thing. To be one with the bar.

Terry Eleftheriou for Conjugate Iron 2020

https://linktr.ee/terryconjugateiron