Some Bench Press Humor

Believe me, I am not anti-bench press, but I do believe it is way, way overated and over used in many strength and conditioning programs here in the United States. The bench press is a great upper body exercise when used in the context of a well designed program. In our last post you could see even the great olympic weight lifter Vasily Alexeev using it in his training. I am fed up with the guys who come into the weight room and first thing, park themselves on a bench and begin benching for a solid hour or more and never lift a bar off of the floor or squat. I am sick of seeing guys who can bench 400 lb. but can't lift 200 lb. over head. I don't believe that anyone will ever convince me that it has a place in the NFL combine. Benching 225 lb. for max reps for Amercian football? What a joke. The NSCA has published several studies in their research journal discrediting the validity of the combine tests for predicting actual football success. But I guess we shouldn't expect football coaches to be experts on training. After all, football coaches are hired to run universities, not train players. Right Joe?  I'm not sure which segment below is more ridiculous, the parody or the reality of a bench press competition with "gear."

How much ya bench? from Jeffrey on Vimeo.