okay right when you bench for me there's probably four really main factors you should always focus and when I say Focus I don't mean if you're somebody that does none of them at the moment don't go away on day one try and do them all in one session and stick to the normal way that you'd do when you're implementing new movements especially in bench press you want to ensure that you're doing it on a light way and just doing repetition just practice the movement consistently for a couple weeks and then start to implement it at a higher weight and if you are doing the movement on that day that you're training do every set don't just implement it halfway in your warm-up set and the last set all of them need to involve the movement because what we're trying to do is build muscle memory to a point where you do it absolutely incoherently without even knowing it's second nature yeah now I said four points Point Uno numero now I'm not saying all of them or any of them are more important than the other I think they all and Ma sorry they all uh they all possess equal importance to me number one leg drive people go now a lot of people like how do you use leg Drive what is leg Drive leg Drive is timing the Press correctly to allow your legs to support the Press you might be thinking how the [ __ ] do we do that the aim and it's harder with people that touch and go bench press by the way because you have less of a time frame to begin the leg drive so it's much easier someone who pause benches because with a pause bench you can time the leg drive with the Press whereas when you're Touch and Go pressing it is a little harder to time the leg Drive correctly so you if you can do it pausing or if you're someone that touch and goes maybe look at pausing more otherwise you're going to need to focus on timing it right a lot more than people that pause I'm going to show you what I mean now you can find your leg Drive position however you want some people tuck some people go flat foot I at the moment prefer to talk and I have done for probably the last year and the reason is when you Tu you get quite a lot of tension in the quad so if you're at home now and you don't know what I mean sit on the end of your city um and imagine that you're trying to push your leg backward like this keep going backward keep going backward now as you get further back you going start to feel tension here start to feel tension all there that tension is letting us know that you've now activated that quad your quad's now got tension so as press up the ball of your foot and you press off that ball of your foot now that tension is part of the movement and that's the aim so when we go flat back B my position and then as you can see my feet I'll start to back back back I can now feel it in both of my quads so now it's in both of my quads and what you'll see is I'm going to come off come down pause and keep make sure you focus my feet here but the plan is my pels going go toward the floor as I go now it see that it isn't something that's like oh you'll pick it up in one session cuz you won't people don't pick up leg Drive in one session but what leg Drive does is it adds it might complete the first 15% of the motion for you let dve when implemented correctly with a really strong Foundation can give you the first 15 to 20% of your press pretty much for free you've already got it to here and now the rest of it is chest and tricep now the whole time you're still going to be pressing for your legs as you do press toward the floor with that initial movement you're still going to be pressing toward the ground for the whole movement with your feet because it's going to give you increased stability for the whole movement so that's number one leg Drive important really important you need it and it's going to help you bench mark over time absolutely number two bracing [ __ ] buzz word everyone knows what bracing is if you don't I'll tell you bracing is where we draw as much air into the core as we can to create a stable Foundation strong core to be able to press from okay you do it for squats as well people take a belt put it on or they don't worry about either way and they go and they hold strong bra so the aim of a brace is to make your belly look as big as you can you want to breathe all that air into your stomach and lock it tight so when people go how do I brace correctly imagine that I've asked you to stand here take a punch to the gut off me that's the a now when you're going to take a punch to the gut what you're going to do you're going to go you're going to brace your stomach yeah I'm asking you to do the same thing except I Want You to Breathe In first I want you to take a large breath and then imagine I'm going to hit you in the stomach you're going to go and you're going to hold that air in there nice and tight that breath again is going to add more stabilization for you it's going to give you more improved firing potential a lot more than someone who's just cuz you lose it you don't have the same firing fibers activating supporting muscles you know it's so much more to it when you can brace correctly so again I'll Implement just the brace I'm not going to leg drive I'm going do it one by one and show you and you might go how just PE on the of leave coms yeah but look how big his belly is I like that I you will keep ring it cuz that's my aim is to make it [ __ ] massive so when I come back now I'm going to go come off so the aim is and the aim there was to get as tight as I could you heard me suck it in squeeze tight come down explode up now some people like to Exhale on the way up you can no problem as long as you're keeping that tightness in the brace as you exhale got to keep it tight but for me mostly I like to start letting my breath out about there that sounds stupid but every repetition you learn where you do it because by the time I'm about here I've still got some breath left of the movement I'm okay I'm not kind and with no oxygen um and that is pretty much bracing the aim is to always brace tightly now we're going to go on to part three scapula scapular retraction what is scapular retraction imagine this before I put my finger in the middle of your back up upper middle of your back so I can't really reach it but like up up there somewhere up here somewhere put my finger in the middle of your shoulder blades I want you to try and pinch my finger with your shoulder blades that's the aim you want you imagine that I've got my finger in the middle of your upper back and you've got to pinch my finger with your shoulder blades so like trying to do it that's scap attraction but also imagine that you're trying to put your traps you want to put your traps in the ground you'll try to push your traps through the bench and into the [ __ ] floor yeah the reason we do this you involve the lats a massive part of B test might probably a lot bigger part Than People realize is lats your lats are huge supporting muscle to a bench press huge probably the biggest one overall over your triceps which are a secondary to your chest your lats are the [ __ ] starting basis and Foundation of your bench prast movement when you scap a trct correctly the same way you see bodybuilders when they open up their lats similarly this time we rrac in but we're also bringing the chest up and we're then causing the shoulders to roll back and keep the elbows tighter to the lat so now the bicep and the tricep is supported by a tight lat so when we come down and I'm going to show you now how I do it I know I'm this is a gorgeous angle I know guys but the I'm hereit at the moment my back is flat so I'm flat backs so right now because my back is flat I've got quite a lot of mass off this side and the side of the bench so I'm quite easy to move so if I had a heavy load here it could Calla it stability either direction the whole point of a of scaring retraction is now I'm going to oh dig my shoulder blades in and then I'm going to go on to my traps now I feel very very tight very secure very strong strong foundation and now my lats are going to support the movement so watch as I come forward the AIM now is to come over elbows tight down and my lats already supporting the movement now and then as I fire off the first part of that movement was all lats lats was supporting that movement because of my scap attraction now another key key benefit to good scapular retraction along with good bracing is we decrease in the range of motion so if you think again when a flat bench like this and no strong brace I'm having to move the bar a lot more than I would if I was doing this it's not rocket kids you know but it is kind of is sometimes actually I mean log thing is I would never expect your average g go to know any of this if someone that wants to goow your bench telling you this is how you do it so that's really important SC raction is do I think it's the most important one kind of I do yeah I really do but I think they're all equally important but I do think it's so important and then finally in my opinion just as important just as important in my opinion is grip um and the reason I say grip is because you can have chest dominant and TR triep dominant presses they exist absolutely everywhere and anywhere Julius Maddox is quite a tricep dominant uh bench presser and he's the number one in the world uh however the likes of Sev people like that have been chest dominant presses uh if you look at uh swim hack I can't forgive his full name but swim hack is a tricep dominant presser and it's funny how at the top of the game there actually quite an interesting split of different styles of pressing void and narrow and both respectively all as strong as each other but it's about finding what works for you when it comes to grip all you find what works for me is joint stacking if you've never heard the phrase you have now the aim is to stack joints and what I mean by that is when I'm going to bench press imagine I'm lying down now I'm lying down in a bench the aim is my wrist is in line with my elbow so it's not out here or in here but it's directly in line with the elbow so that as I come over and come down my arms stay straight this the joint is stacked Allin one and because we're stacked and all of this is nice and tense from a strong grip there's no stability issues we are in one strong motion up there's no or it's very straight and the aim is to keep that joint stacked cuz it gives me less room the error that's the aim so I'll show you on the bench hopefully you guys can hear me but again here the aim for me at the top it might look like they're not stacked but as you can see when I come down the wrist is stacked over the elbow and that is intentional we're doing that for a reason it's to absolutely reduce the risk of stability issues but also because when we joint stack we're we're making the muscle around it half the less it doesn't have to worry about stability issues that it can focus on pure tension and pressing as opposed to being a bit more cuz this now I'm not stacked as well and now there's more room for error whereas if I gr here it gives me the ability to really focus the movement gives the ability to focus it so much more than it would have had stability issues so what you'll find is pretty much every movement that we Implement on bench press when it comes to especially bracing scaff retraction and grip are all and even leg drive and for placement are all Foundation movements we're doing it to increased stability to increase how stronger our foundation is before we actually press because the stronger our foundation is the higher the chances that we're going to be successful with the set and with the prast there we go that's the B now what I'm going to do is show you how it should all look together ideally now bear in mind that I'm someone that has been doing this for a long time and even me still I'm learning this movement more you know Mike Mike taught me bracing uh well more SCA of Attraction anything he taught me cuz I used to be a flat back presser but Mike really taught me how to get my chest higher uh and it's still something I'm improving on even now now you can be someone that braces after they off so you might be someone that goes and then braces which you're already over other people already go the reason that eye bra are going to have to coming off is cuz I find that as you come off you lose a bit of that traction cuz obviously when your to come over you've already lost your shoulders a bit so you have to go again so you'll see me take two breaths here and I'll show you why so to set up going to get my back nice and tight move on to my traps dig my feet back I've now got tight quads find my bar position I'm going to go and now while in this position I'm going the brakes again be tight now that was all of it together leg Drive bra SCA retraction grip all in one and it's a very explosive and controlled movement and that's the aim all the time is to be in control that's the main thing is to absolutely [ __ ] control every part of the movement and those four pointers will get you there where you contr control it very easily so yeah there we go that's uh benching tips with Baker