From unrack to lockout — and the one real safety rule that matters more than any cue.
Lie on the bench with your eyes roughly under the bar. Pull your shoulder blades together and down before you unrack — this creates a stable shelf for the bar to press off of and shortens the distance it has to travel. Take your grip evenly on both sides, using the bar's knurl markings to make sure your hands are symmetric. Plant your feet flat on the floor, knees bent, and use them to drive tension up through your whole body — leg drive is a real, active part of this lift, not just balance.
That breath-and-brace step is the Valsalva maneuver — see the bracing and Valsalva maneuver page for what it actually does to stabilize your spine, and a real safety caveat worth knowing if you have high blood pressure or a heart condition.
There is a real split in how this lift is taught. Competition powerlifting technique — associated with coaches like Louie Simmons and Boris Sheiko, and in a milder form Mark Rippetoe's own Starting Strength bench — arches the back and drives with the legs to shorten how far the bar has to travel. A flatter-backed style, more common in general strength training, trades some load capacity for a longer range of motion. Neither is wrong; even competitive powerlifting limits how extreme the arch can get.
Lower the bar on a path that angles slightly toward your lower chest — around the nipple line, not the collarbone — keeping your elbows around 75° from your torso, not flared all the way out level with your shoulders. That 75° figure is Starting Strength's own default; only a lifter flexible enough to arch the upper back hard should work it down toward 45°, and even then not further. Press back up along roughly the same path, finishing directly over your shoulders. The "J" describes both halves: down and slightly back toward the chest, then back up and toward your face on the way to lockout.
Holding any arch at all, and pulling your shoulder blades together and down for a stable shelf, both ask something of your body before the bar's even unracked — see mobility work for the bench-press arch for what actually limits it and the real drills for each.
Fault: Elbows flare out toward the sides. Raises shoulder strain and narrows the joint space.
Fix: Elbows sit around 75° from the torso — well short of level with your shoulders, not pinned to your ribs either.
Bring your elbows down from a full flare toward roughly 75° off your torso — the default for most lifters. Only work it further, toward 45°, if you can arch hard enough to make the shorter range of motion pay off. Either way, do not overcorrect into tucking them tight against your sides — that costs power and chest involvement of its own.
Cue: “75 and down”
Fault: The wrist extends backward, shifting force off the forearm’s long axis.
Fix: The bar stays stacked directly over the wrist joint, forearm straight underneath it.
Keep the bar stacked directly over your wrist joint, not drifted toward your fingers — that drift, not slight wrist extension itself, is what creates the strain.
Cue: “stack the wrist”
Two more worth knowing: bouncing the bar off your chest — a brief, controlled touch that uses some natural stretch is normal, an actual bounce for momentum is not, and competition bench press requires a real, visible stop for exactly this reason. An uneven bar path is usually one shoulder blade shifting position more than the other, often from inconsistent hand placement — use the bar's own markings to set your grip the same way every time.
This is worth stating plainly: benching heavy alone, with no spotter and no safety pins set, is a documented cause of serious injury and, in rare but real cases, death from the bar coming to rest across the neck. Set safety pins or straps at chest height every time you bench inside a rack, and do not attempt a near-maximal set with nobody around and no bailout available.
A successful bench session on novice adds a smaller jump than squat or deadlift — both pressing lifts use meaningfully less muscle mass than the two lower-body lifts, the same reason overhead press gets a second step-down of its own once it resets. Bench alternates with the overhead press across Day A and Day B.
Bench press by phase: novice adds 5 lb (2.5 kg) most sessions; intermediate adds 2.5 lb (1.25 kg) on Test Day; advanced trains it as a percentage of a training max in five-week blocks. Miss reps two sessions running and it resets to 90% of its last completed weight.