bench shirts
 

I'm an intermediate weight lifter, and Ive been to a couple bench press competitions but I am looking to get more serious. Has anyone used these super tight bench shirts that are said to increase your max by 30 pounds? If you have used them, please tell me your experience and what brand you use. I wanna make sure I dont get ripped off. help me out please

Bench Shirts are LAME. I think they are useless in my opinion. I read an article, I cant remember who wrote it, but he was a retired weight lifter, and he found no use for the thing.

After putting it on he said it was hard for him to breath, and when he lifted 250 lbs off of the bench, it was harder for him to "pull" the weight down (yes he said he had to physically pull the weight down) then it was to press the weight up. When he went to complete his rep, and push the weight up, it litterally flew off of his chest.

Sounds pretty useless to me. Maybe for showing off it may be useful. Who knows.

What is your max bench? I am sure your sought after bench shirt wont really help your with gains for your bench. Maybe I am wrong. Just my opinion on a few articles I have read. If you are looking to get bigger, just try some good hard lifting.

Later.

I weigh around 130 and bench 190 and I am looking into a bench shirt for competition benching only, not for training. And I would think that if 250 pounds comes flying off of your chest, then they are not useless in competition.

Wow, I've never even heard of competition benching. I don't know anything about super-tight bench shirts, but what about just really tight shirts?

How do bench competitions work, by the way? By weight class? Bench to weight ratio?

Thanks G5_Todd

Thats the main article I was talking about in my previous post.

don't you think that they might be illegal for competition use?

seems like a gimmick to me... haha

If they are legal for competition and everyone else has one, why let them have an advantage? Otherwise, compete in a raw class (no shirts, wraps, squatting suits).

thats exactly what I'm thinking. Bench competitions go by weight class and bench shirt are illegal in some, but completely fine in others. And, nash, I wish just a super tight shirt would work, but I've lifted in my UnderArmor before and got nothing out of it. I also read that article before I started this thread, its actually the reason I started it. I want to see if anyone else has experience with them. I cant remember if the article explains how they work, but it is made of special material and it really tight and it forces you to keep your arms sticking out like a zombie. When you take the weight off of the rack, as the weight goes down it builds up force in the shoulders of the shirt and that is what gives you the explosive push off of your chest.

Do you know what weight divisons there are? And what is a typical bench for a competitor for your (gorilla's) weight?

Also, what are the rules? For example, how many reps do you have to do, or how far down do you have to go?

I feel shamed after I found this online:
http://www.132poundsofpower.com/

usually the weight divisions differ based on the competition, and sometimes there is alot of strong peope there but sometimes there are lot of weaker people. It differs greatly depending on the competition. All the ones Ive been too it is a one-rep max and you have to touch your chest (not bounce) and then lift.