Tips: Bench press form?

Pecs are a tertiary muscle when it comes to bench pressing. The bench press is mainly a delt/tricep movement. If you are looking for chest development I would suggesting different movements like flies and DB pullovers.

If you want to engage your chest more on a bench press then you would have to flair your elbows out. I wouldn't recommend this because it starts to put your shoulders in a compromised position.

a few things that i've personally done to get better pec activation:

1. switched to dumbbells for standard bench/incline bench. This allows me to get my elbows lower and more of a stretch at the bottom. I pause there before exploding up again.

2. Walking my shoulder blades together on the bench instead of sitting flat. This pushes my shoulders out and helps with the next thing.

3. Puff my chest up and try to push the pecs to the sky. I can feel my pecs activate doing this prior to even starting a rep.

4. Not going to the very top of a rep. I noticed that when I went all the way to the top of the rep, I was messing up #2 and then my shoulders were getting involved a lot more.

I'm not expert. But, these things have helped me.

Thanks, this is a good explanation of the movement/placement mechanisms

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2. Walking my shoulder blades together on the bench instead of sitting flat. This pushes my shoulders out and helps with the next thing.

3. Puff my chest up and try to push the pecs to the sky. I can feel my pecs activate doing this prior to even starting a rep.

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Two really good tips that I learned later and life and still try to remind myself to focus on

A few things to think about:

1) As already mentioned, pinching your shoulders back. Keep your delts out of the way. And keep it that way throughout the rep. Don't let your shoulders roll forward at the top to "lock it out", your front delts will take over as soon as you roll them forward.

2) Bar path. When at the bottom, the bar should be resting at or just below your nips. At the top, it shouldn't be too far off that plane. You're going to bring it up just a bit, but make sure it's not above your face/neck.

3) May or may not apply to you, but grip. I see folks at the gym all of the time with way too narrow of a grip. I have very short arms, and I still go as wide as pinky or ring finger (depending on the bar) at the ring. Make sure your grip is wide enough.

4) Again, may or may not apply to you, but warm up sets are real reps. Way too many people do their warm up sets like they're embarrassed and trying to make sure everyone knows this isn't their real working set. Empty bar, 135 on the bar, they're banging out 3 reps a second, throwing it up so fast the bar almost flies out their hands, weights are rattling around like an old school body building video. Slow it down. If you have good enough form that you can make your chest feel resistance on a warmup set, it'll be way easier to get the right feeling on your real working sets.

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Not exactly. You are putting your shoulders in a compromised position because you are using your shoulders to push when your elbows flare.

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Don't take any offense to my post, but you are wrong here.

If you look at the Pectoralis Major muscle it has 2 distinct groups of muscle fibers. The Clavicular and Sternal fiber portions. The Clavicular portion's main movement is Horizontal Abduction (think about slapping a person in the face). The Sternal fibers also do abduction, but the movement would start much higher (think of having your arms up in a Y position then bringing them down to the opposite hip).

The Bench Press is not a good movement for Pectoralis Major activation. As I said earlier, it is a tertiary muscle and if you are looking for better activation then you should choose a different exercise.

Flaring of the arms would increase Pectoralis Major activation in a bench press, but as I said, it puts your shoulders in a compromised position. Not because "you are using your shoulders to push when your elbows flare". But because it can cause impingement. If you look at the bony projections in your shoulder, mainly the acromion and greater/lesser tuberosities of the humerus there is decreased joint space with the elbows flared through the movement. This is why scaption is a good movement to teach people when you are training them, especially for OH movements.

ETA:

If anyone is seriously looking to get good at bench I would start with Dave Tate's "So You Think You Can Bench" series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umOz8tCNaEc

Not a gym rat here however, at 72 I started using the slingshot, and it is great for my shoulders and keeps the elbows in proper alignment/angle with bar and nipples. I also switched to the Smith machine for both bench and incline. It’s safe for me as well as my grip is weakening.

Luke someone else mentioned, the answer isn't to change your bench press - it's to add DB flys.