The Press isn’t the bad guy. The unknowing coach spreading false information is.
“A baseball coach will be quick to tell you ‘not to bench press.’
While he lives in a world of a rapidly growing youth injury epidemic, encouraging the slinging of a 5oz. projectile year round.
I know you’re living on 80’s wives tails, but maybe they need to get stronger, bro?”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
If your baseball coach tells you not to press, ask him why.
If he responds with the stereotypical “uhh, well, uhh, because, shoulders, tightness… mobility.” Please recognize he is full of it and has no idea what he is talking about.
He gives that answer, (the same answer they’ve been feeding kids since the 80’s) because it’s convenient and easy to say.
I’d return a response, like this to your “coach”:
“Coach, are the pecs, shoulders, & triceps not involved in throwing?”
While he probably doesn’t know this and will say something like “bUt RoTaToR cUfF” the larger muscles (and smaller muscles) are heavily involved in the throwing action.
The press, kids & parents, isn’t the bad guy that title is reserved for your unknowing coach who’s feeding you decades of debunked bullshit wives tails because he is afraid of strength or does not know the value of it. Likely both.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not implying that any throwing athlete needs to become a bench press champion.
In all honesty, I think the full range of motion traditional barbell bench press is a mediocre at best exercise for athletes.
I much prefer board presses, floor presses, landmine presses dumbbell presses, and single arm presses, but let me tell you why even the bench press isn’t “the devil”.
Let’s take a look at the modern youth athlete.
We’ll stick to baseball since the “bench press + baseball player” is a hot topic.
What is this youth athlete doing?
If you guessed playing baseball 13 months a year, humming a 5oz projectile several times a week, you’d have guessed right.
No, taking 30 days off from throwing “hard” per year isn’t “rest.”
Do you really think bench pressing a couple times per month is going to be what causes his problems? I mean honestly?
The Cheetohs eating, Gatorade drinking teenager, doesn’t have a chance in hell of building enough strength/mass to inhibit his performance throwing a baseball.
His problems are coming from a LACK OF strength and an overuse of throwing the trusty ol baseball.
We’d just rather blame a (harmless) necessary movement pattern in the weight room so that we can use it as camouflage for the real problem contributing to our kid’s demise.
