Muscles
A generic bench press utilizes pectoralis major, anterior deltoid, long head of triceps brachii and coracobrachialis to flex the shoulder. It also uses predominately triceps brachii and anconeous to produce elbow extension. Wider hand spacing creates larger emphasis on shoulder flexion and narrower hand spacing utilises more elbow extension. Because of this a wider spacing is associated with working pectorals and narrower hand spacing is associated with working triceps.
In addition to the major phasic (dynamic) muscles the bench press also uses tonic (stabilising) muscles: scapular stabilisers (serratus anterior, middle and inferior trapezius), humeral head stabilisers (rotator cuff muscles), and core (transverse abdominis, obliques, multifidus, erector spinae, quadratus lumborum)
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Famous quotes containing the word muscles:
“As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“What is this beast, she thought,
with muscles on his arms
like a bag of snakes?
What is this moss on his legs?
What prickly plant grows on his cheeks?
What is this voice as deep as a dog?”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Biological possibility and desire are not the same as biological need. Women have childbearing equipment. For them to choose not to use the equipment is no more blocking what is instinctive than it is for a man who, muscles or no, chooses not to be a weightlifter.”
—Betty Rollin (b. 1936)