Photo by Dominik Martin on Unsplash

Being told what you want to hear is nice, and comforting.

Being told what you need to hear is not always pleasant, but it’s extremely helpful.

We’re all blithely aware of the joke that Monday is international bench press day in gyms around the world. You commonly see a couple guys training together – one using less than stellar form trying to bench press more than he can properly handle while his workout partner “spots” him while chanting, “It’s all you, bro! It’s all you! I’m barely touching the bar!” (Important service announcement: if you’re bench pressing and someone touches the bar – no matter how “lightly” – before you lock it out, it most certainly was not “all you.”)

Regardless of the jokes and debates (e.g., is it really “functional”) about the bench press, it’s a great exercise. The standing barbell press is too, but we’ll get to that later.

Before we get to the how-to videos, let’s discuss the pros and cons of the barbell bench press.

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You perform the deadlift movement every day, and probably don’t even realize it.

Picking up a loaded laundry basket off the floor.

Picking up your kid.

Everyone should train the squat movement, in some form.

The squat movement is as functional as exercise can get. You squat to sit in a chair or get in, and out of, a vehicle. You squat to the toilet. You squat to do lots of things. Like the book Everybody Poops – well, everybody squats.

It’s a basic human movement pattern – one that can be trained, loaded, and progressed in numerous ways. When used in a progressive strength training program the squat is useful for getting stronger, building muscle, losing fat, becoming more awesome, improving quality of life, and testing your mental fortitude.