Young boy needs help with wrist control during bench press

tomcat

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My son is in his sophomore year and wants to get bigger and stronger for football season. He's with me but I can't seem to get his form right. His wrists bend almost painfully as he lowers the bar. I'm afraid he could snap his wrists if he continues to put more weight on.


Help please!!
 
Rarchib

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I think if he focuses on squeezing the bar as tight as possible it should help stabilize his wrists
 
Rodja

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Focus on increasing his grip strength with things like plate pinching, farmers walks, and static DB holds.
 
HIT4ME

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Does he do deadlifts? If not, he should focus on these more than the bench press. If he already does, he should focus on these more than the bench press.

When deadlifting there are two thoughts on straps - some people say they are doing a back exercise so they don't like to have their grip be the first thing that fails and they use straps because of this. Others say that deadlifts require strong grip strength so they don't use straps. I do both - I put the straps on but don't use them until my grip is almost failing. Then I quickly wrap the bar and go until my back fails.

I wouldn't use wrist wraps too heavily to stabilize the weight when he is just starting out, but that is just me. The bench, in particular, can be an ego exercise more than anything in my opinion. It is easy to hurt yourself, injure shoulders, etc. - doing more than you should. He obviously has a weakness in his wrists if he is having this issue and it should be addressed and corrected - not covered up. He can already press more than he can handle on his wrists. Using wraps to stimulate more growth in the pressing muscles will only add weight that his wrists won't be able to handle, and eventually the wraps won't be sufficient.

Another method may be to use pre-exhaust in your chest exercises. The ego usually dictates that one bench press first so they can lift the heaviest weights possible - but what if he did dumbbell flyes first to pre-exhaust the chest muscles? Chances are he wouldn't be able to bench press as much on the second or third exercise as if he is doing them first, and his wrists would be able to handle the lighter loads. Then he could stimulate his grip strength while still hitting the chest muscles the way he would hope to with the bench.
 
kjetil1234

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Squeeze the bar and work on grip. Lower weight.
 

RAND0M1ZER

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How much weight is he benching when you notice this?
 

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