Ep. 278 - Is Arched Bench Press Cheating?

Iron Culture

Powerlifters use techniques to milk every last kilo out of their bench press, including wide grips, tightly wound wrist wraps, leg drive, and – the most hated technique in the comment section – an arched-back to reduce the range of motion. Indeed, it can get so heated in the comments it likely even influenced an IPF rule change last year. But how many kilos does an arch really give you? How many bench pressers did this rule change impact, and was there really a need for the rule changes? Further, why do we apply a different standard for what is considered “cheating” to different lifts or athletic movements, like technical manipulation in high jump, or weightlifting? In this episode you’ll get the full complement of the Iron Culture themes: we discuss the current culture around the IPF rule change and contemporary perspectives on arched bench press, the history of the clean and press in Olympic weightlifting up to 1972 which has some very interesting parallels, and finally a recently published study which attempted to quantify how much an arch increases bench press 1RM.

00:00 Intro to an episode about when Powerlifting was Powerlifting

03:33 The good old IPF and their regulations

08:40 The bench press rule change

15:23 The motivating factor for the rule change

20:01 Trexler’s technique and thoughts on the rules

Barbend article: https://barbend.com/ipf-bench-press-rule-change-2023/

26:22 The history of Olympic weightlifting and Powerlifting and the change in rules

38:39 The Fosbury flop and the perception of different movements and innovations

44:52 Athletes finding ways to maximise performances within rules

57:16 A recent study on arching in the bench press

Bartolomei 2024 Flat-Back vs. Arched-Back Bench Press: Examining the Different Techniques Performed by Power Athletes https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38551927/

1:05:38 The nature of the fragile ego and the final point on the perspective of the spectator