NFL Combine Bench Press--Yea or Nay?

functional or not is just a silly comparison.
same could be said about any other lift.
in which sport do you have to put weight on your back and squat with it?
in which sport do you have to grip a nice balanced weight on the floor and stand up with it?
in which sport do you hang from a pull up bar?

etc. etc.

in which sport do you hang from a pull up bar?




in which sport do you have to grip a nice balanced weight on the floor and stand up with it?



in which sport do you have to put weight on your back and squat with it?
 
My point still stands, Bench Press is an odd exercise to test what kind of professional football potential an athlete has.

I just don't see how it is a transferable skill on the football field unless you are at the bottom of a dog pile.
 
My point still stands, Bench Press is an odd exercise to test what kind of professional football potential an athlete has.

I just don't see how it is a transferable skill on the football field unless you are at the bottom of a dog pile.

climbing doesn't involve pullup bars, weightlifting and powerlifting are the only competition sports which actually involve lifting barbells and get out with your silly wife running nonsense.

bench press is the most important upper body pushing strength lift for the last 50+ years for a reason. millions of professional athletes had the opinion that it isn't that useless for whatever sport they practise.

the transferable skill is sheer upperbody strength and hypertrophy.
how do you want to gain that as a huge heavyweight athlete? weighted pushups?
 
Blocking and block shedding. It is their version of hand fighting/grip fighting. It is afterall team wrestling







Yeah but the time over which that occurs bears no bioenergetic similarity to a max rep bench test. The average play in those videos was about 2-3 seconds, and lactate clearance won't play any real role, unlike in a repetition rest with what (for most of these people) is probably 50-60 percent of their 1RM
 
I personally love the event because of reasons mentioned earlier in the post, it is a test of muscular endurance. I believe that it tests both overall strength as well as muscular endurance, whereas if you were to increase the weight it becomes much less about how much muscle endurance you have and how long you can fight muscle fatigue, and it would become more about how much you can do in one rep, which I think is much less important when considering the overall strength of an NFL prospect. Just my two cents.
 
Does anyone know the history behind the combine, the bench press and how it's effect on your draft position has evolved through the years?
 
in which sport do you hang from a pull up bar?




in which sport do you have to grip a nice balanced weight on the floor and stand up with it?



in which sport do you have to put weight on your back and squat with it?


You can't use a weightlifting sport to argue in favour of a weightlifting exercise by that logic curls are the GOAt exercise because they make you better doing curls.
Let alone as far as I know deadlifts are not a standard exercise for Olympic lfiters dome do them others don't (as far as I know)

The other examples are a similar thing to the bench. They are similar in the mechanics to another movement but obviously not the same. So is benching you obviously don't do anything lying down but it's still part of movements you do standing up.

I think it's dumb to use the bench and the deadlift or any Olympic lift would be a better exercise to use in the NFL combine but that doesn't mean tht benching is useless
 
functional or not is just a silly comparison.
same could be said about any other lift.
in which sport do you have to put weight on your back and squat with it?
in which sport do you have to grip a nice balanced weight on the floor and stand up with it?
in which sport do you hang from a pull up bar?

etc. etc.
The difference is those lifts test hip and knee extension in a standing position; movements that are pretty much universally applicable to sports. The ability to do those things under large loads is likely a good predictor of how strong/fast someone will be off the line.

The bench press, in contrast, is test elbow extension/shoulder abduction in a supine position. It's a good test of upper body strength, and certainly benefits athletes to a certain degree, but not in the same league as squats/deads/cleans/etc in terms of predicting sport strength.
 
Yeah but the time over which that occurs bears no bioenergetic similarity to a max rep bench test. The average play in those videos was about 2-3 seconds, and lactate clearance won't play any real role, unlike in a repetition rest with what (for most of these people) is probably 50-60 percent of their 1RM

Yeh, but surely those guys doing those reps wont have a hard time with the endurance and stamina needed for the blocking/block shedding.
 
Maybe they should be explosively pushing a vehicle like an SUV instead. It would still be a press, but closer to what a player would do on the field in a standing position, using the body as a unit, rather than a standard chest exercise. Push it X amount of yards. Repeat for reps.
 
The difference is those lifts test hip and knee extension in a standing position; movements that are pretty much universally applicable to sports. The ability to do those things under large loads is likely a good predictor of how strong/fast someone will be off the line.

The bench press, in contrast, is test elbow extension/shoulder abduction in a supine position. It's a good test of upper body strength, and certainly benefits athletes to a certain degree, but not in the same league as squats/deads/cleans/etc in terms of predicting sport strength.

thanks. i know it is not the best tool for prediciting athleticism in an explosive sport, like they do it in the nfl.

my point was that it is not a useless lift in general just because you are lying on your back.
 
Lets face it, whatever team drafts him at some point they are going to come up short-handed.
If I could rephrase a Robin Williams joke:

"Everyone, cut off your left hands, you'll be more aerodynamic!"
 
Does anyone know the history behind the combine, the bench press and how it's effect on your draft position has evolved through the years?

Aye, I would have thought the premise was that 100k is the average opponent weight and it's seeing how many times you can explosively move them away from you. I can't find any info on it prior to the 1980's, with a casual glance .
 
I can hit 370 for a triple and my last successful max was 385. Can probably hit 390 or so now at least.
That means you’re not a out of shape piece of shit dude. I don’t think you realize how strong that is.
 
My point still stands, Bench Press is an odd exercise to test what kind of professional football potential an athlete has.

I just don't see how it is a transferable skill on the football field unless you are at the bottom of a dog pile.

You're thinking of it like a movement. You're not training the movement of pushing up from lying on your back. Your training the underlying attribute of strength. Strengthening the muscles and developing CNS proficiency associated to bench pressing increases your overall upper-body strength.

You think that the strength you develop by reaching a 300-400lb bench press wouldn't carry over to other upper-body tasks? That it only applies to lying on your back and pressing upward?
 
Damn i can do that like 9-10 reps MAX
Only been lifting since 4 months though.
 
Does anyone know the history behind the combine, the bench press and how it's effect on your draft position has evolved through the years?
I am actually doing my thesis on something like this it will be published soon; ‘ Running the Combine in Post-Modern Times,’ hopefully i’ll get tenure.
 
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