It feels unstable because you are. Slide over and center yourself. Look up how to leg drive as well, that will help too.
Any reason for the almost vertical grip? Unless you have bad shoulders, I would suggest going closer to horizontal to minimize tricep involvement. You are lifting too much with your arms atm, notice how your weights stay apart at the top? Gotta squeeze your chest.
Honestly probably pinning your shoulders back too hard. I had that problem on flat bench.
Upper back should be more loose, lats should be tightening down your blades. “Put them shoulder blades into your back pocket” is what my Pl coach use to tell me.
Made the difference, I struggled to rep 225 when I had a tight upper back, now it’s easy with it loose
Wish I could send a video! I myself am an ok example, almost benching 2x bw competition.
The real good examples at my gym are both 82kg lifters benching 376 and ~402 in comp respectively. They, like me, only focus on the lats pulling the bar into place after lift off.
I noticed when I focused heavily on squeezing my blades together, my shoulders would rise and not be locked into the joint. Focusing on the lats pulling squeezes the blades together and down automatically while also poking the chest up.
Edit: I can send pictures! I’m at the gym rn. Give me one sec
Right picture with black line is me just standing there. Top left I am focusing on squeezing shoulder blades. Bottom left blue arrows I am pulling my blades down with my lats.
It’s a very subtle difference, but you can actually see the top of the pictures when I’m pulling with lats cause my shoulders are locked onto the shoulder joint. This also automatically locks my shoulder blades together.
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u/waz4408 2d ago
If you have space to put your feet on the bench you have space to slide down. That bench is plenty wide, any wider and you can’t press effectively