How stronger lats relate to an increase Bench Press
Want to increase your bench press? Then try building and strengthening your lats. Here’s why:
As an addendum to my post yesterday, when the researchers had the subjects perform either the traditional or chaos bench press using 80% of their one-rep max (1RM) they noticed that muscle activation of the lats was significantly greater during the concentric portion of the lift (that’s when you push the bar up) when compared to the 60% load.
This is interesting because this is one of the first studies to look at the muscle activation of the lats using two different loads when benching. So what this suggests is that the lats play a much more important role during benching than previous thought (especially at higher loads).
The researchers speculate that this may be due to the lats role as an adductor of the humerus (the bone between your elbow and shoulder), which may play an important role as a synergist during the movement by keeping the elbows tucked into the body while one pushes the weight upwards. So if you want to “up your bench” then you may want to try improving your lats to do so.
For more information:
Dunnick DD, et al. Bench Press Upper-Body Muscle Activation Between Stable and Unstable Loads. 2015. J Strength Cond Res. Dec;29(12):3279-83.