If someone tells you there is one right foot position to bench press from, you can pretty much stop listening to anything else they’re going to say. There are a few principles that are pretty much universal, but everything else is a compromise between rib angle, leg drive force direction, and lateral stability, to the point where the same lifter at different bodyweights may need more of one quality over the other and may need to change their set up. We’re going to go over the benefits and drawbacks of different foot and knee positions and angles to tell you what you’ll be gaining and what you’ll be losing, but first we’ll start with the universal starting point
The Universal “Rule”
One of the only things we can say pretty much universally is that no matter what foot position you’re going to use in the bench press, you’re going to want to get the centre of the knee joint in-line or below the centre of the hip joint when looking at the lifter from the side. The main reason for this is the lifter’s back is going to be in extension (arched) and if the lifter is using active leg drive (they should be) then when that force is applied, the lifter will tend to lift the hips to somewhere between the apex of the arch and the centre of the knee joint – the result? Butts that lift off the bench and red lights on the platform
There are two main ways you can accomplish the knees below the centre of the hip joint in the classic feet-flat bench press, and it brings us to our first compromise. If you truly have issues with butt lift, the best way to combat this is to use a slightly wider stance, turn your toes out, and think to rotate the outside of your knee towards the floor
Feet Tucked, Toes Out, Externally Rotated Position
This position puts the adductors and hip flexors into a hard stretch and essentially creates a “tension wall” or “parking brake” that stops the hips from rising off the bench, but now some of the ability of the legs to contribute to the initial drive back off the chest is reduced via breaking the straight line of force transfer between the knee, hip, and the apex of the spinal arch. In this position you’re still able to keep a higher degree of shin angle and feet underneath the body, maintaining the ability to wedge into a high arch which keeps range of motion for the bar shorter, and the shoulder out of end range extension where it is both weaker and more vulnerable to rotator cuff pinches and wear and tear on other passive tissues surrounding the shoulder joint. This position with the externally rotated foot also creates an opposing lateral co-contraction of the muscles of the hips that essentially act as guy-wires for the entire lower body. These co-contractions stabilize the hips and create a solid foundation for the lumbar fascia and erectors to contribute to a solid arch, and reduce the side to side and rotational disconnect between the hip and shoulder complex – the net result? more stable base for the shoulder to fire from.
TLDR: Benefits of the feet tucked, toes out, externally rotated position:
- Good arch and rib position (better range and shoulder mechanics)
- Good stability at hips and shoulders
- Butt lift eliminated
Drawbacks of the feet under, toes out, externally rotated position:
- Lower leg drive to assist the shoulder and chest in the initial drive of the bench press
The other way to get the knee joint below the hip joint is to simply put the legs out further in front of you, keeping a relatively straight foot position.
This keeps the powerful muscles of the leg more in-line with the force direction of the initial press. For people who touch lower/tuck more, and use a violent leg drive and rearwards (towards the face) drive to initiate the lifting phase of their bench press, this can be a powerful set up. What the set up loses is the coil spring effect of having the entire body wedged into an arch, so rib position ends up a little flatter, requiring the bar to travel a little further, and the shoulder to go further into extension. Also because the feet are usually a little narrower to maximize leg drive, the opposing co-contraction and tension at the hips is less, making this set up a bit more laterally unstable and transferring the stability load more to the muscles of the back.
TLDR – Benefits of the feet out, straight foot position:
- Most leg drive of any set up
- Works will for benchers who use a lot of elbow tuck and angled bar paths
Drawbacks of the feet out, straight foot position:
- lower arch, larger range of motion
- Shoulder in more precarious position for soft tissues
- less lateral stability
Before we leave the foot flat set ups, let’s talk about how you can compromise between leg drive and lateral stability in either the tucked under position, or the feet out position. In either set up you can bridge the gap between leg drive and lateral stability by changing the width of the feet: wider set ups equal more tension and longer more efficient levers for creating lateral stability, but you lose some of the force direction of the leg drive towards the head. The same can be said for toe angle, the more you turn your feet out, you increase your footprint laterally, and allow some of the quad force to be used as a counteracting guy-wire system to stabilize the hips and the entire bench press from side to side, again at the expense of some of that drive going towards moving the bar towards the head. As a general principle, it’s easier to find you foot width first, go as wide as you need to gain stability, but no further, then turn the feet outwards only enough to keep the hips on the bench during heavy leg drive, this will land you fairly close to the optimal position for you in that specific set up.
Once you’ve found which set up is the best compromise of shoulder stability and comfort, leg drive and lateral stability, and ultimately allows you to lift the most weight, you can start to fine adjust the width and toe angle to find your happy mid-ground between tension and leg drive.
Many federations including the IPF require the feet flat set up, so up until now we’ve only been talking about these set ups, but there is another way, using a heels up tucked approach.
Heels up Tucked Under Set-Up
This set up maximizes the coil spring effect of a full body global arch. It is the most extreme compromise between leg drive force direction and lateral stability in the name of decreased range of motion at the shoulder and arch tension. Purely looking at the biomechanics of rib posture, scapular angle, and length-tension relationships of the muscles of the glenohumeral joint it is by far the best set up, but I will caution you that many people move to this set up with sub maximal weights and immediately improve their ability to rep out a given weight and start extrapolating that performance with 1 rep calculators only to be soon disappointed when they move up to near maximal weights are realize they can no longer stabilize the load. If you’re going to attempt this set up you’ll also find that it is the least forgiving as far as leg and foot position go, there WILL be a perfect position for you specifically where you can get some leg drive, enough stability to perform the lift, and still maximize the wedged position, and the window of tolerable deviations from this position will be fairly low for most people
If you tuck too far under the bench you can exceed the ankle’s ability to dorsiflex, leaving you on your toes with an extremely small and unstable contact patch with the ground, making it almost impossible to get any leg drive or stabilize the load from side to side. You also run the risk of “pulling yourself under the bench” where the tension from the quads and hip flexors pull you into so much lumbar extension (arch) that you lack the thoracic extension range required to staple the upper back to the bench. This leaves you with an upper back that is trying to pry away from the bench and is prone to slipping up the bench during the pushing phase of your bench
If you don’t tuck under enough, you don’t maximize the global arch enough to make this set up worth it and end up in a no-man’s land of the flat foot tucked back position but with less stability because only a partial amount of your foot is contacting the ground. Somewhere between the two extremes is where you can make the clouds part with rays of sunshine and angelic harp music and really take advantage of the set up.
TLDR – Benefits of the tucked under, heels up position:
- Lowest range of motion at the shoulder
- Strongest pec angle – ribs position pec fibres in their strongest orientation
- Tightest back set up
Drawbacks of the tucked under, heels up position:
- least lateral stability
- least leg drive
- Smallest margin of error for foot positioning
As previously mentioned, the heels up set up isn’t legal in a few federations, so if you find the heels up tucked under set up works for you, but you’re not allowed to do it, or if you like the heels up set up but find it too unstable at higher loads, there’s yet another option
Feet Under Heels Set Up With Squat Shoes
Hopefully this doesn’t date itself too quickly, but as of now the IPF allows up to a 2″ heeled shoe to be worn in any of the three lifts. Standard olympic lifting shoes or “squat shoes” are between 0.5″ to 1″ with most popular models coming in at 0.75″. In this set up you’re going to tuck the heels under as far as you can while still keeping the shoe in full contact with the ground. Unfortunately to experiment with further tucked positions you’re actually going to need access to shoes with different heel heights, so hopefully you can find someone you can borrow them from that has some different heel heights and you can experiment with it, and if you need more than 1″ heel, there are a couple manufactures that make them, but you’ll actually probably find it more cost effective to have a cobbler wedge your current shoes and do it progressively until you find your perfect heel height vs buying a 2″ shoe and hoping it works for you
TLDR – benefits of the squat shoe setup:
- same as heels up set up, just dialled back a bit
Drawbacks of squat shoes set up:
- same as heels up set up, but dialled back a bit – full foot contact makes it a little more stable
Which Set Up is Right for Me?
It’s a hard to say without actually seeing you bench, but in the spirit of simplicity I’m going to give you some bullet points that may point you in the right direction
Who can benefit from the feet flat tucked under position:
- Good tarting point for most people
- people who struggle to keep their butt down during heavy benches
- people who make side to side errors on heavy bench press (one shoulder high than the other, angled bar path, ribs that rock back and forth
Who can benefit from the feet out straight position:
- larger lifters or lifters with round rib cages that don’t need the reduced range of motion provided by the other set ups
- people who tuck their elbows more or use closer grips that really allows them to create a platform off their lats to transfer leg drive into the bar
- equipped lifters who use the shirt and legs to get an explosive start to their bench press
Who can benefit from the heels under set up:
- smaller lifters/flat ribcages, especially those with flexible spines who can cut a couple inches off their range of motion
- people with very strong backs can stabilize high loads in this position
- those who struggle with shoulder impingement or other shoulder positioning issues or injuries
- People who use max or near max legal grip widths and therefore have straighter line bench presses that benefit more from reduced range than more leg drive
Who can benefit from the tucked under with squat shoes set up:
- same as the heels under set up but you compete in a federation that requires flat feet
- someone who gets more reps at a given weight or less pain with the heels up set up but finds it hard to stabilize heavier weights
Hopefully this gives you a starting point on which set up will work best for you, but my best advice is to try all of them and see which one feels the best to you, and tweak your width and toe angle to find your happy mediums in each set up. Just because on paper you may be suited to one over the other many things beyond the scope of this article (thoracic mobility, hip socket shape etc.) may actually make one click while you fight another.
If you’d like to come and have us take a look at your bench press, and help you find the right foot set up for your body and current strengths and weakness, Blacksmith is hosting a Bench Press Seminar April 2nd, 2022 at 11am to 5pm where we’re going to go over everything bench press related – from foot set up all the way down to proper warm ups, common technique bottlenecks and even the mental approach. We’re so confident you’ll walk away with a better bench that if you’re unsatisfied with the coaching, we’ll refund you your money and give you a $50 gift certificate to your favourite supplement store just for coming! If you’d like to learn more and sign up, check it out at http://www.benchpressbetter.com
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