The bench press exercise performed with increased range of motion allows for greater bar velocities.

Background/objective: The aim of this study was to examine differences in bar velocity between the cambered and standard barbell bench press exercise. Methods: Ten healthy men volunteered for the study (age = 27.9 ± 3.7 years; body mass = 89.6 ± 11.7 kg; experience in resistance training 5.7 ± 2.1 years; bench press one-repetition maximum > 120% body mass). The first session aiming at the determination of the one-repetition maximum was followed by two experimental sessions consisted of performing 3 sets of 3 repetitions of the bench press exercise with the cambered or standard barbell at 50% of one-repetition maximum (of the standard barbell) in randomized order. Results: The two-way repeated measures ANOVA indicated a significant main effect of bar type on mean velocity (p=0.001; η²=0.739) and peak velocity (p=0.002; η²=0.661). The post-hoc analysis showed a significantly higher mean velocity for the cambered barbell compared to the standard barbell bench press in Set 1 (p=0.002) and Set 2 (p=0.012), but not in Set 3 (p=0.062). Moreover, there was a significantly higher mean velocity in Set 2, than in Set 1 (p=0.017) during the standard barbell bench press, with no other differences. Furthermore, a significantly higher peak velocity for the cambered barbell in comparison to the standard barbell was observed in all sets of the BP exercise (p<0.001; p=0.014; p=0.048; respectively). Conclusions: The outcomes of this investigation indicated that the cambered barbell used during the bench press training session significantly increases bar velocity compared to the standard barbell with the same external load across the workout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]