Spotting Technique

[Dastardly]

I thought it would be worth discussing some useful methods for spotting technique, as I for one am a bit lost in this area.

Some guy asked me to spot his bench yesterday. He was benching about 75% of what my deadlift was. And as I was the person with the biggest deadlift in the gym at the time, I felt fairly confident being the spotter.

But this guy really struggled with the weight, he couldve have probably managed about 1.5 reps with it, but he went on for 6 before he got fed up with my "lousy" spotting.

Each time it would be stuck at the bottom, not coming up. So with a secure mixed grip I tried to deadlift it off his chest, it was very hard to lift up. Bit of the bench made the distance from the bar to my body greater than if I was deadlifting. But it really felt he wasnt applying much force to the bar at all. Yet with each rep he seemed to be annoyed that I was helping too much. He seemed to want me to apply light assistance to get it up. But I swear, I was putting all my deadlift strength into it and it was still very hard to get up. If he had completely failed at the bottom. I could not have been able to get it off him by myself without putting my ass directly above his face .

This really confused me, considering much weaker people than me are regularly asked to spot much bigger weights, and they seem to do a pretty good job of it too.

What is a good way of gaging what weight is safe to spot? If someone is failing to bring bar back up, does it seem logical to apply pointless light assistance to it, at risk of them failing completely and getting stuck under a bar you are not strong enough to get off them?

[gzt]

seriously, tell him, "Look, mate, I'm not here to assist on the bench, I'm here to prevent you from dying if you fail the lift. If you can't do the weight, put less weight on."

[Webbie]

good answer gzt.

I realize this guy is probably an ego-maniac but I always tell strangers that "If I touch the bar, I rack it."

[misspelledgeoff]

you fool. He was asking you for a 'bro-spot'.

Since you obviously don't know, a bro-spot is a tandem exercise performed jointly by two bro's. The standing bro performs a vertical row with 50% of the weight while the supine bro simultaneously performs a bench press with the other 50% of the weight.

It's not uncommon for a bro to rep out 250 on the bench if he has a strong bro-spot pulling 125 of it. You probably ruined the guys bro-PR.

That was a serious breach of bro-tocol, bro. You may not be able to work out there again.

[Mr.City]

Your gym sounds like it sucks ass. I always try to bench in the power rack not because I'm afraid that my spotter is going to be a dumbfuck, but because the typical barking in my face when the bar slows down for even a second is annoying and distracting.

[Gottatri2lift]

'bro-spot' !! I love it. See it all the time at my gym. I am stationed at Subase Groton with a bunch of nubs.
Gzt has the right answer, and usually the lifter will talk about forced reps and working on the negative etc....
One person posted have headphones on, they don't even need to be plugged in or have loud music playing! It eliminates many conversations.
You realize quickly that most lifters want to be the glossy picture in the magazine with the least amount of work. Shiny magazine with ads and pictures requiring the time span of a fly or a book on kinseology and physics requiring rereading and rumination.

[Dastardly]

nice post geoff, this guy was actually supersetting DB bench press with immediate barbell bench press with no rest.

Mr City, I have not actually ever used the rack to bench before. There is only one rack but two good benches. Using the rack means I have to occupy both a movable adjustable bench that the bro's like to do flyes/seated curls on. In addition to the rack which the bros like to do barbell rows, quarter squats, or curls in while looking into the full wall mirror.

[coreJack]

What is a good way of gaging what weight is safe to spot? If someone is failing to bring bar back up, does it seem logical to apply pointless light assistance to it, at risk of them failing completely and getting stuck under a bar you are not strong enough to get off them?
As Geoff explained, you missed the point. Typically, it only requires very light assistance to help a bencher complete a rep - that's what he was looking for. If someone asks me to spot them, I usually help just enough to keep the bar moving upward. What you were doing was preventing injury in the event he completely failed.

So either you use the 'if I touch it, that's your last rep, and I'm racking it' approach, or you let him know that if he insists on training past failure (i.e., doing reps that he can only do with assistance, which most benchers are prone to do) that there is no guarantee that you will be able to lift the weight by yourself if he totally fails (and I think most people understand that a spotter is in a mechanically disadvantaged position to lift a heavily loaded bar off some guys chest).

[Mr.City]

nice post geoff, this guy was actually supersetting DB bench press with immediate barbell bench press with no rest.

Mr City, I have not actually ever used the rack to bench before. There is only one rack but two good benches. Using the rack means I have to occupy both a movable adjustable bench that the bro's like to do flyes/seated curls on. In addition to the rack which the bros like to do barbell rows, quarter squats, or curls in while looking into the full wall mirror.

That's every gym, man. You just got to work with you got.

[coreJack]

I always try to bench in the power rack
My gym has only one rack, and it gets plenty of use. I'd hate to see guys starting to bench in there.