In One Giant Lift for Mankind, Josh Levin describes “the race for the 1,000-pound bench press”:
For years, the bench press world record crept up slowly and steadily. In the 1950s, Canadian Doug Hepburn became the first man to bench 400, 450, and 500 pounds. In 1957, Hepburn told Muscle Power magazine that a 600-pound bench press was possible, but it wasn’t until 1967 that Pat Casey cracked that barrier. Ted Arcidi broke 700 in 1985, and it took another 17 years until Ryan Kennelly benched 800 pounds in 2002. Now, just two years later, 10 men have benched 800, and a couple are closing in on 1,000. So, why have records that stood up to the strongest men in the world for 50 years crumbled in the last two?A super-shirt, mostly. In 1983, a college student and powerlifter named John Inzer started making shirts that supported benchers’ shoulders and deltoids. Word spread that the bench shirt not only prevented injuries but actually helped bounce the weight off your chest. The terminology on Inzer’s web site reeks of pseudoscience — the top-of-the-line Inzer Phenom shirt “features the EVS (Escape Velocity System) built inside” — but the shirt’s effect is undeniable. As the record for the shirted bench press shot up to 965 pounds, the unshirted or “raw” mark has stayed at an earthly 713 pounds. (Scot Mendelson has that record.) Nowadays, every top bench-presser uses the shirt for safety and power. “The whole raw thing, you’re just asking for trouble if you’re going to be dealing with any kind of weight,” says Ryan Kennelly. “If you rip your pec, you rip your rotator cuff, you’re out of there. Thank God for bench shirts.”
The bench shirt — which comes in denim or polyester — has arms that jut out zombielike, perpendicular to the chest. The position is so awkward and the fit so tight that lifters typically need help swaddling themselves. As the bar starts to press the weightlifter’s arms down, a percentage of the load goes to deforming the shirt. High-end shirts are so taut that for the bar to even reach a bencher’s chest, the fabric has to be compressed with incredible force. (At one meet, Rychlak had to abandon an 890-pound lift because it wasn’t heavy enough to force the weight down to his pecs.) When the bencher starts to push the bar back up, the shirt acts like a spring. As the material snaps back to its original, zombie-arm orientation, the lifter’s elbows get a bit of extra help moving the weight back into the air.
Inzer says the bench shirt “brings out the deeper strength of a lifter.” Powerlifting traditionalists and scientists think the opposite.
As the record for the shirted bench press shot up to 965 pounds, the unshirted or “raw” mark has stayed at an earthly 713 pounds. I feel so very, very weak.