Brands of Shirts
There are a several brands and TYPES, experiment around until you have the shirt that works best for you. Karin, Inzer and the new favorite and the one I personally use is the Titan Super Katana with the new NXG material. All have excellent shirts. Be sure that the shirt you order is legal for the Federation you lift in and tell the order clerk you purchase from the Federation to make sure they send you the correct shirt.We prefer the Titan Super Katana.

You will need to purchase a bench press shirt from one of our distributors or be at a great disadvantage. These shirts will add approximately 10%-15% for a low quality shirt or perhaps as much as 40%, 50% + to your single paused legal bench press with a good Inzer, Karin or Titan shirt after you learn how to use your shirt. Never lift in a low quality or worn out shirt with tears or runners. You may have the shirt tear out during your lift. You are lifting more than your body is trained to work with naturally which could cause you to lose control of your lift and become injured.
Click here...Putman Power Lifting Equipment
All of your Bench Sirt information, sales and questions answered in one location. (918) 361-7316

What does a shirt add?
A poor shirt or one that does not fit right may add as little as 10%-15% but most lifters will get at least 40% or50% or perhaps more eith a custom shirt after they learn to use a shirt correctly provided it matches their bench style and fits perfectly. If you are benching 400 raw a 15% add is a 460 bench. Not bad for just changing your lifting shirt. Some lifters depending on the equipment rules have gotten even higher percentages (30%-50%) from a bench shirt. Get all you can in building without the shirt. Some say these shirts are legal cheating. It is not cheating if you are in a equipped meet with one on!!They may not be allowed in all contest and the double ply shirts are illegal in some Federations. If these guys get 15% to 30% from equipment and 20% to 25% from drugs they have increased their advantage over a clean raw lifter by 40% to 60%. If You don't like shirted contest then just go somewhere else or start your own no drugs or shirts/no squat or deadlift suits Federation.

Workout
This may or may not be what many lifters who use bench shirts agree with. Several big name shirted benchers use a shirt each work out while others say not to do this. Read the articles at the bottom of this page. Some of the bigest shirted benchers never exceed 300 lbs without a shirt and claim You either need to be a Raw contest lifter or an equipped lifter. Many say You must be either a powerlifter or a bodybuilder but we say take a look at the old raw lifters and Matt Kroc, the way he trains. We know lifters who are excellent at both raw and shirted lifting. Real strength gains are made without the shirt using boards, overloads and chain benches as described in Exercise and Assistance work to build both raw and shirted benches. If you will do those assistance exercises along with bodybuilding (I know many say You are not a bodybuilder) until about 60 days before a contest you will find your bench has gone up when you move to the single and tripple routines for the contest. You should use a Powerliting routine while training for the contest, but not all year long. We asked a top shirted lifter about his routine and he said. "I will train several months prior to the contest without a shirt to build strength as you don't build strength wearing a shirt. I will then work with a shirt for about thirty to forty five days prior to the contest to become accustomed to it again. I use the tightest shirt possible in big meets only to the point I can get the weight to my chest and still be able to lock out the weight. I believe in working to the chest and avoid developing a weak spot so many shirted work out lifters develop. You also will be more muscular working to the chest without a bench press shirt." Many lifters wear a shirt constantly whether training for a contest or not. Some say you need to start wearing a shirt at least sixty days (OR MORE) before your contest but not for every set of reps. It takes time to adjust to a shirt and learn how to use one properly. Start out wearing a loose fitting shirt when you start doing sets of five repetitions on a board and slowly work up to a contest shirt as the weight gets heavier, repetitions decrease and the board width becomes less. The contest shirt should be a whatever the contest You are entering allows. Single ply IPF approved is what most Federations allow while many offer multiply contest also. You need to work your way into the tighest shirt possible (injury). It will be very uncomfortable, but will get you a larger contest bench. Look at the truly clean raw bench presss contest (if you can find one) and the totals aren't much better than many years ago but that is nearly impossible as nothing even in a raw contest is done exactly like it used to be done.

Getting Weight Off Your Chest
The tighter the shirt the more weight you can explode off of your chest with provided you are strong enough to handle the weight and have the lock out strength. You have to find the happy medium of shirt and strength.
Bench Press ~ Board Useage ~ Chain Useage.

Safety
When you study the history of bench shirts you will find that they were designed to help prevent injury. They provided some support like those of a biker but did not help you lift the weights. Bench Shirts provide no safety to a lifter due to the way they are used and constructed now. There are more rotator cuff and other injuries with these shirts than ever before. A super tight shirt of any type but not so tight that you cannot manage to get the bar down to your chest with your own body weight can provide some positive help physically. When you have problems getting the bar down to your chest because the weight is not heavy enough your shirt is not being used for safety or support but to assist in getting more weight up. This is why you see lifters constantly trying to get into a smaller shirt to get more leverage. This will work if you are strong enough to lock out the heavier weight but this will also cause injury. The old school lifters seldom had shoulder tears etc., some may say that they weren’t benching the amount of weight we do today, NOT TRUE! Look at how many lifters in the 60's and 70's are on the hall of fame link list below.

Click Here....Good demonstration of how to put on a Bench Press Shirt
Check out this how to put on a shirt Video and then try to tell me honestly this is for safety, its to lift more weight, no other reason. So as stated before either beat them without a shirt OR don't lift in their Federation as nobody is making You lift with a shirt. If a shirt is allowed in the rules of that Federation,its not cheating.

These shirts pull your shoulders forward, may force you out of the groove if the shirt does not fit your style of benching and may allow you to handle more weight than you have actually developed your body to handle. They cause extra strain across the shoulders and the extra poundage you aren't developed to handle may hurt your wrist and elbows along with your shoulders or neck according to a medical professional.

Dependent on Shirts
Shirt lifters have become dependent on the shirt getting the weight off their chest and for triceps support. It can take a long time for shirt addicted lifter to learn to bench again before they would beat anyone that has been lifting in non equipped meets. The only reason these shirted lifters would be beating anyone that does not use a shirt is the fact that most all lifters are now forced to wear a shirt in order to compete if you want to win or set records. We know one guy that is now on drugs in order not to give up poundage's to the other lifters that don't get tested or beat the test and said he is using a shirt for the same reason.

What Lifting Should Be.
Lifting is suppose to be about lifting not about who has the best equipment. A Bench Shirt if correctly used will help you get more weight up but this does not make the lifter in them for really a better lifter. The old contest were at least fair and the records were not fake. We wear a shirt as we cannot afford to spot someone in a contest as most of the Federations now allow shirts. A lighter weight class lifter recently broke a record that was 25 years old in a bench-shirt. How can he really claim this record? If a record was set in a raw contest it should not be broken in a shirted contest. Look at the farce the cheating has caused in baseball, BADE RUTH still holds the real record!

Non Shirted Raw Contest
Some lifting Federations still have non-equipped contest and completely non-drug contest. This means no bench shirt, squat suit or deadlift suit and in some cases no wrist wraps, drugs or ammonia. We notice that these raw contest tend to make the lifter pause for real when the shirted contest are not much more than a touch and go. This is because a shirt will cause the bar to start to float either towards the lifters head or lower body if held for a couple of seconds in the manner the old raw contest were held in the early seventies before shirts became all the rage. There are fewer and fewer raw contest. Got a quote from an on-line powerlifter argument concerning bench press shirts.

A Bench Press Shirt is to a Powerlifter what elevator shoes are to a short man.
Bet that sentence got a lot of attention from the on-line forum croud.

We think anyone who really does not like shirt lifting should enter raw contest and just keep YOUR mouth shut as it does not affect You what the shirted lifters do. If You don't like shirted contest then just go somewhere else or start your own no drugs or shirts/equipment Federation. You hear a lot of people complaining about shirts but what about squat and deadlift suits?

A lot of powerlifting purest hate equipment and how the sport has evolved but sad as it is if You want to compete today and win on the big stage You will wear a shirt or lose. Raw unequipped meets are few and far between. The statement that a bench shirt is to a powerlifter what elevator shoes are to a short man is really the truth. Most things in most sports are so extreme and fake it is hard to compare to the past when people didn't have equipement and few did drugs and nobody knew how to beat a drug test.

You may benefit by clicking on the following articles. Good info from big name people with a wide range of views.

Learn How To Bench In A Bench Press Shirt-John Hudson
Matt Kroc On Bench Shirts
Ted Arcidi On Shirts-What one of the best benchers thinks about shirts.
Bench Shirt 101
Learn how to break in a bench press shirt
Good demonstration of how to put on a Bench Press Shirt
Shawn Lattimers comments concerning Bench Shirts.
Covers how they were for safety but how they evolved into what they are today, how to pick a shirt and a lot of qualifty info.
Glen Chabot goes back to RAW Benching.
If you read "Monster Bencher", then you've heard the history of Glen Chabot. Glen used to be a bencher that used benching equipment but now he is a RAW benchin' monster! He has been able to bench up to 665 without a shirt

Click here..Article on overload principle and full reps vs partial reps.

Shawn Lattimers comments concerning Bench Shirts.
Covers how they were for safety but how they evolved into what they are today, how to pick a shirt and a lot of qualifty info.

Article covering how to use a bench shirt in detail.

LiftingLarge.com shows You how to put on a Bench Press Shirt

Glen Chabot goes back to RAW Benching.
If you read "Monster Bencher", then you've heard the history of Glen Chabot. Glen used to be a bencher that used benching equipment, now he is a RAW benchin' monster! He has been able to bench up to 665 without a shirt

Valantin Dikul may be the best lifter ever, hes in his late fifties and lifting RAW
Some say this is fake but WE believe he for real, well known and famous in Russia. I know the lifts are not IPF perfect but he is lifting RAW doing more than BOLTON. I think the no spotters, no equipment makes people wonder even more if this is faked but I think it is real based on who is doing the lifting.

Watch this clip, Squats, Dead Lifts, Benchers, Motivation.
There are unbelievable dead lifts, squats and benches in this five minute clip. After the little body builder finishes his partial overheads its all power lifters and olympic lifters. One guy is doing strict military press overhead high reps with 315, several big benches, several 800+ dead lifters, one doing eight reps with 700, a 1000 pound squat-er. Both old school and new guy lifters. None of this is faked. This is POWERLIFTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Statements contained herein have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat and cure or prevent disease. Always consult with your professional health care provider before changing any medication. Do not do any of our routines without having been declared physically fit to exercise by your medical professional.

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