http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP3g-I9Sf9s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krvj3HgYlVc

My doctor has told me numerous times to never go past the upper arms being parallel to the floor. He said anything past that does use the rotator cuff and highly increases your chance of tearing it.

Do you stretch your chest to 90 degrees elbow/ parallel from the ground? Or do you bend your elbow way past 90 deg or horizontal to the floor? What gives the best stretch? I believe you have your answer. You put stress on both your joints and muscles when lifting. Proper form and lifting within your limits will limit injury.

The issue with going past a 90 degree arm angle is the large amount of shoulder injuries due to excessive shoulder rotation (causing impingement) because of bad benching technique. While cutting the stroke short reduces shoulder rotation, so does actually following the tips in the article, resulting in a correct bench press that is safe on the shoulders. You need your scapula retracted and depressed and elbows tucked to protect your shoulder girdle. Then you won't have to cut your stroke.

The thing is your arms can't be perpendicular to your sternum to do that. If you do it right that wouldn't be an issue. Another thing I kinda remember from Physiology in med school is that in the negative part of the movement you activate three times more fibers than in the positive part. That tells us the importance of the negatives. This area of Physiology wasn't really our focus, so I can't tell I'm right. Any physiologist to help?