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Eric Roberts breaks down how a Smith machine locks the bar into a straight vertical path, while a barbell follows your body's natural angle: down toward your chest, then back and slightly away. That angled path matters for form and safety.
Eric Roberts breaks down how a Smith machine locks the bar into a straight vertical path, while a barbell follows your body's natural angle: down toward your chest, then back and slightly away. That angled path matters for form and safety.
The biggest difference between a Smith machine bench press and a barbell bench press is because the Smith machine only goes up and down, the barbell, you wanna have a slight angle down and then a slight push back. So if you lay down right now, you'll unrack the bar, you'll have a slight angle down right to like above your sternum level, and then you'll push it back up slightly. That's okay. You'll go back a little bit here to the sternum and you'll push it back up slightly. Perfect. 'Cause that's kind of like the natural bar path.
