What is Raw Bench Press?

I actually didn’t know the difference between a raw bench press and a shirted bench press up until this year. I just never thought about doing anything but a regular bench. It turns out that raw bench press is just a traditional bench press, unassisted. The alternatives are many, but primarily a non-raw bench press consists of lifting with a “shirt”. The shirt is designed to help bench pressers lift very heavy weight.

Shirts are so tight that they actually require a tremendous amount of force to even bring your arms down. When you’re lifting the weight up, the shirts act like a spring for bringing the weight up. This is how you hear of guys bench pressing 1000 pounds or more.

I’m not a fan of it. My thought is you lift the weight you can and when you can’t lift any more without outside help, that’s all you can lift. I wouldn’t feel right with a bench press shirt. If I bench press, I only want a raw score.

Here is the world record holder at 715 lbs: