Easier on the shoulders, brutal on the chest.
Keep your elbows tucked, not flared, to protect the shoulders and load the chest.
Pressing with palms facing each other on neutral handles naturally tucks your elbows to around 45 degrees, which keeps the shoulders in a friendlier position while the chest and triceps do the pressing. The bar path drops to the lower chest, loading the pecs through a range that feels strong and stable even for lifters whose regular bench grumbles. It is the pressing pattern of choice when you want heavy chest work without asking your shoulders to tolerate a flared, pronated grip.
A Swiss bar, sometimes called a football bar, the one with neutral handles built into the frame. It racks and loads like a regular barbell but lets your palms face each other.
Strongly, it builds the same chest and triceps with the elbows already in the tucked position good benchers press from. Many lifters rotate it in as a main press when their shoulders need a break from the straight bar.
Start with the handles closest to shoulder-width. Narrower handles shift more work to the triceps, wider ones bias the chest, so pick based on what you want the press to do.
