Kill the bounce, own the bottom, build a brutal bench.
Stay tight through the pause, the bar should rest on your chest without your chest going soft.
Killing the bounce is the whole game. Pausing the bar on your chest wipes out the stretch reflex, so the pecs have to produce force from a dead stop at their longest, hardest position, with the triceps finishing the lockout. It builds brutal bottom-end strength, teaches you to stay tight under load, and doubles as practice for how a bench press is judged in competition.
Because the bounce off your chest was doing more work than you thought. A gap between the two is completely normal. Train the pause and the gap closes, and your regular bench usually comes up with it.
A genuine stop where the bar goes completely still, counted honestly. A quick tap with an imaginary pause does not build the dead-stop strength this lift exists for.
Anyone who struggles off the chest, anyone planning to compete, and anyone whose touch-and-go reps have turned bouncy. It rebuilds honest pressing strength from the worst position of the lift.
