The truth is barbell bench pressing is one of the most popular exercises done with a barbell. It is also true that most of the majorly advanced bench pressers suffer from joint pain due to this being one of their most favorite ways to use the barbell.

More and more you will see beginners to pro users warp their wrists and end up using elbow sleeves to help protect their sore joints. They have been seen using press shirts to relieve shoulder pain, live off of ice packs and anti-inflammatory meds just to be able to get out of bed in the morning.

The root of the problem could be contributed to the barbell itself and certainly, there is a way that this can be avoided.

Here is the main reasons; Gravity causes no straight line. Our skeletal and muscular systems are curved giving us the ability to function in this gravitational world that is constantly pulling and pushing us.

When a lifter is pressing a barbell, he is essentially asking his body to do something it was not designed to do in the first place.

Factoring this in, the longer you do this year after year, you will be doing damage to your joints.

The way to prevent this from happening is to change the point where the lifter's hands and the barbell meet, and that us the grip. Using a padded grip will put the barbell into a more natural position in the hand and this will help the joints.

I would suggest one of the more popular padded grips is the TylerGrip. Specifically designed to take the pressure off of the straight line and putting the barbell into a more natural feel in the hands of the lifter.

What you will want to do is put the grips on the barbell so that the thumb side of the palm will grasp the small end of the cone shape. This will place your hands, wrists, elbows and shoulders into a more ergonomic position to push, making it seem as though the bar is slightly curved.

Do your own experiments with this and a buddy lifter. Have your buddy do a close grip press with the bar only. Watch his hands and wrists in relationship to the actual bar. Now, try this again by placing your padded grip on the bar. You will see the wrists tend to be in a much more natural position.

This will not serve as a magic cure-all that will immediately take away all the pain from your joints, but using the grips will ease the stress on your joints and over time, it will ease the pain of pressing a heavy barbell. At first, you will also want to reduce the amount of weight you typically use.

The reason for this will become quickly obvious to you. The placement of the grips will make gripping harder because of having to squeeze more firmly in order to control the weight. You will want to do this for the first couple of workouts to let your muscles and nervous system adapt to having to use the grips before you decide to add more weight.