An equipped bench press is a bench press performed while wearing a specialized “bench shirt,” a rigid, ultra-tight garment that stores elastic energy as you lower the bar and helps you press more weight back up. The difference is enormous: the all-time equipped bench press record is Jimmy Kolb’s 1,400-pound press, while the raw record (no shirt) is Julius Maddox’s press of nearly 800 pounds. That 600-pound gap comes entirely from the shirt.
How a Bench Shirt Works
A bench press shirt is not just a tight piece of clothing. It’s a stiff, hard-to-stretch garment made from layers of extremely strong fabric, often polyester or denim blends, that fits so tightly lifters typically need help pulling it on. The shirt acts like a spring. As you lower the bar to your chest during the downward phase of the lift, the fabric stretches and stores elastic energy. At the very bottom of the movement, you actually have to fight against the shirt’s tension just to touch the bar to your chest. Once you reverse direction and begin pressing upward, all that stored energy releases, creating what lifters call the “pop,” a burst of momentum that helps drive the bar back to lockout.
The shirt is technically a passive element. It doesn’t have motors or mechanisms. But the strain placed on the fabric during the lowering phase produces enough rebound force to add hundreds of pounds to what a lifter could press with muscle alone. The effect is strongest at the bottom of the lift, where the fabric is most stretched, and diminishes as the bar rises and the shirt returns to its resting shape.
Single-Ply vs. Multi-Ply Shirts
Bench shirts come in two main categories based on how many layers of fabric are used. A single-ply shirt has one layer of material. A multi-ply shirt stacks two or more layers, increasing the stiffness and the amount of elastic energy available. More plies generally means more assistance off the chest but less support through the top portion of the lift. Fewer plies provide less explosive help at the bottom but offer support over a longer range of motion.
Powerlifting federations set their own rules about which type of shirt is allowed. Some federations permit only single-ply gear, others allow multi-ply, and many run separate divisions for each. The choice between the two is partly strategic and partly personal preference, and modern single-ply materials have become so advanced that the old assumption that single-ply lifting is “closer to raw” no longer holds true.
Equipped vs. Raw Lifting
Raw powerlifting allows minimal gear, typically a belt and knee sleeves, and nothing that stores elastic energy to assist the press. It’s considered a purer test of muscular strength because the lifter’s muscles do all the work. An equipped lift, by contrast, is a collaboration between the lifter and the gear. Both styles are legitimate competitive disciplines, but they test different things. Raw lifting rewards absolute pressing strength. Equipped lifting rewards pressing strength plus the technical skill to use a shirt effectively.
The performance gap between the two styles is largest on the bench press compared to any other powerlifting movement. A skilled equipped bencher can often press 30 to 50 percent more (sometimes far more) than their raw max, depending on the shirt and their experience with it. Beginners in a bench shirt sometimes find they can barely touch the bar to their chest at all, let alone get a boost from it.
Technique Changes in a Shirt
Equipped bench pressing requires significant technique adjustments compared to raw pressing. The shirt’s resistance changes where the lift is hardest and easiest, which means lifters need to modify their bar path, elbow position, and touch point on the chest.
In a raw bench press, elite lifters press the bar up and back toward their face off the chest, reducing shoulder stress as they approach the sticking point a few inches off the chest. In a shirt, the bottom of the lift is largely handled by the fabric’s rebound, so the challenge shifts to the lockout portion where the shirt’s assistance fades. Equipped lifters typically tuck their elbows more aggressively on the way down to load the shirt properly and touch the bar lower on their torso to take full advantage of the fabric’s stretch.
Learning to “use” a bench shirt is a skill that takes months or years to develop. The shirt changes the feel of every phase of the lift, and lifters who are strong raw don’t automatically perform well equipped. Many equipped competitors describe it as learning an entirely different movement.
How Equipped Lifters Train
Because the bench shirt shifts the difficulty toward the top of the press, equipped lifters use specific training tools to build lockout strength and get comfortable handling weights heavier than their raw max. One of the most common is board pressing, where a training partner holds a wooden board (one, two, or three boards stacked) on the lifter’s chest to limit the range of motion. This lets the lifter overload the upper portion of the press with supramaximal weight.
A typical approach is to perform full-range paused singles first, then follow with board work. Early in a training cycle, a lifter might press to a one-board and then a two-board. As a competition approaches, they shift to two-board and three-board presses to focus on lockout strength with heavier loads. Most lifters keep the board work to singles to practice controlling heavy weight, though doubles or triples are common on stronger days. The goal is to build confidence and neurological familiarity with loads beyond what the lifter can press through a full range of motion.
Equipped lifters also train regularly in their shirts during the weeks leading up to competition, progressively working down to full-range reps as they dial in their groove and touch point. Shirt work is physically demanding and time-consuming, since getting into and out of the shirt is a process in itself, and every session requires at least one training partner to help with the gear.
Who Competes Equipped
Equipped bench pressing is a competitive discipline within powerlifting, governed by numerous federations worldwide. Some federations run only equipped divisions, others run only raw, and many offer both. Equipped lifting was the original format of competitive powerlifting, and raw lifting grew as a separate movement over the past two decades. Today, raw lifting has become more popular at the recreational and amateur level, while equipped lifting retains a dedicated competitive community, particularly in federations like the WPO, WPC, and certain IPF-affiliated organizations that allow single-ply gear.
For anyone watching powerlifting for the first time, the key thing to understand is that equipped and raw records are tracked separately and represent fundamentally different achievements. A 500-pound equipped bench and a 500-pound raw bench require very different levels of muscular strength, and comparing numbers across the two styles without context is misleading.