The bench press is a compound exercise that targets the muscles of the upper body. It involves lying on a bench and pressing weight upward using either a barbell or a pair of dumbbells. During a bench press, you lower the weight down to chest level and then press upwards while extending your arms. This movement is considered one repetition, or rep. There are several variations of bench presses that each work different muscles, including changing the angle of the bench (flat, incline, or decline) and adjusting the grip width on the barbell. This site has great descriptions and animations of these variations.
We can imagine that athletes, soldiers, and others interested in strength training have done some form of a push-up for thousands of years but the bench press is a more recent invention. The folks at BarBend recently published an article detailing the early days of pressing that didn’t involve a bench and the evolution to what we would recognize today as a bench press in the 1950s with the development of rack stations. This led to standardization in competitive arenas, made it safer and more feasible to lift heavier weights, and made the bench press more accessible to everyday gym goers.
Bench presses can be an effective exercise for building chest, arm, and shoulder muscles. As a compound movement that allows for the use of relatively heavy weight, it is often viewed as the preeminent movement for training the front of the upper body. Other benefits of adding bench presses to your weight-training regimen include increasing upper body strength and improving muscular endurance. This translates to athletic pursuits like football where there is a need to push off of opponents and the bench press can be found in the annual NFL combine as prospects attempt maximum reps with 225 pounds.