Illustrations: Everkinetic (Greg Priday), CC BY-SA 4.0 · cropped, resized & combined
Chest
Slide the bench until the fixed bar path lands on your lower chest, not on your neck.
Lie back, squeeze the shoulder blades, plant your feet, then rotate the bar to unhook it.
Lower the bar under control for 2 seconds until it lightly touches the lower chest, elbows around 45 degrees.
Press straight up along the rails until the elbows are nearly locked.
Set the safety stops one notch below chest level so you can train heavy without a spotter.
After the last rep, rotate your wrists to re-hook the bar before letting go.
Positioning the bench wrong so the fixed path lands on your neck or your stomach.
Forgetting to set the safety stops when training alone.
Bouncing the bar and letting the rails carry reps you have already failed.
Logging smith machine loads as if they were free-barbell PRs.
Great for beginners or drop sets since the bar path is fixed and you can focus purely on the chest.
Log smith loads separately from your free-bench numbers; they are not directly comparable.
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