Bench shirt

A bench shirt is a stiff supportive shirt, used to improve performance in the bench press, most often in powerlifting competitions.

Bench shirts are usually made of polyester, denim, or canvas and come in single- or multi-ply thicknesses.

The extremely tight fit of a bench shirt supports the weightlifter's shoulders and deltoid muscles.

[1] Different powerlifting federations have different rules governing allowed equipment—for example, the only supportive equipment allowed by the 100% Raw Powerlifting Federation for bench press is a leather belt,[2] whereas the International Powerlifting Federation stipulates that support shirts must be "of one ply stretch material".

[3] As the same lifter's performance may vary significantly depending on the presence and design of a bench shirt (for example, Scot Mendelson has a shirted bench press record of 1030 lbs,[4] while his unshirted best is 715 lbs), records across different federations or categories may not be directly comparable.