Bench Shirts
Yeah, they do add to your bench on the bottom and some of the high-end bench shirts are BS, what kinda crap is that when 800 doesnt touch your chest?
But bench shirts where originaly developed as a safety device more than anything else. Youre shoulder joint and pec insertion is not made to handle 900, or even 500 lbs of strain, and during the range of motion from the bar being at you chest to about halfway up, your pec tie-ins and shoulders are in a very biomechanically vulnerable position. Some people's tendons can withstand the force but most can't. Cheating or not, I would not attempt to bench 500lbs without a shirt wether I was able to or not. Most pec tears occur when doing light warm-up sets RAW.