Row to your sternum.

Pull the bar down to meet your lower sternum. Engage the back muscles to control the bar’s quick descent. The bar should meet the sternum where your wrists are stacked above your elbows.
Pull the bar down
PULL YOURSELF UP TO THE BAR
PULL YOURSELF UP TO THE BAR
PULL YOURSELF UP TO THE BAR
Alan Thrall
While you're actively rowing the bar to your chest, I want you to think about wedging yourself between the bench and the barbell - almost like you had a spring and you were compressing it.
Neversate
Start the rep by using your lats to “pull” the bar down to your chest. This will help you control the bar, not only with regards to the speed of the motion but your line as well.
Robertson Training Systems
Lower that bar as quickly as possible, but only as quickly as you can comfortably control that weight.
Neversate
Engage the back muscles
On the descent, we want to stay under control. I want that bar path to be perfect, and we're trying to keep all that muscle recruitment that we have on the way down. I know it's counterintuitive because it feels heavy on the way down, it's a little slower and more controlled, but that is what's...making sure that the bar path stays exactly where it needs to be, so you have a nice efficient path. If that groove is off just a little... that could make or break a PR.
Szat Strength
Rowing it down to your body is gonna cue your body to be actively engaged in the motion... You need to think about coiling a spring. You're building up kinetic energy as that bar comes down, you're getting tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter. That spring is getting wound up so that when you release it, all that kinetic energy goes at one time, becomes a powder keg, EXPLODES, the bar shoots off your chest then your elbows flare.
Neversate
I focus on rowing the bar to my chest. I do not think about just lowering it... that is letting the bar control you, you need to be in control of the bar the entire time. The way that I go about that is by keeping my elbows bent so my lats are locked in. That also allows my elbows to stay tucked on the way down.
Neversate
By activating the muscles of the upper back as if you're doing a row, you're recruiting the muscles that stabilize the scapulae, and that's going to keep your shoulders healthy.
Stacked above your elbows
ELBOWS UNDER WRISTS
ELBOWS UNDER WRISTS
ELBOWS UNDER WRISTS
Barbell Medicine
NIPPLE HEIGHT OR LOWER
NIPPLE HEIGHT OR LOWER
NIPPLE HEIGHT OR LOWER
You're gonna want to stick to right around where your sternum is for where the bar is gonna make contact. The lower we go, okay the harder that bench press is gonna become, and higher up it's gonna be the same thing.
Szat Strength
Finding this position where the bar is stacked over your joints and the joints are stacked over each other when the bar is on your chest is critical to maximizing the force you can apply to the bar. If you have a wider grip, you will likely need to touch the bar higher on your chest with more flared elbow position to achieve this. If you have a closer grip, you will tuck your elbows more and touch the bar lower on your chest to achieve this position. One option is not universally better than the other and will depend on your strength and shoulder stability.
If the weight is heavy and the bar touches somewhere below the bottom of the sternum, it’s too low, and the arch is probably excessive....Benching safely means touching the chest inferior to the shoulders – roughly in the middle of the sternum. This produces a non-vertical bar path which, although less efficient, protects the shoulder joints from impingement.
Starting Strength
The proper bench press will land a barbell on the chest at a point where the elbows are roughly under the bar and where the hands are stacked atop the elbow.
Don't bench press with your elbows out. This puts too much stress on the shoulders and will almost definitely lead to problems down the road. The bar should come down and touch on the nipple line or even slightly below.
Touch the bar fairly low on your chest. For most people, touching somewhere between the nipple and the bottom of the sternum is the strongest and most comfortable. You may feel stronger touching a bit lower yet on the top of the stomach if you have a big arch or bench with a closer grip, but I wouldn’t recommend most people touch higher than their nipples.
Stronger By Science