“How much do you bench?”
It could be essentially the most regularly asked query amongst hardcore “gym bros” and experienced gym veterans looking to determine a pecking order, in addition to curious beginners seeking to strike up a conversation. It’s also probably the most popular (if misguided) ways to inquire about someone’s strength, fitness, and general capability within the gym.
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Some might consider the notion of bench press-specific status ridiculous, but you’ll be able to’t erase the fact of the situation. Also, some people just wish to have an enormous bench press for themselves. You could as well position yourself to maneuver some impressive numbers, and move the burden safely.
Here’s fine-tune your bench press, optimize your technique, and arrange a plan to start out pushing greater weights.
Bench Press Technique Review
A robust bench press is built around one thing: Stability. Here’s a step-by-step approach to creating a superb environment for an enormous lift. All of it begins with a superb starting position before you even unrack the burden.
Step 1 — Find Your Contact Points
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When you’re positioned on the flat bench, the bench press requires 4 points of contact. Your two feet placed firmly on the ground counts as one point. Your butt and upper back are two more points, as they’re pressed hard against the bench and remain in place throughout the lift.
Lastly, your head must even be firmly against the bench and stay put during each repetition. Whenever you arrange, get your eyes directly under the bar before taking the burden out of the rack. This four-point setup is the inspiration for a superb quality set.
You might have noticed that your lower back will not be involved with the bench, and that’s actually a vital distinction. Some lifters imagine that having an arch within the lumbar region (lower back) when bench pressing is dangerous to your spine, when truthfully, the arch should be there.
The bench press is taken into account a horizontal pushing exercise (resulting from the position of the load relative to your body), which implies the force angle doesn’t line as much as create spinal loading the way in which a standing overhead press, squat, or deadlift would affect your lower back. The joint that bears essentially the most load during a bench press is your shoulder joint, not your spine, so arching your lower back doesn’t expose it to any significant strain.
When you’re in place, it’s time to get your hands on the bar.
Step 2 — Get a Grip
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Most barbells you’ll find at a typical gym could have knurling on either side for grip, but additionally some shiny “rings” on even points on both sides. In competitive powerlifting, those rings represent grip-width boundaries a lifter isn’t allowed to exceed.
Should you’re not a competitive powerlifter, you need to use the rings as reference points as to where your hands belong. Depending on what’s comfortable to your arm length, align the identical finger on each hand with the ring on either side. Many lifters will go for either their middle or ring fingers, but everyone’s preferred grip will likely be barely different.
Just concentrate on setting your hands too close together along with your pinkies far within the rings. This morphs the exercise from a typical flat barbell bench press to a close-grip bench press which emphasizes your triceps. (1)
Once your hands are in place, close a robust fist across the bar and also you’re able to lift.
Step 3 — We Have Lift Off
The way in which you’re taking the bar out of the rack is more necessary — and more technical — than meets the attention. Secure and efficient technique requires your shoulder blades to stay retracted (pulled together) on the bench. This helps to arch your lower back while elevating your chest and ribcage.
The small “press” which may occur as a lifter takes the bar out of the rack can pull your shoulders out of position (with protraction, the other of retraction). Protracted shoulders will make your chest sink down and place more stress on the shoulder joints in consequence. That is difficult to correct by the point the burden is in your hands, making it tough to re-adjust.
Making the hassle to boost your hips during lift off can assist with this, placing them back down as soon because the bar’s unracked and in position over your chest. Lifters with out a spotter can use this method to start the movement in a robust position without sacrificing form.
Step 4 — Lower and Press
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The bar should descend under control to make contact in your chest. Aim for touching the bar to your mid- or lower chest, and make that time of contact consistent from rep to rep. The finished, locked out position ought to be a bit more in keeping with your upper chest or shoulder-level, meaning the bar will travel on a rather slanted path.
All the time keep in mind that a real testament of strength in an enormous lift like this doesn’t come from how quickly you’ll be able to perform the reps, it comes from how slowly and well-controlled you’ll be able to perform them. Especially on the eccentric (lowering) phase, take the speed down a few notches. You may even add a pause with the bar on the chest to exert much more control over the burden — just you should definitely stay tight and never calm down under the burden.
Make each individual rep count and also you’ll slap on strength and size.
Bench Press Mistakes to Avoid
No one desires to develop into the following “YouTube fail” video, often featuring people butchering the bench press movement or, worse, moving into life-threatening situations resulting from a disregard for safety. Make certain you’ve got your bases covered by stopping these issues before they begin.
Lifting Your Hips
Other than giving yourself a lift off (if needed), your glutes should never leave the bench throughout the exercise. Lifting your hips won’t make you any stronger on the lift. It’s simply a cheat tactic and an indicator that the burden is simply too heavy to lift properly. That is the bench press equivalent of doing standing biceps curls and leaning your upper body back to get the burden up.
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Keep the movement honest to your ability. You’ll construct strength over time if you apply good form.
Half-Repping
Stopping shy of full range of motion — from full lockout to the bar touching your chest — does nothing to properly service your chest muscles (the prime movers of the bench press) or access the strength the body can put into the burden. (2)
Should you feel like you’ll be able to only perform half reps, chances are high the burden is simply too heavy, your shoulders are too unstable, or each. As a substitute, reduce the load and practice staying tight through full range of motion.
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If that also hurts your shoulders, it may very well be resulting from weakness within the movement itself or it could stem from an absence of upper back strength to stabilize and protect the shoulder. Make certain your training plan includes loads of upper-back pulling exercises like face pulls or reverse flyes.
Using Collars on the Bar
This isn’t necessarily some extent about increasing your bench press, but it surely’s a vital issue any time you’re benching heavy. It would sound counterintuitive or controversial but, in case you’re lifting alone, securing the burden plates with collars is a potentially high-risk maneuver.
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Common sense would say you often “should” secure the weights to forestall them from moving around. The reality is that, in case you do fail a rep and manage to get pinned to the bench, it could spell danger in case you’re not strong enough to press the bar off your chest all the way in which back as much as the rack. You may’t all the time depend on rolling it down over your hips and waist (which may be extremely painful and uncomfortable by itself).
Should you’re a one that lifts unsupervised at home, it’s best to depart the weights unclipped in order that, within the event of failure, you’ll be able to tip the weights off one end of the bar and free you from being stapled. It’s higher to crack a few tiles on the workout room floor than to crack a few ribs or your larynx.
Three Suggestions for More Gains
Getting the fundamentals down is a superb first step, but taking things to the following level involves just a little deeper considering, where this exercise is worried.
Leg Drive
Tuck your feet closer to your butt to create a knee angle inside 90-degrees. This is crucial to making the most of a vital and ignored principle — the bench press is greater than just an “upper body” exercise.
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In fact, your legs have a serious role to play in promoting overall bracing and tightness. As you press, take into consideration driving your feet into the bottom hard. The bar isn’t just moving away out of your chest, it’s moving away from the ground, so this cue will turn out to be useful so as to add more strength to your lift by increasing overall muscle recruitment. (3)
Tuck Your Elbows
If you should protect your shoulder joints, concentrate on improving bench performance while using a rather narrower grip (versus a comparatively wide grip) and tucking your elbows throughout the movement.
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The closer your upper arm is to your torso, the less vulnerable position your shoulder joints will likely be put into. Your shoulders will immediately feel happier, more stable, and more powerful by aiming your elbows more forward than sideways.
Use a Thicker Bar or Thick Grip Attachments
Using a bigger diameter bar with more surface area spread across the palms of your hands often feels more comfortable when you get used to the unique grip. It can also reduce joint stress within the elbows and shoulders by increasing forearm recruitment and muscle tension for added stability. (4)
The greater diameter disperses the load and reduces the pressure transferred to your joints. Should you don’t have access to thick barbells, you need to use thick grip attachments like “Fat Gripz.” This straightforward pair of removable handles may be probably the most useful tools to have in your gym bag, since it will probably be used with any exercise that requires grabbing a barbell, dumbbell, or handle.
Construct a Higher Bench: Methods That Work
Should you’ve been training within the gym for some time, the classic 3 x 10 or 4 x 6 might not likely be doing the job to get you past your strength or size plateau. In case your lifting numbers aren’t budging, it’s price considering a bit further outside the box to search out ways to stimulate your chest.
One-and-a-Half Rep Bench Press
Especially if a lifter has longer arms, it will probably be a hassle adding muscle to the chest for a greater aesthetic. The relatively long range of motion and large amount of lockout space a lifter could have to maneuver through could make the triceps and shoulders take over a typical chest pressing pattern. This leaves the chest less fatigued over the course of a set.
Performing a “one and a half rep” bench press involves unracking the barbell and lowering it all of the technique to chest level. Remain tight and press the burden from chest level to halfway up, and pause. Your upper arms ought to be at roughly 90-degrees. Lower the burden over again to chest level, after which press all the way in which as much as the highest — that entire series counts as one single repetition.
This high-tension technique will make your chest work greater than your triceps and shoulders since the latter two muscle groups aren’t significantly involved within the bottom-half of the movement.
Your chest is within the strongest biomechanical position, and is essentially the most involved, through this section of the exercise, and the one-and-a-half rep technique takes advantage of that. Three to 4 sets of 4 to 6 reps can be ideal here, remembering that every “one and a half” equals one rep.
Cluster Sets
Cluster sets deserve more mention than they often get in the case of increasing your strength and size. Understanding how the body works from a physiological level can assist create more appreciation for cluster training and its import.
In the case of short bouts of explosive power like a 100-meter dash, a primary down in football, or a heavy, low-rep set of weight training, the body relies on adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as its primary source of energy to make muscles work hard.
The ATP stores leave the body after 10 to fifteen seconds and the first muscles in use begin to shut down and create lactic acid as a byproduct. It often takes one to 2 minutes to sufficiently replenish these stores of ATP within the affected muscles.
Knowing that, you’ll be able to reap the benefits of this replenishment phase while still lifting heavy weights. A set of three reps may be prolonged to 4 and even five total reps if short breaks are taken between each individual repetition.
This mini-rest will partially replenish the stores of ATP available within the body. This may improve your strength over time and likewise expose you to a better cumulative volume of heavy reps, which may result in more muscle growth. Listed below are among the handiest ways to make use of clusters.
Single-Rep Clusters
Put 90-95% of your one-repetition max on the bar. This weight is often a two-rep max, but you’re about to do 4 reps with it. Perform one repetition, and rack the burden for 10 to fifteen seconds. Then take the burden off the rack and perform one other before re-racking it. Repeat until you’ve performed 4 reps. Rest at the least two minutes and perform a complete of two to 3 full sets.
Resetting between single reps also lets you ensure correct technique on each separate effort.
Multi-Rep Clusters
Put your five-repetition max on the bar. Perform 4 reps before racking the burden and resting for 10 seconds. Take the bar off the rack and perform two more reps. You’ve just performed six reps along with your five-rep max. Complete three to 5 full sets.
That is a superb technique to increase time spent under tension (TUT), which advantages muscle growth, while working with barely lighter-than-max loads, which won’t impact recovery as much as very heavy lifting. (5)
High-Rep Clusters, aka Ladders, for Size
Loads of heavy lifting can do a number on the nervous system, especially if heavy lifts are employed on the regular. change of pace (that doubles as a fantastic technique to break a size plateau) is to make use of high-rep methods with the identical approach.
Ladder sets are only the ticket. Use your 10 to 12-rep max weight. Perform a mini-set of two reps, then three reps, then five reps, and eventually 10 reps with 10-second breaks between each mini-set.
This creates 20 reps of muscle-building stimulus with a weight that “must have” only allowed 10 to 12 reps. One or two sets may be plenty. It’s a psychological killer as much because it is a muscular killer, all while keeping the nervous system in check resulting from the upper rep range and comparatively lighter weight.
Go Construct a Greater Bench
The bench press is arguably the preferred lift within the gym. With that prestige, it ought to be essentially the most properly executed, but that’s not all the time the case. With this information now in hand, you’ll be set apart within the gym and could have found a technique to train smart while also training hard. Soon your performance will likely be turning heads and also you’ll have a reliably impressive answer next time you’re asked “how much do you bench?”
References
- Saeterbakken, A. H., Stien, N., Pedersen, H., Solstad, T. E. J., Cumming, K. T., & Andersen, V. (2021). The Effect of Grip Width on Muscle Strength and Electromyographic Activity in Bench Press amongst Novice- and Resistance-Trained Men. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(12), 6444. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126444
- Pinto, R. S., Gomes, N., Radaelli, R., Botton, C. E., Brown, L. E., & Bottaro, M. (2012). Effect of range of motion on muscle strength and thickness. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 26(8), 2140–2145. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0b013e31823a3b15
- Gontijo, L. B., Pereira, P. D., Neves, C. D., Santos, A. P., Machado, D.deC., & Bastos, V. H. (2012). Evaluation of strength and irradiated movement pattern resulting from trunk motions of the proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. Rehabilitation research and practice, 2012, 281937. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/281937
- Krings, B. M., Shepherd, B. D., Swain, J. C., Turner, A. J., Chander, H., Waldman, H. S., McAllister, M. J., Knight, A. C., & Smith, J. W. (2021). Impact of Fat Grip Attachments on Muscular Strength and Neuromuscular Activation During Resistance Exercise. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 35(Suppl 1), S152–S157. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000002954
- Burd, N. A., Andrews, R. J., West, D. W., Little, J. P., Cochran, A. J., Hector, A. J., Cashaback, J. G., Gibala, M. J., Potvin, J. R., Baker, S. K., & Phillips, S. M. (2012). Muscle time under tension during resistance exercise stimulates differential muscle protein sub-fractional synthetic responses in men. The Journal of physiology, 590(2), 351–362. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.2011.221200
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