How much you bench?
I know, not the first article to use that phrase, but nobody’s looking to increase their reverse hyper-extension. But beyond not impressing friends, acquaintances, and drunken strangers, a weak bench is a sign of many things, and none of them are positive. Even if you aren’t planning to stuff your swole self into a triple ply shirt and compete anytime soon, a good bench maximizes technique, powers through sticking points and safeguards your body from injury. Not only this, but bench is the foundation for upper body development. With that in mind we will address common benching pitfalls and mistakes that rob you of bragging rights.
Get a spot
The bench press is unique among lifts in that you absolutely should get a spot anytime you plan to go heavy. Unlike squats or military press where you can dump the weight, failing on bench is quite likely going to get ugly. But safety reasons aside there are clear technical reasons why you should have a spot.
Most basically, getting a proper hand-off is critical for maintaining form and tightness. When you try to un-rack the bar by yourself you are priming yourself to un-rack not to bench. Get a spotter who takes off some weight but leaves you in control. Hopefully this is your training partner, but if you don’t have one, finding the most competent person in the gym and explaining to them what you’re going for is the next best thing. (Note for the bashful: what looks stupider: explaining to your prosthodontist why you singlehandedly put his kids through college, or asking someone for a spot?)
Big Bench; Big Chest
Aside from preserving form, training with a spotter allows you to train heavy. If you are benching without a spot then you aren’t benching near your max. Freed from the lingering thought of getting stuck under the bar, you can now focus purely on the movement and give it all you got. Having a spotter is a great psychological boost that cuts through the ‘gotta keep something in the tank’ mentality and lets you go balls to the walls.
The Impact of form
I know a lot of people who preach about form use that as an excuse for their weakness. But form is designed to maximize weight moved. The bench press might seem like a simple movement but it’s actually very technical. Knowing where and how to lower the weight in order to maximize muscle activation and leverage is going to make the difference between a new PR and a stale plateau. You will be really shocked to see the difference form makes the first time you start working on it. The weight will seem magically lighter, you will engage more muscles and you will see why others are benching so goddamn much.
There is no faster way to suck on bench then to have all your body loose and turn it into arm movement. Bench is a full body exercise; if you are not engaging your full body you are doing it wrong. You need to build up tension as you perform the negative, loading the weight into your muscles and preparing for the explosive positive. Think of your muscles as rubber bands. The tighter you stretch a rubber band, the more force it stores and the more power it can generate. Now if you have a very loose rubber band it can stretch a ton before it builds up any resistance, versus a really tight one that you only need to pull a bit and it’s about to snap. Setup on the bench in the same spirit as the tight rubber band.
Tuck your shoulder blades in, arch your back until you feel the weight on your traps, flex your lats, glutes (yes) tensed, push your legs back until you feel tension in your quads.
That’s the simple version since bench form is an article for itself so make sure to read our bench page.
Range of Motion
Another critical aspect for bench is range of motion, or the distance the bar travels. The less the bar moves the more weight you can handle. If it doesn’t intuitively seem true to you, compare your decline and incline bench and come back to me. I’m not asking you to develop the flexibility of a pre-teen contortionist and get that barely legal arc, but I do believe the more weight you can move in a legit fashion the better your results. But the point of minimizing range of motion is not simply to maximize weight but also to protect your shoulders, the less they rotate the less the potential for stress and injury.
You will decrease range of motion by tucking in your elbows, increasing your grip if it is too narrow, dropping the barbell to the bottom of the sternum and having a good arch. In the end increasing weight lifted, while still remaining within the bounds of good form is going to trigger large muscle and strength gains.
Triceps
There are no strong benchers with weak triceps. Tricep strength is crucial for a big bench and increasing it is perhaps the easiest way to increase your bench. Get good at close-grip bench, skull-crushers, and other heavy tricep movements and the bench will go up by itself. A lot of people train bench heavy then go and get in some half-assed tricep work, cheating their way through every rep and then wondering why their bench sucks. Tricep exercises are very easy to cheat on. I see people all the time do tricep pushdowns and turn that movement into some bastardized cable-dip. When you isolate the triceps, you isolate them; your elbow shouldn’t be moving. If it’s heavy, drop the weight. For triceps make sure to mix it up and train both for weight and reps, don’t neglect one or the other.
Branch has some mighty triceps
Speed
Look no further than Olympic lifters. Even the lightest ones throw your bench max above their head for a warm-up. Why lift fast? Well, the faster the weight moves the more momentum it carries, the lighter it goes. Got a sticking point? Well blast through it. Another benefit is that when you go for maximum acceleration that’s when you truly engage all your muscles and it’s one of the fastest ways to improve your strength. It’s also another way to simulate heavy loads without going heavy. Did I just blow your mind? The power needed to get, for example, 185lbs to your max speed could be even higher than the output on your max attempt. This will also allow you to tinker with your form with lighter weights and learn explosiveness. A good way to fit this into your regular training is to have a repetition/speed day and a maximum effort day where you train heavy. On the speed day do ~8 sets of bench 2-4 reps each at about 45-65% of your 1RM, remember the goal is speed and form, so get to work.
Conclusion
This article is by no means the end-all solution to your bench, but a starting point for improving your bench. Use this as a checklist to see if you’re neglecting something. Make sure to check the main bench press article and our article on utilizing reps and sets effectively.
As always if you are left with any questions discuss in the forums or email us directly.
