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How To Instantly Increase Your Bench Press With Proper Form
They say dog is a man’s best friend, but I can make a case for the bench press. What’s the number one question I’m asked you say? “How much do you bench?” Haha. Even though getting supine and pushing weight toward the sky is not indicative of true applicable strength. Let’s see what we can do to move even more weight from our backs.
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What Is The Bench Press
In this text by bench press I mean the popular exercise involving a flat bench, you, and a barbell. There are multiple variations such as an inclined or declined bench press, but it’s about the flat press today.
This mass building, powerlifting movement requires you to take a supine position and execute barbell pressing, which is profoundly similar to the muscle activity involved in a standard push up.
What Are The Muscles Involved In Bench Pressing
Bench pressing demands shoulder adduction and elbow extension. This primarily brings in the chest (pectoralis sternal & clavicular heads), front shoulders (anterior deltoids), and triceps (lateral and medial heads):
Primary movers: chest, shoulders (front), triceps
Primary stabilizers: lats, erector spinae, rotator cuffs, forearms.
The chest (pecs) assists in horizontal shoulder flexion, shoulder adduction, and chips in for vertical shoulder flexion. Stars in the bottom half of bench pressing.
Front shoulders carry the bulk of vertical shoulder flexion and aids in horizontal shoulder flexion. Stars in the middle portion of bench pressing.
Triceps extend the elbow. Stars in the upper phasic portion and locking out the bench press.
Your stabilizers’ job is to prevent excess movement and facilitate bar deceleration. The more stability you can elicit the more crisp and efficient your movement becomes. Think of lifting with the hammer strength or any resistance training machine, make yourself a machine 💪.
Bench Press Benefits
They call bench pressing the king of upper body lifts. I’m not sure if it’s quite number one, but it’s high on the list:
Builds muscle - the bench is a compound lift, meaning it involves multiple joints. In such lifts an array of muscle groups chime in. To grow you must tear and repair muscle tissue, tearing an array allows for the opportunity to repair an array.
Burns fat - compound lifts involve more muscles right? So you burn more calories. Bicep curls or even tricep extensions are single joint exercises, they isolate. Doing so burns minimal calories. If your goal is weight loss, especially extreme weight loss, compound lifts should make up the bulk of your training. And don’t forget the more muscle you carry the higher your metabolism.
Bench Pressing For Strength Vs Hypertrophy
Regardless of how you bench you’ll hit the same muscles, although the degrees shall vary. My point is the manner in which you do so will place an emphasis on one goal over another.
All resistance training leads to a grade of muscle growth (hypertrophy) and an increase in strength. Still you can execute the bench press, or any exercise, in a way to emphasize strength or hypertrophy.
Note: if hypertrophy is priority one the barbell bench press is good, yet you’d fair even better with range of motion and finer chest isolation with a dumbbell, hammer, or cable press. The longer your arms, the more truth there is in this assertion.
For muscle growth you want additional time under tension and extra range of motion. It’s bodybuilding, the goal is to make the exercise difficult.. Not in a mechanical sense, in a taxation sense to evoke more adaptation.
Benching for strength, however is about moving the most weight with the least amount of effort. That’s efficiency, limiting range of motion, and ensuring your strengths carry the load while welcoming any potential contributor.
Generally when it comes to rep scheming and intensity 1-5 reps is strength focused and 6-15 is more hypertrophy. 15+ is more about stamina.
Note: travel through all rep ranges for continued progress. Your body adapts, so periodically ruffle it up to keep strength and growth active.
Top: vertically stacked forearms and wrists with a 45 degree angle considering elbow placement next to the body
Bottom: arms locked out with a slightly beyond shoulder-width grip
How To Setup The Bench Press
Before these festivities begin I suggest a strong warm up occurs:
If your bench isn’t already assembled ensure it’s centered with the rack.
Seat the barbell on the rack a smidgen below arms length when in supine position. You want enough slack for an easy mount and dismount, but not too much. Too much slack will ask for more effort when unracking, which takes away from the working set.
Apply your desired resistance, then beat your chest. (important)
Mount the bench in a supine position, the bar should be directly above your eyes.
Choose your width and grab onto the barbell with both hands, thumb around the bar for safety. Hypertrophy: you’ll get more range of motivation from your pecs with a medium grip and more pec reliance with a wider grip. The triceps start taking over when your grip is closer than shoulder width apart. Ensure you’re even on both sides. Strength or powerlifting: it’s not foreign to take a wider grip to limit range of motion, even so this is case by case. Experiment with multiple widths and figure what puts your best weight moving “foot” forward.
Next is to anchor yourself with scapular retraction and depression. Scapular retraction is conducted by bringing your shoulders backward and together as if to pinch your spine. Maintain this position then move them downward as if to place your shoulders in your back pockets, depression. The goal here is stability and limited excess movement through the lift. Want to avoid anterior shoulder tilt, for it isn’t beneficial to your bench pressing motives whether strength or hypertrophy-fueled.
Set the arch. How exaggerated your arch is will depend on if you’re bodybuilding (hypertrophy) or powerlifting (strength) benching. Hypertrophy: slightly raise your chest maintaining a natural arch with a tight core. Strength: chest raised as high as possible with the exaggerated arch, strongly engaged core, tight lats, and butt as close to your depressed shoulders as possible while still maintaining contact between the glutes and the bench.
Set feet for drive: ensure your feet are flat on the ground. Hypertrophy: not as much of a point. You’re more focused on taxing the upper body, but feet flat for stability is still a thing. Strength: make it a full body exercise head to toe engaged and this is no different for legs. Feet flat for regulation if you have competitive aspirations, but also to drive power from the lower body. You’ll set your feet about shoulder width apart, feet a little behind your knees.
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How To Do A Powerlifting Bench Press
Don’t be afraid to record yourself. Improvements are about feel, all the same seeing it puts context to your feelings. Practice makes better so stay at it. So you’re all set up next:
Tightly grip the bar like it’s the last golden ticket and you’re Charlie with eyes on the chocolate factory.
Dismount the bar by extending your arms to lockout. And conduct a slight shoulder extension to reach starting position, arms stacked above you.
Wrists should be vertically stacked.. Straight up and down. Bar resting on your palms to absorb and control the force.
Activate more shoulder activity by pulling the bar apart like Hulk Hogan and an a-shirt. Continue to do so throughout the set.
Start descension. Bend at the elbow and ensure not to flare out at the shoulders. The bar comes down at a slight angle, not exactly a perfect line. In a quick, yet controlled manner the bar is to make it just below your chest, around the nipple line.
Don’t bounce the weight off your chest. Briefly pause at the bottom. Note: if a picture was taken at this moment your forearms would usually be vertically stacked since it tends to yield the best results in a little more than medium grip, but again case by case.. See what works for you. Injury potential happens to be lower with vertically stacked forearms, however. This would be about a 45 degree angle if comparing your elbows and body.
Now it’s time to press. You’ll drive the weight up by violently, yet efficiently pushing through your feet, glutes and hips. It’s like you’re pushing the ground away from you. This assistant power will help as you strongly contract your pecs, front deltoids, and triceps to explosively move the bar to starting position via horizontal shoulder flexion and elbow extension to lockout. The more your whole body chips in, the more weight you move with less upper body effort. That descension angle is travelled in reverse as your prime movers get the bar up.
Repeat this process until your soul is at ease and rack the weight after your final lockout by ensuring the bar is over the rack following a slight vertical shoulder flexion.
Note: everyone’s bench will differ visually. Total arm length, torso length, leg length, forearm length, upper arm length, shoulder width, etc.. What works for one may not exactly bring the most benefit to another. Experiment.
How To Do A Bodybuilding Bench Press
Tightly grip the bar like it’s the last golden ticket and you’re Charlie with eyes on the chocolate factory.
Dismount the bar by extending your arms to lockout. And conduct a slight shoulder extension to reach starting position, arms stacked above you.
Wrists should be vertically stacked.. Straight up and down. Bar resting on your palms to absorb and control the force.
Activate more shoulder activity by pulling the bar apart like Hulk Hogan and an a-shirt. Continue to do so throughout the set.
Start descension. Bend at the elbow and ensure not to flare out at the shoulders. The bar comes down at a slight angle, not exactly a perfect line. In a controlled manner, taking about 2-3 seconds generally. Still there are many variations to play with time under tension. This part of the bench activates chest the most. The bar is to make it just below your chest, around the nipple line.
Don’t bounce the weight off your chest. Note: if a picture was taken here your forearms would usually be vertically stacked, but depending on how much emphasis you’re putting on chest or triceps at times they won’t be, yet remember injury potential happens to be lower with vertically stacked forearms. This would be about a 45 degree angle when considering elbow position and body position.
Now it’s time to press. You’ll drive the weight up by violently contracting your pecs, front deltoids, and triceps to explosively move the bar to starting position via horizontal shoulder flexion and elbow extension to just below lockout. That descension angle is travelled in reverse as your prime movers get the bar up.
At this position slightly below lockout, contract your pecs even harder before starting a new rep.
Repeat this process until your soul is at ease and rack the weight after your final rep, you’ll actually lockout. Then ensure the bar is over the rack after a slight vertical shoulder flexion.
Note: for muscle growth you want time under tension along with explosion. Marry the two worlds and you’ll get the most muscle recruitment.
Another note: leg drive isn’t a major key in the hypertrophy-focused bench, however when inching closer to muscle failure some leg involvement can act as a pseudo spotter to get an extra rep or two in.
Top: common leg placement for hypertrophy focus
Bottom: common leg placement for strength focus
How To Breathe While Bench Pressing
Breathing during a bench is pretty similar to most exercises. Eccentrically you take a helping of air in. Concentrically you expend all breath. This creates a rhythm and allows you to do so in a way that assists power and limits thinking.
Top: my hypertrophy arch
Bottom: my strength arch
Note: as a long limb, short torso guy my arch has less range compared to others
Ways To Increase Your Bench Press
Proper execution of the bench press is quite technical, so periodically check back on your hit points. Ensure you didn’t fall asleep at the wheel and started skipping steps:
Bench more often: if your recovery is together and you can do so without neglecting other muscle groups, raise your frequency. You can get benching in up to 3x weekly without seeing a decline in performance. You’ll hit all required benching muscles and continue mastery of the process.
Include more sets: how many bench press sets are in your workout? Try adding more. Increasing your volume adds a load your muscles will have to adapt to, which leads to strength increases. Dependent on your shoulder health and how many total pressing sets you do per week you can usually go up to 8-12 benching sets a workout without hiccups.
Longer rest periods: for strength you want long rest periods to allow your energy systems time to reach full capacity. It’s not uncommon for powerlifters to go 2-10 minutes between sets.
Shorter rest periods: always have long periods of rest, but at a plateau? Try shorter rest periods to mix things up. After a while switch back to more time between sets and your adaptation results will be quite impressive.
Raise your total calories: building muscle is an all encompassing process. If you have excess body fat it’s easier to build muscle & strength while in a calorie deficit, but the less body fat you carry the more difficult this process is. If you have relatively low body fat and want to slather on upper body muscle or have hit a wall with bench press strength try a lean bulk.
Try eating more carbs: are you consistently refilling your glycogen stores? Carbs are the fuel to one of your anaerobic energy systems: glycolysis. Carb up.
Double check your protein intake: studies of high performance athletes have garnished good results with 1-1.8 grams of protein per pound a day for muscle building and quality output.
Use creatine: creatine is another anaerobic energy system, supplementation would help.
Grab some Zs: part of great performance is having your battery recharged more often than not. Get your 7-9 hours of sleep depending on what works for you, maybe even add a nap.
Recover from training: overtraining can limit progress just like under training. Ensure your ability to recover matches your workload. You no want central nervous system problems 🙅♂️.
Change it up: incline, decline, dumbbell, cable, hammer, machine, unilateral.. You don’t always have to flat barbell bench to improve your flat barbell bench. Don’t shy away from working those muscles in varying ways.
Change it up part two: maybe a different width would work better for you. Most improve their strength with a 45 degree angle descent with vertical forearms, however there are some that excel with a wider grip.
Prioritize benching: early in a workout, and even in the week.. You have the most energy. While you’re fresh put that vitality into benching. If you hit your first priority while you have the most energy you’ll get more results.
Enhance your core strength: stability is half of the bench press battle. Work your entire core, it’ll help boost your bench.
Improve back strength too: like core your upper back and lats assist in stabilization, so getting in your share of weekly back work will assist in your ability to activate and anchor yourself with these assistant muscles.
Practice leg drive: bench press is mostly an upper body venture, but you can add to your max just by having a good leg drive. Practice using the force your legs, hips, and glutes produce to bench more weight.
Trouble locking out: triceps are the issue. Try close grip benching, tricep dips, tricep extensions, diamond push ups, floor presses, and board presses. Those are a few solid tricep-focused exercises to help get past a top-half sticking point.
Trouble in the middle: front delts usually need attention. The higher the incline on your bench the more front delts start to nudge in, because you get closer and closer to a military press. Some front delt focused exercises are military press, Arnold press, front raise, isometric holds at the midpoint of a bench press, and any above 45 degree incline bench press.
Trouble at the bottom: probably chest weakness. Your pecs mostly do work on the bottom end of a bench press. Try incline benching, dumbbell benching, hammer chest press, decline bench press, isometric holds at the bottom of a bench press, bottom half reps, Spoto press, chest flys, and even chest raises. It’s worth mentioning that the most overall pec activation occurs at a 45 degree incline when it comes to bench press variation.
Note: number one element of all muscle growth and strength improvement is progressive overload. Keep forcing your body to upgrade.
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So, It’s About That Time
Benching is an above average way to build upper body muscle and burn calories. Pecs, triceps, and front shoulders will all see improvement by utilizing the bench. I suggest including it no matter who you are. Growth and strength takes time. Growth and strength takes consistency. Growth and strength takes protein, recovery, and adequate training. Use these keys & put those muscles to use to Be Great.