Improve Fitness

The flat barbell bench press…the king of the chest exercises and the lift that everyone wants to know how much you can do when they find out you train. So you want to get your numbers moving in the right direction again? These 5 quick tips will make a difference in your strength and boost your bench press FAST.

1. Work your Rotator Cuff muscles

Yes, this is completely unglamorous but it has the potential to add 20 to 30 pounds to your bench press in a matter of weeks. The reason? The Rotator Cuff muscles are the four small muscles that stabilize the humerus (your upper arm bone) in the shoulder socket. Most people rarely, if EVER, work the Rotator Cuff but a couple of sets at the end of each workout can really make a HUGE difference in your bench press by helping to stabilize the shoulder joint.

2. Get your grip-width right

Where you grip the bar can make or break your bench press before you even do a single rep. If you grip the bar in too close, you’re putting more stress on the triceps, which limits your pushing power and increases the distance you have to press the bar. If you grip the bar too wide, you do decrease the distance the bar travels but you put excessive stress on the shoulder joints.

So what is the best spot to grip the bar? This is best found with no weight on the bar at all and with somebody keeping an eye on your form. Lie down and take the bar off the rack and lower the bar to your chest. Have your spotter eyeball your forearms. At the bottom of the press, your forearms should be perfectly vertical. THAT will give you the greatest pressing power as you won’t lose any power inside or outside.

It’s the same concept as throwing a punch - if the bones of the arm aren’t lined up properly when it connects, you lose a lot of power at impact.

3. Learn how to breathe

When you’re doing a heavy press, trunk stabilization is much more important than when you’re doing lighter, higher-rep training. You need a solid base to push off of to really push your maximum weight.

When doing a heavy lift for only a few reps, breathe in deeply on the way down, inflating your chest as much as possible (this has the dual effect of increasing the stability of your trunk AND decreasing the distance the bar must travel, which is a bonus!). But as you push the bar off your chest don’t blow out all your air right away in one big blow. That will destabilize the chest and weaken the base of support you’re pressing from.

Think of it this way…it would be like trying to do a dumbell press on the Swiss Ball as somebody is letting the air out of it FAST!

So as you start to press the weight, blow your air out through pursed lips. Basically, imagine as though you’re blowing up a really big balloon. You want to keep your breathing muscles in your rib cage absolutely solid as they very slowly force the air out. This keeps your trunk solid and stabilized as you press, which is critical. The moment you lose that stability in the torso, you lose the lift.

4. Don’t forget to press with your legs, too

Leg drive is VERY important to maximizing your bench press strength on maximum lifts. When you set your feet for bench pressing, don’t just set them anywhere and let it happen on it’s own. Set your feet solidly on the ground and bend your knees a little past 90 degrees.

Here is why…when you’re at the bottom of the bench press movement, driving with the legs can help you get the bar moving. You can demonstrate this to yourself by lying on the flat bench and setting your feet on the ground. Now think of how you’d need to set your feet if you wanted to use your feet/legs to slide yourself up the bench. THAT is what you do when you drive with your legs - you try and use your legs to pretty much slide yourself up the bench. But because the weight is holding you down, that force goes to helping push the weight up.

This leg drive is used at the bottom of the press to get the weight moving and makes a HUGE difference with getting big weights moving.

5. Get those shoulder blades squeezed together

This goes back to trunk stability. If you’re not consciously and religiously squeezing your shoulder blades together when you set yourself up on the bench press, you’re instantly putting yourself at a disadvantage.

To do this, lie down on the bench and grip the bar. Lift your body up off the bench then try and touch your shoulder blades together behind your back. Get them tucked in as tight as you can. When you set yourself back down, you’ll find you’re not only more stable on the bench but your shoulders are in a stronger pressing position AND your torso is actually a little thicker (which means shorter range of motion)!

Conclusion:

If you want to maximize your bench press, put these tips to work. You’ll starting noticing a very big difference in how much weight you can lift almost immediately AND in the long-term!