Increase your Bench Press

The bench press, a lift that determines your manhood (or woman hood). People seem so fixated on this exercise to determine how strong one is, when there are other lifts that would give a more accurate reading on how strong an individual was. However, as there continues to be an obsession with the bench press individuals always want to max their bench. Follow this tips and I assure you that you will get to your genetic potential. In the first text post I will talk of ways to increase your max bench right now, by using better form. In the second text post I will talk about how you can increase your max bench over time.

      The following tips will help immediately increase your max bench press.

Breathe!

     Your muscles need oxygen, and lots of it, so do not hold your breath. When you are lowering the weight breath in and when you are pressing the weight breath out. Make sure you take a deep breathe on the way down.

Tighten your core

     Pull your pull button towards your spine using your abdominal muscles, this will tighten your core giving you a firm base to bench press from.

Legs

    Have your legs firmly planted on the floor at all times, this will stabilize you and give you a better base to press from.

Squeeze your shoulder blades together

     Retract your shoulders, and try to visualize squeezing a pop can in between your shoulder blades, then pick up the weight and bench press it (Keeping your shoulder blades retracted). This again will give you more stability, but it will also decrease the range of motion the bar has to travel.

Heavy Negatives:

For this you will need to have a spotter and to know your one rep max. Begin by putting your one rep max weight onto the bench press. You should be able to do this one time and this is when the spotter comes in, have him help you lift the next rep up. And focus on bringing the weight down slow and controlled. The idea is to focus on working the muscle during the eccentric (lowering of the weight) instead of the normal concentric (pressing the weight) phase of the movement. This will shock your muscles because you will not be used to challenging your muscles during the eccentric movement phase. Try this for five reps of four sets.

Stretching:

Try stretching out your chest post workout. This will cause the micro tears to become a little larger resulting in more growth. It will also keep you flexible and help you avoid injury.

Supporting Muscles:

In a compound lift like the bench press, many muscles have to work together to lift the weight. In the bench press the major supporting muscles are the front of the shoulders (anterior deltoids), triceps, and your core. Focus on strengthening all of these muscles.

Eat Right:

If you are stuck try to increase your caloric intake by 100-200 calories and monitor your gains. You could also try eating 10-20 grams more protein on days that you do workout.

Overtraining:

This is so common, especially for chest. Some people on chest days do an hour and a half of constant chest exercises this could cause over training. More is not always better, try and shorten the amount of time spent on chest.

Shock your body:

Don't always do the same chest exercise, mix it up every workout. If you did flat barbell, incline barbell, and decline barbell last chest workout try decline dumbbell, flies, and dips.

Change your sets

If you have been doing low sets and high reps try switching this for high sets and low reps. This will promote strength gains.