Increase Bench Press

Hello and welcome. We aim to help you increase your bench press fast using some simple and basic techniques. This article (along with the free eBook and cool vids) will go over a few essentials on how to increase bench press strength.

These tips are taken from The Critical Bench System.

Critical Bench is step-by-step system that guides you through the process of how to increase your bench press fast. Check out the right-hand sidebar to get a free copy of a Critical Bench eBook.

OK, so in this article the 3 essential techniques to increase bench press strength will be the warm-up, working the assistance muscles, and proper breathing techniques.

Warm Up

The warm-up plays an essential part in how you perform on your bench press. But the warm-up is actually one of the most neglected parts of workout sessions.

Have you ever been at the gym at had this horrible aching feeling in your arms and feel stiff and un-flexible? This is likely to be down to the lack of a warm-up.

After a good warm-up you will have the blood flowing through your body, your muscles will feel warmer and will have more oxygen and you will fill more pumped and ready to go. There will be less pain and aching feelings and your bench press is likely to improve as a result.

A warm-up, however, needs to be more than just a few minutes on the treadmill or a few stretches.

The best way to warm-up is by actually doing the bench press! But gradually build your way up to your first working set.

So if you aim to start your first working set at 200lbs, then first try doing the bench press with no weight on the bar at all. But do it slowly to make sure that you are working the muscles well.

Then put say, 40lbs on the bar and do 8 reps, and then put 100lbs on the bar and do 6 reps – all slowly. After these practice sets you should have warmed up the chest and arm muscles and be in better shape to take on your bench press set.

Work Assistance Muscles

It takes more than just strong pecs to lift heavy weights on the bench. The triceps, deltoids and lats all play a major part in the bench press.

So to increase your bench press you should work on building up each of these muscles separately.

Especially the triceps. I am sure a lot of people can relate to situations where their triceps reach failure before the chest during the bench press? To avoid this, the triceps need to be developed more.

Heavy tricep extensions and close-grip bench presses are the best exercises to develop the tricep muscles. Military presses and front arm dumbbell raises will improve the delts, and focus on barbell and dumbbell rows for the lats.

Breath Control

Breath control is a important part of increasing bench press strength, but many people neglect the importance of breathing.

The optimum way to breath when doing a bench press is to do a big, deep inhale before you do your first rep. Continue to hold you breath until the bar is all the way up. Then you can exhale and do another big inhale of air before you start the next rep.

Breathing is more than just a mental thing (although it does help you mentally feel more powerful and confident about each rep), it ensures that you have maximum abdominal pressure that will help you get to the top part of each rep.

Speed Of Reps

The speed you do your bench press will depend on your goals. If you aim is to build bigger muscles then it is important to do a very slow negative phase of the rep as you lower the bar.

If you want to increase your bench press strength then it is best to do a quicker negative phase. This will still be a steady and controlled lowering of the weight, but at a faster pace than you would do if you were training purely for size.

So for muscle size you may do a 4-5 second negative, but for strength a 1-2 second negative.

Increase Bench Press Summary

 Focus on these 3 techniques and you should see some improvement in you bench press strength. There are many different methods to use to increase bench press fast, but there is a lot to think about so concentrate on changing one thing at a time to keep things simple and to help you stay motivated.

Other techniques to increase bench press fast include using proper form, angles of lifting, the number of sets and reps, the use of 1-rep sets, and enhanced mental power.

We did not want to confuse you by discussing all these things in one go! For more details on these other methods that will show you how to increase your bench press fast, check out the Critical Bench Program.

Assistance exercises can help you to increase your bench press by strengthening your stabilizer muscles that help you left the weight. Barbell inclines are a useful exercise to use, as well as sufficient training of the triceps. It is often the triceps that reach failure before your chest muscles so stronger triceps can make a huge difference to your max bench press strength.

Front raises are a good exercise to do in order to strengthen the front deltoid muscle, which is predominantly used during a bench press. You can do front raises using dumbbells, or even a two handed grip on an Olympic plate.

Reducing the weight that you lift can really help you increase your bench press max in the long run. Lift a weight around 30-50 pounds lighter than you would normally do. Concentrate on good form and still only do 6 or 8 reps as you were doing before. Perform 4-5 sets like this, and gradually increase the weight by 5lbs each week. You will find that you will be much stronger when you do finally get to the stage of your previous bench press max, and then you can easily surpass that weight.

Try increasing the speed of your bench press. The faster you lift the weight, the more weight you will be able to lift. Faster reps works on increasing strength, where as slower reps focuses on muscle size. Make sure you still use good form and a steady pace when doing the faster reps.

Really squeeze the barbell as hard as you can when you do the press. This activates your triceps muscles which are used throughout the exercise.

You can give yourself a solid base off which to perform your bench press if you squeeze your shoulder blades together to tighten your back.

Use your legs. It might seem strange, but the leg muscles are used a lot in the bench press. You should really drive into the bench with your leg muscles. This will help tense your upper back and traps, which are used to create a solid base off which to push off from.

The diet is a good way to help you increase your bench press strength. Eat more protein and follow a bulking-up diet. Try to consume 1 pound of protein per pound of bodyweight. In terms of calories, a good guideline is to take in 18-20 x your bodyweight in pounds. Good sources of protein include lean meat, fish, whey protein and eggs.