Whatever your goal, the bench press is one of the best exercises when it comes to developing upper body strength.
And if building stronger, bigger pecs is your aim, then the bench press goes down as one of the best chest exercises out there!
If you're new to lifting, understanding the movement basics, and building foundation strength and endurance are crucial before going for any one rep maxes.
However, bench pressing successfully takes a lot more than just putting weights onto a barbell and hoping for the best. It is a complex movement that requires consistency and dedication.
What Is The Bench Press?
The bench press is an exercise designed to primarily target the chest muscles. As the bench press is a compound exercise, it also involves other muscles such as the triceps and shoulders.
In essence, the bench press is a simple and safe exercise. The body is supported by a bench, and the barbell can be lifted off the correctly placed rack for ease, along with safety bars to reduce risk of injury – making it easier to try and fail at, than a dumbbell bench press.
How To Improve Your Bench Press
As one of the main compound exercises in the gym, it's natural to want to push yourself further – whether it's better form to reduce injury risk, or adding more weight for your next powerlifting competition.
Here are five ways you can improve your bench press and start hitting big numbers safely.
Improve Your Form
Check Your Grip
Vary Your Training
Use Your Feet
Practice Makes Progress
Improve your form
Two plates might be your dream, but now is the time to stay humble.
First things first, without a doubt the most important part of any exercise is ensuring that your form is correct. Not only will this ensure that you are getting the most from the exercise, but it also means that you’re a lot less likely to get injured.
Novice or expert, stripping back the weight and focussing on a full range of movement is a great way to focus on your technique. Slow eccentrics and explosive concentric through the full movement pattern will build a strong mind-muscle connection, ready for your heavy sets.
The bench press might seem simple, but there are a lot of different things to think about before un-racking the bar. Where are your feet? What about your grip?
It's important to remember, If you’re totally new to the bench press, or any exercise for that matter, don’t be scared to ask for help! Any personal trainer will be more than happy to help, and once you have the form perfected, you can start to make progress with your bench press.
Check your grip
Ever feel like some days your hands on the bar are too wide, other days too narrow?
Finding a consistent position for your hands to be placed will help develop technique and progression.
When lowering the bar to just above your chest, your knuckles, wrist, forearm and elbow should all be in line, pointing upwards to the ceiling. This way the bar is best supported and the energy created from your pectoral muscles and triceps can be transferred through to extend the arm in the most efficient range of motion.
Using the knurling, or marks on the bar can help keep your grip consistent session after session.
Another little tip is to think about twisting your little fingers inwards when performing the bench press, this will help prevent your elbows from flaring out when lifting heavier weight.
Vary your training
There are lots of training methods you can apply to the bench press, helping beat plateaus and continue developing your strength.
It's also important to rotate the exercises within your program, as each variation can help develop weaknesses that may contribute to improved strength and form when you re-visit the bench press.
For example, utilizing shoulder exercises and tricep exercises to improve strength may help contribute to a stronger bench press.
You can also explore different training methods to boost strength and force adaptation, these include:
German Volume Training
Stronglifts 5x5
Pyramid Training
Use Your Feet
No, not on the bar – we know it's a chest exercise.
But you do need to be stable, and utilizing the connection of your feet on the floor can help improve stability and transfer strength – as you keep your core tight and push your feet into the ground.
This will allow your body to stay engaged and stable, controlling the movement whilst you're holding some serious weight above your head!
Next time you set up on the bench press, begin with focussing on your foot placement and engaging your core – it makes a huge difference, trust us!
Practice makes progress
If you’re struggling with your bench press, the chances are you want to avoid it at quite literally all costs.
However, it's no secret that hitting the bench press head-on is your best way to make progress.
Perfecting the form and technique required for a successful bench press is not easy but practicing the exercise consistently and safely is a surefire way to begin seeing improvements.
Now, as we said at the start, stay humble in your quest for a better bench press, and seek guidance and instruction from a qualified professional who can provide valuable feedback on your technique.
