Keys For Building Your Bench Press
How much you bench, bro? Ignore the gym idiots who want to tell you all about how much they benched in high school before they hurt their shoulder. Here are some rapid-fire tips to help you increase your bench press and stay healthy doing it.
Bench More to Bench More
Once per week benching on chest day isn’t going to cut it. I suggest a MINIMUM of twice per week benching if you’ve got any experience at all in the gym. I’ve had the most personal success benching 4 times per week. You won’t need that at first, but you can build up to it over time if benching is a priority for you.
If you’re only benching twice per week, keep your volume the same but split it over 2 days. For example, 4x10 on Monday becomes 2x10 on Monday and 2x10 on Thursday. Then you can gradually add weight and/or sets to each day. Pretty soon you’ll double or triple your volume without even really trying.
There’s an upper limit to how much frequency and volume each individual can handle at any given time. It’ll take a LOT of trial and error to figure that out for yourself. If something isn’t working, make ONE small change and give it a few weeks. If you start making progress, great! If not, make another small change.
Don’t Max Out Often
As I’ve said over and over in other posts, you shouldn’t regularly be training to failure. Ditch the burn-out and rest-pause sets. Leave your ego at the door and use a weight that actually makes sense. There are other plates besides 45’s and 25’s and they’re there for a reason.
I suggest leaving at least a rep or two in the tank on every set. You’ll stay healthier, recover better, and be able to train more.
Use Volume to Get Stronger
Most of your time shouldn’t be spent doing heavy sets of 1-3. Those are great for maximal strength phases, but you need a foundation of work capacity and muscle mass to get the most out of that type of training. I can almost guarantee that gaining muscle will send your bench through the roof, and doing 1-2 heavy sets isn’t the best way to stimulate growth. Your bread and butter should be in the 5-12 rep range, occasionally venturing lower or higher. Fewer reps, more sets. 5-8x5 and 4x12 are your friends.
Use Variations
The closer a variation resembles the competition bench press, the more carryover you’ll get, but that doesn’t mean you should just use a paused bench press every time you train. If you’re benching twice per week, keep your variations simple. One day, vary your grip or range of motion, or add chains. Rotate variations every 3-6 weeks. Possible variations are endless. If you’re benching 3 or more times per week, your variations could branch out and include different bars, inclines, or tempos, in addition to the other options I mentioned. Try lots of things and see what works for you. Generally, if you’re benching 3 times per week, I like using the competition bench press, a variation that targets the bottom of the range of motion (long pause, pin, 1 board, etc) and a variation that targets the top end (bands, chains, 3 board, slingshot, etc). You can get more creative if you have addition bench press exercises to do.
Here’s a sample schedule for a 3x per week bencher
Day 1 – Competition Bench Press, 5x5
Day 2 – 3 count Pause Bench Press, 4x8
Day 3 – Slingshot Bench Press, 4x6
If you’re looking for a fitness trainer in the Mt Juliet/Hermitage/Nashville TN area, online fitness training, or just need some advice to get your fitness program started, contact me