Most people spend all their energy on building their chests. If you want to become stronger, start paying more attention to the other muscles involved.
Some things never change. Sundays will always be better with football, repeat game of Thrones episodes and the usual the bench press will always be an exercise that most bros desperately want to improve the most.
Maybe pressing strength is slower to increase than the other big exercises like rows, squats and deadlifts. Or maybe it’s an expression of some common trait found in most gym facilities. Whatever the reason, the bench is so popular that it’s become cliché to ask, “What’s your bench?”
While many bros spend most of their days pressing away, hoping to get stronger, it’s often the non-bench exercises that make the biggest difference in your strength gains.
If you really want to see better results and have a more impressive number to brag about, start emphasizing these workouts you have been ignoring. They may seem unrelated, but they could be the key to your next big bench breakthrough.
Build Your Back
The bench press has two main components:
- lowering the weight to your chest,
- pressing the weight back to the starting position.
When you lower the weight, your chest is not the centre of support. The muscles in your back are the ones supporting this part of the movement. That’s why during the down stroke you want to squeeze your shoulder blades together and keep them locked and tight to create as much tension as possible. Additionally, this technique helps you to build a bigger and stronger back.
Your body responds best to balance. Ensure that you work your antagonist muscles (your back) to make strength gains.
A bigger back provides more stability when you lower and press the weight. The more stability and support you have, the more you can bench.
While many back exercises will help to improve your overall strength, it’s important to train in the same way as the bench press. More specifically, bent-over rows with dumbbells and barbells, and chest-supported rows offer the most bench-boosting bang for your back.
Stretch More
This will come to some people as a surprise to some, but performing a few stretches can boost your bench. Forget all the arguments about whether static stretching is good or bad. It’s more about working on the weak links in your pressing motion.
Your muscles should be-be able to move completely for optimal growth. If your muscles are inflexible and get locked up, it will limit your bench. The two areas are the actual specifics that hold most people back and hips.
To increase your bench max, not only should you add thickness to your back, but you also need to stretch your lats.
Tight lats can mean that your shoulders won’t work right. And if your shoulders aren’t working, your bench is at risk. Here are two movements that can help your back mobility.
Pec Stretch
Loop a resistance band around a stationary object over your head and grab both ends with one hand.
- Your
arm should be at about a 45-degree angle.
- Step out and away from the band so there is tension with a straight arm.
- Push your chest up and out and slowly turn your body away from your hand.
- You should feel a stretch across your pec and into your front deltoid (front of your shoulder).
- Hold the stretch for about 30 seconds. Repeat on the other side.
Lat Stretch
- Use the same band setup as the Pec Stretch, but this time face the band.
- Grab it with one hand, step back away from the band, and with a straight arm and neutral spine, pull your hips away and lower your chest toward the floor.
- You should feel a stretch from your triceps through your armpit to your lats.
- Hold for 30 seconds each arm.
Creating full-body tension is essential for a good bench press.
Your feet should be locked down and pressed forcefully into the ground to create more extension and stability. If you’re one of those bros who places his feet on top of the bench or up in the air, you’re blowing the lift.
In case of discomfort or a lack of tension in your body when your feet are on the ground, your hip mobility may be the problem. Tight hip flexors prevent hyperextension, which is part of the proper bench press technique. Use this hip flexor stretch to help fix the problem.
Hip Flexor Stretch
- Kneel
down on your left knee with your right foot on the floor and your right knee
bent 90 degrees.
- Reach up with your right hand as high as you can.
- Bend your torso to your right.
- Rotate your torso to the right as you reach with your right hand as far behind you as you can.
- Hold this position for 30 seconds.
- Kneel on your right knee, switch arms and repeat.
Add to Your Arms
In addition, having a strong chest, bros love strong and massive arms that fill out their shirt sleeves. Strong triceps are important to ensure that you press more weight. The muscles in the back of your arms are doing most of the work in the latter phase of a bench press rep when you’re trying to “lock it out.”
It’s for this reason that any good bench prep routine should have heavy extensions, dips and close-grip presses on an incline press.
If you want to fry your triceps in a way that will improve your bench, try the “JM Press”.
The JM Press
- Position yourself on a flat bench and grab a barbell with a narrow grip.
- Lower the bar in a straight line down toward the upper part up to your chest, just below your neck.
- Rock the weight back by pushing your elbows up and above your chest. The weight should be in front of your face as if you were doing a lying triceps extension (a.k.a Skullcrusher).
- DO NOT go too heavy with this lift.
- Perform a Triceps Extension back to the starting position and repeat.
At first, the movement may feel somehow awkward. Think of it as a close-grip bench press/triceps extension hybrid, and you’ll see improvement from your triceps and, eventually, in your bench performance