The bench press is by far the most popular exercise for anyone who lifts weights. Why? Well, it’s mostly to boost their own ego. Having a big chest looks good and gives you a lot of confidence. It’s also nice having people asking you all the time how much you can bench and being able to tell them you can bench 400 (or whatever). Weight lifters are always trying to improve their bench press but many go about it the wrong way. So how do you improve your bench press? Here are 5 tips, in no particular order…
1) Don’t Overtrain
If you want to improve your bench press then you have to make sure you are not overtraining. If you are benching every time you are in the weight room then you are doing it too much. You only need to do bench press once per week. If you are benching all the time and not seeing any gains then try cutting back and see what happens. Your muscles need time to rest and recover. They can’t do that if you are constantly tearing them apart.
Your chest is not the only thing you should be focusing on in order to improve your bench press. You should be working on your entire body with a special emphasis on your triceps, lats, and delts because these muscle groups play a huge role in bench pressing.
3) Have a Lifting Partner
Having someone there to spot you while you are bench pressing will help for a few reasons. The most important one is safety. Let’s just say it’s not fun having hundreds of pounds fall onto your chest and a spotter will stop that from happening. But a lifting partner can also help improve your bench by giving you encouragement and pushing you harder during your lift as well as providing someone to prove yourself to. You will also have the added confidence knowing someone is there to help you if you fail, so you will tend to push yourself harder.
4) Go Heavy
If you are trying to get stronger and improve your bench press you should not be able to get more than five reps of the weight you are using. However, you should also be able to actually do the weight close to five times each set so you are getting some reps in. Go as heavy as you can while still being able to get a few reps in each set.
5) Take Supplements
Weight lifting supplements such as creatine and whey protein can help you improve your bench press tremendously. They will help with strength, recovery, stamina, explosiveness, and other things that will allow you to bench more.
There you go, five tips to help improve your bench press. If you want to be able to brag to your friends about how much you can bench start with the above tips and you will improve your bench press very soon.
