Weight Training
• Introduction To Weight Training
• How to Put on Muscle
• The Weight Training Diet
• Example Weight Training Diet
• Weight Training Exercises
• Working Out at Home
• Weight Training Myths
• Vitamins and Supplements
• Protein Supplements
• Progressive Overload
• Best Foods To Build Muscle
• Alcohol and Weightlifting
• Build Muscle and Burn Fat
• How Often Should I Workout?
• Overtraining
• Pre Workout Meal
• Post Workout Meal
• Weight Training Plateaus
• Clean Bulking
• Dirty Bulking
• Pull ups and Chin Ups
• How to Increase Your Bench
• What to Eat Before Bed
• How to Build Muscle
• Losing Muscle From Time Off?
Weight Loss
• Starting A Diet
• How To Lose Weight
• The Basics Of Weight Loss
• Common Weight Loss Myths
• Losing Weight Quickly
• How to Control Hunger
• Im Not Losing Weight?
• How to Lose Stomach Fat
• How to Stop Food Cravings
• How to Get a Six Pack
• What is a Keto Diet
Cardio Training
• What Is Cardio
• Different Types Of cardio
• The Best Type Of Cardio
• The Maximum Heart Rate
• Fitness Equipment
• Fitness Accessories
• The Elliptical Machine
• Benefits Of Jumping Rope
• HIIT Cardio Training
• Best Time to do Cardio
Additional Help
• More Useful Resources
• Contact Us

How to increase your bench press - Tips and help on how to increase your bench press

Learning how to increase your bench press can be extremely frustrating especially if you’re currently stuck in a plateau. To learn how to overcome a weight training plateau click here. More importantly however, stay with this article if you’re currently experiencing a bench press plateau or are just looking to increase your bench. There will always come a time in your training where you reach a bench press plateau or just cant seem to increase your bench press weight. This happens to everyone so do not panic. In this article we will look at what prevents you from increasing your bench press and how you can break a bench press plateau by using a number of simple techniques.

Before I give you any additional tips and help on how to increase your bench press, you should first take a step back and analyse your current routine. Make sure there are no flaws in your routine that may be holding you back from increasing your bench press. If there are get them fixed and you’ll be increasing your bench press in no time. Let’s take a quick look at a few things that may be preventing you from increasing your bench.

A Bad Diet

First things first, check your diet. Ensure you are getting in enough calories (over maintenance) in order for you to build muscle and make sure these calories are coming from good clean sources such as lean meats, complex carbs and healthy fats. There is no way you can expect to increase your bench press if your diet is not intact. Who do you think will have a better chance of increasing their bench press, the guy who sits around and eats pizza and burgers for his main source of calories each day or the guy who is eating clean and including as much lean meats (protein), complex carbs and healthy fats as his diet will allow? Exactly, the choice is clear. Some people’s diets may not be as severe as the guy slacking off eating pizza and burgers in his diet but more similar to incorporating a couple of cheat meals into their diets each day. Try and remove as many cheats from your diet as possible and replace them with proper foods that are going to actually benefit your body and help you increase your bench press such as chicken breasts, turkey, steak and brown rice.

A lack of protein

Increasing your bench press and many other lifts in fact can rely a great deal upon your protein intake. By now you should all know the importance of protein in a bodybuilder’s diet and if not let me give you a quick overview. Protein is responsible for the growth and repair of your muscles. When we tear our muscles down during an intense weight lifting session, additional protein is required to help repair muscle tissue and rebuild it. Without adequate amounts, your body can not build muscle. If you’re not repairing and building muscle there’s no way you will be increasing your bench press so insure protein intake is around 1g+ per pound of bodyweight. This means that if you weigh 160 pounds you should be getting at least 160 grams of protein in a day.

Overtraining

Another important point to a look at is whether or not you are overtraining. Overtraining certainly will not help you in your quest to increase your bench press. If your chest muscles and any other muscles involved in the lift such as your shoulders and triceps are not fully recovered from your previous workouts the chances are that you are not going to be able to increase your bench and push more weight. In my opinion you should be hitting your chest hard once a week just like any other muscle unless you are a more experienced lifter and have the ability to recover between sessions and hit the same muscle group again during the same week. Most don’t have the ability to do this so keep it simple and you will gradually increase your bench press overtime. Another important point to make while on the subject of overtraining is not to train your tricep or shoulder muscles the day before your chest routine. Your triceps and shoulders are not going to fully recover in 24 hours and will therefore hamper your bench pressing ability the following day. The triceps and shoulders play a major role in bench pressing so ensure they are fresh and fully recovered before benching.

More tips on how to increase your bench press

Ok, so you’ve now got your diet sorted, taking in enough protein each day and are not overtraining. Still having problems increasing your bench press? If so continue reading. I will now give you some more workout related tips on how to increase your bench press.

Switch up your routine to increase your bench press

If you’ve been sticking with the same chest workout for a while, now’s the time to switch it up and change it. Change the order in which you do certain exercises, take out one chest exercise and replace it with another and try and focus on steadily increasing the weight you lift on this exercise like you did the previous one. Shocking the body into growth is a very useful technique especially when you seem to be stalling on a number of your lifts as of late.

Use Dumbbells to increase your bench press

When your bench press stalls one of the most effective ways of breaking out of a bench press plateau is by switching to dumbbells. Dumbbells are an excellent way to even out your strength gains as one side of your chest may be stronger than the other. The same can go for your triceps. If one side is stronger than the other and believe me it more than likely is, dumbbells can help share the load. When lifting with dumbbells as soon as one side cannot lift anymore you should stop. This will help the weak side catch up and can give you more lifting balance when benching e.g. one side won’t be coming up while the other is getting stuck halfway. Dumbbells are also a lot harder than barbells forcing your muscles and stabilizing muscles to adapt and become stronger. This in turn will help increase your bench press making things feel easier when you switch back to using a barbell. Another good thing about using dumbbells to increase your bench press is that you can go to complete failure on each set without worrying about a 200 pound bar falling on top of you. Once you can’t lift any more you can simply drop the dumbbells on to the floor. Unfortunately with a barbell you don’t have this option.

Perform the exercise first to increase your bench press

Make sure you are performing the bench press exercise first in your chest routine. The reason I say this is because when you first start a workout your muscles are fresh and ready to lift heavy. Once you perform a few sets, possibly lifting to failure, your muscles are no longer fresh and are partly torn down. This means less weight is lifted on other exercises. However, maximum effort can always be given to the first exercise of your workout and this should therefore be the bench press. Big compound exercises always need to be performed first in your workouts and the bench press is no exception.

Do push-ups to increase your bench press

This may sound like a strange one but push-ups/press-ups really can help increase your bench press. When you go to do your next chest workout completely cut out the bench press and swap it with push-ups. So, if you start your routine off with 3 sets of heavy flat barbell bench scrap that and start it off with 3 sets of push-ups. The first time you do this it may be a good idea to go to complete failure on all 3 sets just to see how many you can do. Keep a note of this in your training journal or workout log and then each week start adding weight to your push-ups. Use a back pack to place a 10 or 20 pound plate onto your back and rep out 3 sets of 10. You will soon see the effects that push-ups can have on increasing your bench press. Aim on increasing the weight by 5 pounds each week so if you rep out 3 sets of 10 with a 10 pound plate, use a 15 pound plate the following week and aim for another 3 sets of 10. I would give this routine 6-8 weeks before switching back to performing the bench press. If you’ve been making progress on the weighted push-ups over these 6-8 weeks, there is no doubt that you would have also made progress on your bench and will have increased your bench press.

Work on your triceps to increase your bench press

Triceps play a major role when benching and should therefore be strengthened if you ever wish to increase your bench press to a respectable number. If your triceps fail you during the bench press, it’s usually at the point where you have lifted the bar up above your chest but get stuck halfway. Obviously this will always happen during the bench press but if you have hit a plateau and the same thing keeps happening, you need to take a look at your diet and strengthen your triceps. The triceps will usually wear out before your chest does so strengthening your triceps ensures your chest muscles are worked as much as possible.

Perform forced reps to increase your bench press

One last way of increasing your bench press can be to perform forced reps. Forced reps are exactly what they sound like and that is forced repetitions. You will need a spotter to perform these so make sure you have one nearby. Once you reach failure on the bench press, get your spotter to assist you in pushing out a few more reps. You should be applying maximum effort to the lift but once the spotter see’s that you can no longer lift the bar any further he will give you a slight helping hand by lifting the bar slowly while you continue to push. Forced reps are extremely taxing on the body and may help shock your muscles into growth.

That’s everything I have for you right now in order to help increase your bench press so get lifting and start adding weight to your bench press. The tips provided here should give you everything you need to know about adding pounds to your bench press so good luck and if you need any more help and advice feel free to Contact Me.

Search for more great content below!