Best way to build muscle

Archive for the ‘Bench Press’ Category

The bench press is probably the most popular exercise in the gym. It’s also the one question I get asked the most ‘How much do you bench?’ For some people it’s an ego thing, but in all fairness it is also a very effective exercise for developing a big muscular chest.

The problem is that it gets abused; people often end up doing the same set and rep combination for months and end, three times a week. What this usually results in is very little in the way of size or strength gains. This is something you should realize now about weight lifting in general, you cannot keep doing the same thing week in and week out and expect to keep gaining from it! Your body doesn’t work like that, it will adapt to your training methods and your gains will halt after a while.

Firstly, let’s see what the key components of a good bench press are:

• Strong shoulders
• Strong triceps
• Strong lats
• Strong chest

These are the key muscles that your body uses when bench pressing, and if you’re not training all these properly then you are eventually going to reach a weak point and your bench press numbers will stall.

The first thing you need to do is ensure your training these muscles with good exercises and volume.

Shoulders – Military press; both dumbbell and barbell are great for your shoulders. Upright rows can also target your shoulders with a slightly wider grip. You can also include some front raises for some additional isolation work.

Triceps – I have always been a big fan of close grip bench press and skull crushers and found that they are great for tricep size and strength.  Barbell tricep extensions are also effective and are best done standing. Don’t waste time with things like kickbacks, they are lame and won’t do a great deal for size or strength!

Lats – The lats are often overlooked when it comes to your bench press but they are an important part because a lot of the lift comes from the back. You can train your lats with pull ups (including weighted ones), rows and deadlifts.

Chest – Obviously this is a crucial part to your bench and it’s a good idea to train it with some different exercises. You can do things like incline bench, dumbbell bench and floor presses.

Don’t forget that variation is really important for your bench press. That includes changing your set and rep variations. Drop the traditional three sets of ten and go for something a bit different. Some of my favorites are five by five, eight by three (great for strength) and four by six. You can also look at changing things like your rest times and perhaps even consider doing supersets.

Don’t be scared to miss a couple weeks of actual bench pressing and change it up for dumbbells or even just incline bench. You don’t have to bench press every week to see gains in size and strength in the chest area!