Exercises to increase bench press?

[Bruffy]

From your experience, what are the top exercises that helped increase your bench press lifts?

[Vet]

From your experience, what are the top exercises that helped increase your bench press lifts?

in a shirt or RAW?

[Bruffy]

RAW.

[Vet]

RAW.

Gain weight and your bench will go up.

Perfect your form for you body and your bench will go up. 

Exercise wise:  Flat bench presses, 2 board and 1 board presses, illegally wide bench presses, dumbell presses, decline presses (with a slight angle of 15-30 degrees, none of this 65 degree angle 5 25's stacked under the foot ofthe bench shit you see in some gyms).     


Also remember a flat bench raw isn't just a pectoral exercise, its a deltoid and triceps exercise.  work your triceps hard---JM presses, skull crushers, dumbell extensions of all types, "wide" close grip bench presses if your shoulders will allow them.  +/- presses for the anterior delts.   For me personally, if I do alot of military pressing, my flat bench will stagnate.   If I avoid heavy military presses, my flat bench stays strong.   I've had shoulder injuries in the past, so that may be a big factor with it with me. 

Also don't forget working the lats. 

[thewickedtruth]

Gain weight and your bench will go up.

Perfect your form for you body and your bench will go up. 

Exercise wise:  Flat bench presses, 2 board and 1 board presses, illegally wide bench presses, dumbell presses, decline presses (with a slight angle of 15-30 degrees, none of this 65 degree angle 5 25's stacked under the foot ofthe bench shit you see in some gyms).     


Also remember a flat bench raw isn't just a pectoral exercise, its a deltoid and triceps exercise.  work your triceps hard---JM presses, skull crushers, dumbell extensions of all types, "wide" close grip bench presses if your shoulders will allow them.  +/- presses for the anterior delts.   For me personally, if I do alot of military pressing, my flat bench will stagnate.   If I avoid heavy military presses, my flat bench stays strong.   I've had shoulder injuries in the past, so that may be a big factor with it with me. 

Also don't forget working the lats. 

saved me the trouble..best advice I've heard to date on ways to increase your bench! When you increase your accessory movements and bring up your lats, delts, tri's, etc. up your bench will go! Learn what your groove is and learn to stay IN IT!

learn how to use leg drive...push your toes into the floor and drive them into the ground when you go to press upwards!

arch up a little..the more arch you have the less distance the bar has to travel and less you've got to work

speed is key! But controlled speed is what you're after..the faster you bring the bar down the less work (think negatives) you have to do...and the faster you move the bar up and harder you press the more force you generate making the lift..again..easier..

force=massxacceleration!! the faster you perform the lift the easier it will be..but go as fast as you can while MAINTAINING control!

Vet's advice was perfect...

[Bruffy]

Vet,
Right now I'm at 200lbs. with a max bench press of 320 lbs. and don't want to gain any weight.  Of the exercises you listed, are they in the 3-6 rep range with heavy poundages or 6-10 rep range with moderate poundages?  Strange, I use to do military press as well and ended up hitting a brick wall on my flat bench as well.  

[thewickedtruth]

Vet,
Right now I'm at 200lbs. with a max bench press of 320 lbs. and don't want to gain any weight.  Of the exercises you listed, are they in the 3-6 rep range with heavy poundages or 6-10 rep range with moderate poundages?  Strange, I use to do military press as well and ended up hitting a brick wall on my flat bench as well.  

your gains will be made in the 1-4 rep range. 90% or heavier work will do you the most good! the more muscle fibers you recruit per rep the stronger you'll get..

doing 90% work has put me back to benching in the low 420's after working with 370 for a hard single and brought my inclines up to 345 for an easy single after alot of doubles..so probably aroudn 350-360 on the incline doing EXACTLY what vet told you do to adn then some...

320 at 200..nice work bro!

[Bruffy]

Thanks vet and thewickedtruth for your help.  My goal by year end is to be 200lbs and bench a 1 rep max of 400.  That's about a 10lb gain each month.  I don't think that's an impossible goal, I just need to focus on each 10lb/month.  I'll implement the rep range of 1-4 instead of my current program of 6-9 for most of the exercises and see how it works. 

[Geo]

From your experience, what are the top exercises that helped increase your bench press lifts?

go to youtube and type in "bench press setup"

pretty helpful stuff

[Vet]

Vet,
Right now I'm at 200lbs. with a max bench press of 320 lbs. and don't want to gain any weight.  Of the exercises you listed, are they in the 3-6 rep range with heavy poundages or 6-10 rep range with moderate poundages?  Strange, I use to do military press as well and ended up hitting a brick wall on my flat bench as well.  

First off perfect your form, learn to arch, maximize your stroke, and use your lats.   You can add significant weight by simply learning how to bench correctly for your body. 

Second are you doing a gym "touch and go lift", or a competition RAW bench press?  The reason I ask is I've found touch and go lifting is very different from pausing as in a meet. 

Third, identify your weak point and work that, then reevaluate, and work the weak point.  For most people I watch in the gym its off the chest--I was always weird because I was very, very strong off my chest and would stall about 3/4 of the way up, but had a very strong lockout from ~3/4 to finish.  Since I've been doing more and more shirt work,  noticed I'm getting weaker (relative to the numbers I'm doing for 3 and 4 boards and lockouts) off my chest and stronger in my lockout.   My point is your weaknesses may change as you get stronger, objectively evaluate your weak points and work your ass off to fix them.  Then reevaluate and work your ass off to fix those weak points. 

Finally, I'll be honest, whenever my bench goes up significantly (like a 30 lb increase) over a short period of time--or 10 lbs per month like you are trying to do, my body weight has also gone up.  Getting bigger will help your bench.  There is no denying it. 

[IrishMuscle84]

I heard that hitting your front delts and lats hard can increase your bench

[Bruffy]

Just wanted to say thanks to thewickedtruth and everyone else for all the advice and input regarding this post.  Made a new personal best at 325.lbs 05/31/08.  Want to hit a minimum of 330; but, 335 should be attainable by the end of June.  Here is the breakdown from Saturday's lift:
135 X 10
225 X 8
275 X 3
300 X 1
315 X 1
325 X 1
 

[Stubborn]

Great job! You'll be killing 405 soon enough.

[Bruffy]

Thanks Lift4Size, my goal is to have 400 within year end.

[Sean Katterle]

From your experience, what are the top exercises that helped increase your bench press lifts?

I think that everyone responds differently to different exercises but here's the ones that worked the best for me:

# 1 Board Presses (starting with a weight that's heavier than my current 1RM and then working 5 board, 4 board, 3 board, 2 board, 1 board over the course of 12-16 weeks and then going for it with a full range of motion at the end.) This seems to work really well with strengthening my muscles and with getting my CNS used to the new, heavier weight.

# 2 Bench w/Chains    I use the chains that Sorinex sells (they're different than the EliteFTS style and I set up the chains and bar weight so the weight on my chest is just under the weight I normally use for my full range sets and then the weight at lockout is about 15-25% more than I normally use and then I rep out like normal and this builds my speed and my lockout power.

# 3 Floor Press with and without chains    Really builds up my stabilizers (and balance) and my lockout power.

# 4 Close Grip Benchpress    is the best for front delts and triceps

# 5 (If my shoulders are healthy) I'll bench with a Mac Donald cambered bar and then use a 1 board which makes the bar sink about 1/2" lower than a normal full range bench would and that involves the chest muscles more than normal (got that idea from WSBB's George Halbert back when he was ranked # 1 and writing articles and making videos.)

# 6 I normally didn't spend much time on biceps curls but hammer curls seemed to strengthen the portion of the bicep that was involved with the lowering of the barbell during the bench.

On our website, in the Published Articles section we've got a bunch of magazine interview tear sheets with guys like Joe Mazza, Ryan Kennelly and Vincent Dizenzo so check them out if you're interested (they're free to read and to copy.)

www.HardcorePowerlifting .com



Stay Strong,
Sean Katterle

[burn2live]

Strict overhead pressing, no leg drive

[Bruffy]

Just wanted to say thanks to thewickedtruth and everyone else for all the advice and input regarding this post.  Made a new personal best at 325.lbs 05/31/08.  Want to hit a minimum of 330; but, 335 should be attainable by the end of June.  Here is the breakdown from Saturday's lift:
135 X 10
225 X 8
275 X 3
300 X 1
315 X 1
325 X 1
 

Made a new personal best at 330 lbs. 06/23/08.  Going for 345 lbs. by the end of July.  Here is the breakdown from the lift.  Any advice is appreciated:
135 X 10
225 X 8
275 X 3
300 X 1
315 X 1
330 X 1

[NASAKYCHAIRMAN]

RAW.

1.  Time
2.  Great Nutrition
3.  Raw bench press: 3 x 3
4.  Close grip bench press
5.  Dips with a lot of weight
6.  Decline Lying tricep extension
7.  Stronger back
8.  Bench press form/technique


TRAIN HARD

"BIG WILLIE" J.T. HALL

[Bruffy]

Set a new personal best last night with 340lbs on flat bench and maintaining a bodyweight of 200lbs.  I'll be attempting 350lbs. next week.  Still waiting for my bench shirt from Inzer. 

[thewickedtruth]

keep it up!

told you this shit would work!

[G.R.H.]

jam test juice into each arm. that should work!   

[darby]

From your experience, what are the top exercises that helped increase your bench press lifts?