The bench press may be one of the most famous exercises in the gym. It is a big measure of upper body strength. And for some a great boasting point. If you struggle to increase your bench press then there are a number of different exercises that you can do that will help get that number up. The same holds true if you are are a competitive power lifter or one of the best bench pressers at your gym. You may not struggle but there are exercises that can help you bench more.
There are plenty of different exercises to improve your bench press, but how do you choose the right ones? It’s difficult to say which of these exercises will get you benching more the fastest because it depends on each individual person. That is because everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and different sticking points in the lift. Wherever your weakness is in the lift, is where you need an assistance exercise best suited to overcome that particular point.
Before You Pick the Best Exercise
However, I would say that for most people, what they need to work on first is their technique. Most people have really messed up technique and an exercise can’t fix that. The first thing you need to get down before getting fancy with different exercises is to make sure you are doing the exercise correctly.
Find Your Weakness
After you have improving your technique, you can move onto finding your weak spot. The way to do this is to do a simple test. Use about 75 percent of your one rep max and start to bench. After you do a few reps he will notice that the bar begins to slow down. It will be very clear where the bar gets really slow, this is your sticking point. Based on where this sticking point is, there are different exercises to help you improve your bench by blasting through that point.
Comment Sticking Points In The Bench Press
There are typically a few common positions where lifters get stuck performing the bench. One of the problem areas occurs towards the top of the list. This is usually a problem with triceps strength and locking out. To fix this you can try using bands and chains or some other form of accommodating resistance.
Another common problem is at the bottom of the lift. You may be able to lock out fine, but die a couple inches off your chest and are unable to push it any farther. In this case, your weakness is probably your chest and there are specific things you can do for this as well. Work on your explosion will help here. To do that give some speed bench press a go, or you can do pause reps. Pause reps are where you stay tight at the bottom and pause for a couple seconds before pressing. This will work on your chest area.
And The Winner Is
If I had to give a cookie cutter answer and tell everyone one exercise to do, I think a close-grip bench press with a two-second pause at the bottom provides the best of everything making it the best assistance exercise to increase your bench press.
There are a few reasons that makes the close grip bench press the best assistance for bench. First off it puts you in good form with your elbows in tight.
Second reason this exercises works so well is that it you’re working the explosion off the bottom.
The last benefit to the close grip bench with a pause it that it’s an excellent triceps exercise helping with the lockout.
So, if you don’t want to bench every week, and you want to change up your exercise, the close-grip bench with a two-second pause at the bottom is a great all-around exercise and can help you increase your bench press.
