It’s chest Monday, bro! Wanna hit the bench? There’s a reason the bench press stars in a lot of gym memes across the Internet. Perhaps this is the favourite exercise of most men across the world, the one that makes you feel all powerful!
CrossFit athletes, both male and female, are certain front squats, clean and jerks, snatches and overhead presses are better to establish a person’s overall lifting power, but nevertheless appreciate the bench press as part of a much bigger whole when speaking of strength. A well-written CrossFit program will always benefit from including the bench press. Even a couple of Benchmark Girl WODs, Lynne and Linda, have bench presses on them!
Now, regardless of where you train, if you have bench pressing for a while you may or may not ask yourself why you seem stuck at a certain point in terms of progress. There are several reasons why this is happening:
- You are not actually trying to add any extra weight to the barbell. This might seem obvious, but the truth is it’s not for a lot of people. Many just think “okay, I’ll just do five sets of 10 reps with some random weight I know I can push right now”, and that’s it! While common, this approach will return you almost no progress at all in relation to building strength. If there’s no need for adaptation, your body will remain the same.
- You are adding too much weight to the barbell between attempts. Remember that old saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day”? If you struggle with a certain weight you just need to bring it down to a point you can actually make a successful lift and work in smaller increments from there.
- You don’t involve the rest of the body in the lift. Believe it or not, arms and chest shouldn’t be the only body parts involved in the bench press. If you don’t provide all the leverage and balance you can by keeping your abs engaged, your glutes squeezed and your feet firmly planted on floor, you are wasting precious power away.
- You are not doing any upper body gymnastic movements. Obviously, good old push-ups let you work on replicating the bench press movement, only upside down. But there are several other things to do to add power and consistency to your pushing power, like ring dips and L-sits.
- You don’t have a person spotting you. Let’s be clear – who can confidently and safely press a good amount of weight on a bench if nobody is going to rescue you in case you get stuck with the bar on your chest? Always have at least one person (ideally two) spotting you when trying to go heavy. Just that reassurance will encourage you to try a heavier lift.
Having a program that covers all these bases, and a trainer that can guide you into good technique, will certainly make your bench press numbers skyrocket. Remember, the only thing good about plateaus is overcoming them!
Julio Gutierrez