How to Improve on Bench Press- Simple Guide

How to improve on bench press has become crucial if you wish to look all jerked up. If you wish to build your body optimally a bench press is one of the ways to do so and the simple way to do so is to perform more of the bench press.

When you perform more of the bench press you learn how to do it properly which will now increase the effectiveness of your workout to the body.

Performing other variations of bench press can help but not as doing the conventional bench press. Because there is no way you would expect improvement on what you hardly practice, right? So, it is important that you do the bench press often in order to improve on it.

When you say how to improve on the bench press, I suppose that means:

• How to perform bench press the proper way

• Ability to perform often times than before

• Ability to improve the weight you use for bench press

• Ability to improve the number of times (rep) you go

How to Perform Bench Press Properly

I want you to know that a proper bench press will not only improve your bench press but also ensure safety and safety should be your priority. So, to make sure you are not putting yourself at risk you should do it the proper way and this is how.

When you have everything all set; weight on the rack and bench positioned, you should lie on the bench face up with your head ‘’even’’ with the top end of the bench, and feet on the ground. Having the rack/weight at your head end, grab and un-rack the bar with straight arms and lower it to your mid-chest, and press back again.

Continue in this fashion, but make sure that your butt is always on the bench and avoid pushing your chest up so that your elbows become 90 degrees out.

Make sure that your grip is widened a little bit but not too much because that would reduce how far the bar has to travel. As you progress in training, you may want to get your grip closer for an effective workout. So, you can use your natural push-up position to determine how wide your grip should be.

Another area you should make sure is correct is your feet. I mentioned earlier about putting your both feet on the ground. That’s right. Do not kick or flip your legs in the air while bench pressing.

You can arch your lower back, while your butt, head, and shoulders should make contact with the bench. You may ask, what’s the point? It simply shortens the distance the bar has to travel and mind you this is not cheating but just a regulation lift.

<<<How to Bench Press Correctly Video>>>

Increase Your Bench Press Session

When I say increase your bench press session I mean, doing it more often. For instance, you use to do it once or twice a week, then increase it to three or four times a week depending on your progress. But please, do not overtrain, because that would also have a negative effect on you. Listen to your body and know when it is telling you to slow things down.

I know it is human nature to increase and up to our game when we are so desperate to achieve something. The quest to improve on bench press should not becloud the message the body is trying to tell you.

It is OK to take a break and allow the body to rest and heal. By so doing you will even come back stronger than ever before. You can take a week off if necessary, but that will only be if you have worked out to a plateau level.

Add Weight

You know, I see people bench press the same weight week in, week out. How the heck are you going to improve? If you are only bench pressing 50kg how can you bench press 100kg? In order to improve you have to be increasing the weight you use so that you can improve and progress. Add 2.5kg/5 pounds to your weight every time you bench press.

However, start light and gradually add weight so that you can also build momentum and concentrate on proper bench pressing. If you get stuck simply reduce weight and work your way up back again.

Another way to improve on the bench press is to reduce the reps or sets and add weight. This way, you can now complete your sets and reps before you get tired, but it will be challenging because you added weight. If you were bench pressing reps of 8 you can reduce it to reps of 5 and increase the number of sets in order to still get your number.

Don’t you get me? Ok, if you were doing 3×8, that is 3 sets of 8 reps, you can decide to do 5 sets of 5 reps (5×5) which will still give you the same number if you do the math.

It is a simple understanding that if you were bench pressing 50kg for 3 sets x 8 reps and decide to start bench pressing 100kg for 5 sets x 5 reps, you can only imagine how many times you can bench press 50kg if you decide to do that again, which means, you can do many times over than what you use to do before and don’t forget that heavier weights build muscles easily.

If you want to avoid hitting a plateau, micro load your weight as you bench press, which means you should load less than 2.5kg. This will certainly delay reaching a plateau. But the thing is that if you are micro loading it will be difficult for you to add 2.5kg each time you workout.

Conclusion

The bench press is a compound exercise that works on the upper body namely, the chest, arms, and triceps. It is an effective way to build bigger and stronger muscles; however, you must avoid mistakes like bad form, overtraining or undertraining, and self-doubt (not trusting yourself or lacking motivation).

If you begin to notice symptoms like lack of motivation, poor nutrition, and having trouble sleeping then you might just be overtraining and so you need to slow down.

Patience is yet another virtue that will really help you do not approach this thing with the ‘’fire brigade’ approach because it could burn you. Just take it easy and apply all the suggested guidelines on this post and you will see how you will improve on the bench press.

As you are on the quest to improve on the bench press, do not forget nutrition and adequate rest, for they are essential to improving your bench press and of course health.

Stay Healthy