POVERTY BENCH?
beef up your bench press
The more time goes on, and the more experience I gain as a coach, the more I realize that most things work pretty well when applied correctly. Even ideas or concepts that I used to completely trash, and would probably die before implementing into my athletes’ programs have slowly started to make their way in as the years go on. As coaches, we all go through phases where we’re so incredibly married to one idea, and I think it’s important, because it allows those lightbulb moments to shine through, and helps you realize that you’ve been an idiot for a little while. Only once you’ve had that realization can you start to see options in front of you that you’ve ruled out for so long, and become a better coaching, or athlete, depending who you are.
In terms of the 3 major movements in Powerlifting, I think this meathead enlightenment has best shown itself in my approach to the Bench Press. This is a quick dive into my brain to show you what I’m looking for, and how I approach training for my athletes. In a year, there’s a good chance this might be different, but let’s dive right in.
TECHNIQUE
Before you go experimenting with every Bench Press variation under the sun, it’s important to ensure you’re training with optimal technique. Without sound technique, you’re bound to deal with pain in your elbows, shoulders, and pecs - and while it’s possible to strengthen dysfunctional patterns, I believe that you’ll eventually hit a wall that becomes too difficult to over come, and then you end up becoming the guy who’s max is 315 for 2 years straight - like me.
It’s important to me that I let you know that you have no business finishing this article past this point if you can’t achieve or maintain the positions mentioned - plain and simple.
Elbow Position
It’s crucial in the Bench Press to ensure you have your joints stacked atop of one another. At the top of each rep/after you un-rack, the barbell, wrist joint, elbow joint, and shoulder joint should all be stacked on top of each other in a straight line. This is going to be the most joint friendly approach, as they all work in sync vs. one joint having to work overtime while, another gets the chance to relax, as well as just giving you the most stability possible. When you’re at the bottom of the rep, your elbow, wrist and barbell should all be stacked atop one another. You need to make sure you’re not over-tucking your elbows toward the bottom of the rep, as this will push your elbows out in front of the barbell and your wrist. This will wreak havoc on your elbows and biceps, as well as zap your pressing power at the bottom of the rep.
SCAPULA RETRACTION & DEPRESSION
So, in case you’re unaware, your scapula is your shoulder blades, which is connected to the muscles of your rotator cuff. Retraction, and depression, are 2 of the actions available to your scapula. Retraction, being pulling your shoulders blades and toward each other (think squeezing a pencil between your shoulders), and depression bringing your shoulder blades down your back (think the opposite of shrugging). Making sure your shoulder blades are doing what they’re supposed to is going to ensure your pecs are in a more lengthened position in the bottom of the rep, which if you know anything about muscular actions, will cause the pecs to have a bigger, more powerful concentric contraction. On top of this, it’s going to help take the shoulders out of it and keep that joint more secure. 2 birds, 2 shoulder blades… It goes something like that.
THE LOWER BODY
If you’re looking to press the most amount of weight possible, your lower body needs to get involved. Squeezing your glutes and driving your feet into floor is going to help transfer power from your feet, through your body, and into the bar. If you’re timing this correctly, you can add a good amount of weight to that bar. You need to think of driving yourself backward vs. up like a lot of people do. The bar path of the Bench Press is naturally going to travel diagonally, and you can compliment that path by doing so. A few cues I tell people who have trouble with this is thinking of pushing your toes through the front of your shoes, or by sliding your whole body behind the bench.
TRAINING VOLUME
After you’ve perfected your technique, you need to figure out how much strict bench pressing you can get away with doing without any issues, like chronic fatigue or pain anywhere. Now, something a lot of people miss the boat on is how much training volume they can truly handle on the Bench Press. Think about it like this - what’s your best Deadlift? What’s your best Bench? Is your best Bench less than or equal to half of your best Deadlift? Yes? So why would you treat them the same? The Bench Press taxes your nervous system less, as there’s no real external loading on the spine axially, while having your body completely supported. And, simply, 200lbs won’t tax you like 500lbs will, regardless if both are 75% of your 1 rep max. Now, do not take this to extremes. Add volume in incrementally and slowly. If you bench twice a week right now, don’t jump to 4 or 5 days. If you’re doing any of the more popular linear progression beginner programs out there on the internet, and your squat and deadlift are flying, while your bench is stuck, add 1-2 sets to your bench sessions and see what happens.
The next piece to this is how big your range of motion (ROM) is - or how much the bar has to travel from start to finish. For me, I grip the bar as wide as legally possible with a big arch, so my ROM is pretty small. Those with longer arms and a less mobile spine are going to have to move the bar much further, and that’s going to cause more stress on your tissues and your nervous system no matter which way you cut it. So, for me, I may need (prepare for arbitrary numbers) 25 sets per week to progress, and someone with longer arms may only need to be able to handle 15. Get the idea here? Again, these numbers are arbitrary. They’re going to differ for everyone based on 100 different variables.
GRIP WIDTH & ‘WEAK POINTS’
This is going back to the beginning of the article when I was talking about different approaches, and how I used to view certain modalities vs. how I view them now.
Why do I have ‘weak points’ in quotes? Well, because there is 2 schools of thought on that term traditionally, and I fall in between both. Some say weak points are completely biomechanical, and shouldn’t be addressed like an inherent weakness. That weak link will always be there for as long as your gripping the bar that certain way.
And it’s true. That weak point is due to biomechanics, and how much ROM a certain joint has to overcome. If you grip on the closer side for your Bench, your elbows have to overcome a big ROM, and your triceps, which is the primary mover for extending your elbows, will work the hardest and have trouble toward the top of the rep. If you’re on the wider side of grip widths, off the chest is going to be the hardest part, as your humerus/shoulder joint will have to overcome a larger ROM, as the pecs attach into the shoulder joint above the humerus - once you clear the first half or so of the full rep of the Bench, it should become increasingly easier. If your grip is near the middle, it’s going to be a mix amongst the two, and will have the hardest time toward the middle of the repetition.
With all that being said, I’m going to give you a few of my favorite Bench Press variations for each of the styles of bench pressing
WIDE GRIP
Like I said before, the wider grip is going to make your pecs work overtime. So, we need to get them brutally strong and ready to create a ton of force. Here are 2 of my go-tos:
Chest Level Pin Press - When it comes to the Bench Press, I’m a big fan of touching the chest very soft/lightly. This helps with stability and making sure you don’t get a really long pause in competition before you get a press command. So, you obviously will have to practice a nice controlled lowering phase, and be able to have a good amount of strength right off the chest. That’s where the Pin Press comes in - having the pins set so that the bar hits the pins as close to the chest as possible helps you focus on controlling the lowering portion, and I also like to cue “making as little noise as possible” while touching the pins to focus on not crash landing the pause. This variation done on the heavy side (1-5 reps) seems to produce the best carryover to competition style Bench Pressing anecdotally. Ensure you don’t lose tension or tightness at the bottom, don’t loosen your hands, let your air out, etc. If you make this mistake, the weight will move much slower than expected if done so.
Larsen Style Bench Press - If we go back to our technique section, I talked about your lower body and it’s job in the Bench Press. Using that leg drive helps us get a little more pop off our chest when we Bench, but won’t always be enough to get that weight moving off our chest and accelerating through that lockout. So, what does that mean? We just have to get plain stronger. Crazy thought, right? I find that lifters who use a lot of leg drive may not always drive a lot of strength and hypertrophy into their pecs through regular old Bench Pressing. This is where the No Legs Bench Press comes in. Some people call this exercise the Larsen Press, if you’ve ever heard of that one. For this one, I want you to set up the exact same way as if you were doing your competition style Bench Pressing, but pick your legs up off the ground and let them dangle either before, or after you unrack the bar. You’re going to notice a lot more instability, specifically in a side to side swaying manner. So, you’re going to have to maintain a ton of back tightness on this one, control the lowering even better than usual, and then your pecs are going to have to produce a whole lot of force to get that bar moving, since you’re not getting that leg drive. Pairing these 2 variations across a training cycle has held quite the benefit for my lifters in the past, this one being in a more middle ground rep range (4-8).
CLOSE GRIP
Like I mentioned before, the limiting factor is usually the triceps when it comes to closer grip bench pressers. Here’s some of my favorite variations below.
Bench w. Chains - This is one I used to hate on quite a bit, and I was very anti - Westside, due to the new generations of lifters saying it doesn’t work, and Westside being predominantly geared competitors. When I realized that at the end of the day, it’s just an exercise, I ended up really liking it. Close(r) grip lifters are usually able to produce a lot of velocity off of their chests, and that can help them accelerate through their lockout (the hard portion) to a certain extent, which is great. But at some point, that velocity will slow down, and you’re going to have to grind a bit to lock those elbows. This exercise helps lifters do both. The idea is that the closer you get toward the top you get, the more weight you’re lifting, as the chains unload off the floor. I don’t necessarily think this needs to do be done for just speed-style work, but can also be trained like normal, across many rep ranges with success.
Close(r) Grip Bench - Unless you’re benching with your hands just a few inches from the smooth part of the bar, I think bringing your grip in 2-3 fingers as a variation will be helpful, as it forces your triceps to work overtime yet again, and will just make you more of a badass. This is one that I’ve seen success with across all rep ranges, from as little as 3 reps, up to sets of 12.
I’m tossing a third exercise in for the Close Grip benchers, mostly due to the fact that a small percentage of you guys reading this will probably have access to chains, and I want this to be doable for almost everyone. The Spoto Press is an exercise where you lower the bar down toward your chest, but you pause a few inches away from your chest vs. pausing on your chest. The reason this can be beneficial is because it takes away the leverage you’d normally get off your chest that helps you pick up a lot of speed to accelerate through the top half, in turn making your triceps work harder to lock out that weight. I believe this exercise is best suited in a moderate range, usually somewhere between 3-6 reps
MODERATE GRIP
The moderate grip can be interesting - I deem moderate as anything from 1-2 fingers inside of the power rings to the ring fingers right on the rings. As you can probably imagine, this grip isn’t going to favor the chest or triceps too much. Instead, it’ll be a nice mix between both as well as having more deltoid involvement, traditionally. The bigger of an arch you have, the less lifters usually tend to feel it in their delts, though. So, keep that in mind.
Incline Bench - Having the bench set on an incline from a 45 degree angle, or a little less tends to make your pecs and delts work a lot harder. The hardest part of the ROM tends to be the middle of the rep when done with a moderate grip. The overall ROM is going to end up being a bit larger than your Competition Style Bench Press as well, so this is a great one when aiming for hypertrophy and general strength phases of training vs. being super specific to your Competition Style Bench Press. I have found this to be a great accessory in anywhere ranging from 5-12 reps, and seems to work well with both pausing or a soft touch and go style.
DB Bench Press - As much as I’d love to keep all these variations barbell specific, I’d be lying if I put one here. The DB Press is so awesome for your moderate grip benchers, as it crushes your whole upper body with a bit of an extended ROM if done correctly, and will set your hands right around the same distance apart as if you were doing barbell work. Having the hands set right around a 45 degree angle is nice, as it won’t tear up your shoulders much, and still blasts your pecs, shoulder and triceps. Since each implement is it’s own and has free ROM vs. a barbell being fixed across both hands, you’ll have to have lots of stability in those shoulders to move a lot of weight. This is one that I enjoy in the higher rep ranges, somewhere between 8-12 reps per set. Anything lower than that and the hardest part tends to become getting the DB’s into position without clocking yourself in the face with 100lbs.
Now - if you’re someone who can’t do, let’s say 12-15 full ROM Push Ups (and I’m talking good ones - no reaching your head forward, not letting your lower back hyperextend a lot, etc), then I’d focus on those along with your Competition Style Bench Press to help build your Bench & upper body before introducing any of these crazy variations. There’s just not much need in my opinion, especially when you have the ability to build on such a good movement for healthy shoulders, core control, and it’s something you can do anywhere. If you have a tough time with these, elevating your hands can help you reach those target reps, and over time, you can lower the elevation until you’re at the floor.
The Bench can be tricky for a lot of people, being the lift that is traditionally the easiest to stall out on, and have the biggest detriments due to tiny mistakes. I sincerely believe that this manual can, and will help you progress your Bench Press for any walk of life or no matter how much weight you’re pressing. All it’ll take from you is some honest assessing of your technique, some carefully picked assistance exercises, and the question “Am I actually doing enough work to get better?”