Unlock Your Bench Press Potential
- Mitchell Bourisk
- Jan 27
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 3
The king of all upper body exercises, for most men in the gym at least, is the Barbell Bench Press. There are few physical endeavors that make you feel more fulfilled than hitting a new personal record on bench press. At first, progress comes quickly and we see PR after PR. After a while of training that progress can plateau. The same stuff you always do stops working, and now you need to get more creative with your approach to making gains. This post goes over everything you should consider trying to help improve your bench press. Many of these tips can be applied to other strength training exercises as well.
Bench Press Frequency
How often are you bench pressing? Maybe at first training bench press once a week will get the job done and provide adequate results. After a while, you will need to practice the skill more frequently. Adding in a second, or even third bench press session into your routine can help you push through that plateau.
Think of an exercise in the gym as a skill that needs to be mastered, like shooting a basketball or swinging a baseball bat. The more often you practice, the more proficient you become. Bench press, or any other exercise, is no exception. The more we do it, the better our technique becomes.
For me personally, I have found benching two times a week is the right balance. I like to have one heavy session of bench press, plus another session where the intensity is lower and maybe even incorporate another variation of bench press.
Bench Press Variations
Most people practice a standard "touch and go" style bench press. They bring the bar down to their chest and come right back up, with the same old grip they always do. However, it would be advantageous to use other variations of bench press. The concept of exercise variability has shown to help improve the skill you are practicing.
Some variations of bench press you could work into your routine:
Close Grip Bench Press - using the barbell, take a closer grip than you usually would. This puts more emphasis on the triceps and helps with the lockout (top half) portion of the lift.
Pause Bench Press - Using your standard barbell grip and setup, stop at the bottom of the rep for 1-3 seconds. Try to keep tension on the chest and shoulders to build strength in the bottom half of the lift. This is great for being able to push the bar off your chest quicker, and will help you push through that sticking point midway through the rep.
Incline/Decline Bench Press - Changing the angle of your bench press can allow you to strengthen different parts of your pecs. The incline variation will emphasize the upper chest and deltoids more, which would be a great option for if you are struggling to get the bar off your chest on your flat bench. When you do decline bench, you can generally use about the same weight if not more than your flat bench. The range of motion is a bit shorter as well. This variation is best if you are struggling to lockout the bench press.
Dumbbell Bench Press - Doing your chest press movements with dumbbells allows you to correct imbalances and create more symmetry in your upper body. If you find that one shoulder is doing more of the work on your barbell bench press, try including dumbbell bench press into your routine. You may not be able to go as heavy, but it is advantageous to use dumbbells as they are much less stable, and you will need to work extra hard to keep those dumbbells moving in the correct path. You can perform the dumbbell bench at any angle.
Other Accessory Exercises
There are other exercise besides bench press itself that can help you improve your bench press. Training muscles directly that play a role in your bench press strength is a great way to target some of your weak points.
Overhead Press - The front deltoids play a huge role in your bench press strength. So, performing an exercise that emphasizes the deltoids more will certainly improve your bench press. I like to incorporate both the barbell and dumbbell variations of the overhead press to strengthen my shoulders. Having stronger shoulders will improve the bottom and middle portion of your bench press movement.
Dips - Bodyweight or weighted dips (and even assisted if you are not there yet), are a great compound movement that emphasizes the triceps more. Having stronger triceps can help you with the lockout portion of your bench press. This exercise also trains the chest and delts. In general, we can push a significant amount of weight with dips. I can do my bodyweight (200lbs) plus 90 pounds on a weight belt for about 5 reps. This is much heavier than I can do on my bench press. Thus, it helps prepare me for a heavy weight on bench press in the future.
Back Muscle Training - We don't often think about how our back muscles play a role in your bench press. They play a significant role in stabilizing our shoulders. Interestingly, the lats actually help produce a bit of force when we are in the bottom position of the bench press. There is a short range of motion where they can contract to help us get the bar off of our chest. Therefore, you should incorporate exercises like lat pulldowns, pullups, and row variations into your routine. In addition, we should train our back muscles as often as we do the muscles of the front of our shoulders to help maintain balance in our upper body. If you only do push exercises with the intention of increasing your bench press, you will run into injury from creating such an imbalance in your upper body.
Face Pulls - This exercise is almost the opposite of bench press. It directly works the muscles of the upper back and the external rotators of the shoulders. I like to incorporate this into my upper body routine to keep healthy and balanced shoulders. It also trains the muscles that stabilize our shoulders a great deal while benching.
Isolation Exercises - Training certain muscles in isolation such as the pecs and triceps is very important for improving your bench press. I like to incorporate chest fly variations and heavy tricep isolation movements into my routine.
A good strength training program should have checked all of these boxes that I previously mentioned. If your goal is to improve your bench press and your program does not have some variation of the accessory exercises, then it may be time to revise your program. Please reach out to us if you'd like to try one of our programs, or even have a custom program made for you!
Using Proper Technique
For years I thought I could just muscle up the weight on bench press. I thought of bench press as just laying on a bench and pushing as hard as I could with my shoulders. Although it may seem like that, bench press is far more technical than that. Without the proper leg drive, engagement of the posterior shoulder muscles, position on the bench, and correct bar path, you will be leaving a lot of gains on the table.
On our Infinite Motion Coaching app, we have video demonstrations for every exercise. This includes an in-depth tutorial on how to do the bench press, as well as every other exercise we prescribe to people. We offer a 1-month free trial for a subscription to our app if you'd like to try it!
Progressive Overload
Often times people get complacent in the gym and do the same or similar weight on an exercise every time. Or, maybe they just stick with a weight that "feels good" that day. However, in order to break through a strength plateau, you ought to follow the progressive overload principle. This method implies that you should be gradually increasing, in an undulating fashion, the weight, reps, volume, intensity, or frequency of your training. Gradually adding 5-10 lbs every week or two, and occasionally pulling back on some weeks, is the key to making steady progess. Maybe some weeks you add weight, and the next week you perform more reps of that weight. Then, the following week you pull back and deload a bit before continuing to progress in weight or reps. This ensures that we do not overreach too far so that we can continually progress.
At Infinite Motion Coaching, we can help you create a program that follows the progressive overload principle. Our custom programs take this principle into account and provide you with a precise plan of action to achieve your strength training goals. Please contact us to get started on your own personalized training program!
Nutritional Factors
In this post we went over everything you need to do in the gym to increase your bench press. We also need to consider what we are doing nutritionally to perform at our best. There is a certain amount of progress that you can make simply by practicing an exercise; you will get stronger at first because of neural adaptations. However, at a certain point you will need to build muscle to get stronger. Eating in a calorie surplus and consuming an adequate amount of protein is optimal for getting stronger. Even if you don't want to eat in a calorie surplus and gain weight, consuming enough protein will help you build muscle while maintaining or losing weight.
For anyone using our app, we offer a direct messaging feature to us. In the app, you can log your food via MyFitnessPal and sync it to the app. You are welcome to message us and have us take a look at your food diary to give you some simple and practical changes to your diet that will help you build muscle and get stronger.
Mitchell Bourisk
At Infinite Motion Coaching, we are personal trainers based in Santa Cruz, California. Our goal is to show people of all ages that they can build muscle and feel better by exercising regularly. We believe that pursuing fitness and strength training is the key to longevity, and it should be prioritized at all stages of life. If you need help with your fitness or nutriton, please feel free to reach out. We are happy to help!
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