Bench Press Blueprint

Although somewhat of an embellishment, at the time I had him pegged for a seven-footer. At least that was my young teenage perspective. See, I was 14 years old and in a gym for the first time. I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing so I spent my first visit playing around on the equipment and observing my surroundings.

I was mainly focused on watching people perform certain exercises of interest since I was too shy to ask for help. I was about halfway done my so-called workout when the aforementioned giant walked into the weight room. My focus immediately shifted from being a metaphorical sponge, trying to soak up training information to becoming somewhat of a fan-like spectator in marvel of his massive proportions.

After a brief shoulder warm up, he and his training partner approached the bench press. I was anticipating an incredible display of strength and surely enough, I was not disappointed. They immediately loaded the bar with two plates per side and blasted through a seemingly effortless set. Although I was relatively inexperienced, I was still able to pinpoint differences in their techniques. I noticed that the much shorter gentleman used a narrower grip in comparison to his larger training partner.

At the time, I had assumed that the narrow grip was used simply to accommodate his shorter stature – which made perfect sense to me. Clank! On went a third plate per side bringing the total up to 315lbs. The larger of the two removed his sweater and began to psyche himself up.

“This is nothing, This is nothing” he reassured himself as he hopped up and down and flailed his arms backwards. Once he was through with, what I’ll call his “mental preparation”, he set up and took his usual wide grip. Without further hesitation, he drove the bar upwards while letting out a loud grunt. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… wait a minute!

Only five? Okay, he racked it after five but maybe he was saving himself for the next set. Then in came his training partner. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10… no!! It couldn’t be! His training partner, who was half his size, had just doubled his efforts on the bench press. The exercise that was, in my eyes, the main indicator of strength and dominance.

Clank! Clank! On went two more plates bringing the poundage total up to 405. Surely, this is what the behemoth of a man was saving himself for. Anytime four plates are resting on the ends of a barbell, fellow gym goers tend to take notice. I was observing them – as they were observing the “behemoth”.

They were sort of nonchalantly gazing at the large man out the corner of their eyes as if they feared being noticed. At least five minutes went by and still, nothing. I now understand the importance of longer rest intervals in order to ensure neural recovery when using maximum loads, but at the time I just figured that they wanted to hang out around the loaded barbell to build suspense and attract more attention.

Finally, one of the men stepped up and stationed himself on the bench. Without hesitation, he drove the weight upwards and blasted out six bar-bending repetitions. Six reps with four plates-per-side is an amazing feat, regardless of how big you are. But in this instance, the feat was even more impressive.

The guy that just blasted through it was maybe 195lbs and not an inch over 5′9. He just pressed over double his bodyweight, while making it look easy. Now it was what I had been waiting for. It was time for the giant to put on a show. He stepped toward the barbell and removed the weight collar.

“Wow, he’s adding more weight” I thought to myself in amazement. What he did next shocked me more than the little guy did with his display of power. The largest guy I had ever seen in 14 years on the planet removed the weight from the barbell. Could it be? I didn’t understand. How can someone so huge be overpowered by a man seemingly half his size?

The basis for this write-up is to analyze all the factors that contribute to an impressive bench press. The most notable difference between the two training partners was their physical size. Common sense says that a shorter individual has to push or pull a certain weight less distance than a taller trainee.

A shorter lever length increases strength potential. This principal is not only limited to shorter individuals as the travel-distance can be manipulated by anyone to maximize lifting capacity. The tips provided below are geared more towards those who are interested in increasing their bench press numbers, training for size will be discussed later in the “blueprint”.

Retract Your Scapula

Drawing the shoulder blades towards each other will reduce the distance your arms have to travel by a few inches. This technique will also serve as an effective way to increase stability throughout the movement since it increases your body-to-bench contact ratio.

Lift Straight Up and Down

A precise path of movement is important to ensure that no aspect of the motion will be wasted. The main focus should be on driving as much weight as you can upwards; why make it harder on yourself?

Contract Glutes

Surprisingly, the bench press is not only limited to the chest, shoulders and triceps. Anytime you are attempting to lift a maximal load, the whole body is involved in some way or another. In this particular case, contracting the glutes and the core muscles will allow for an optimal power transfer from your feet (as you are driving them through the floor) all the way up the torso to the chest and shoulders.

Squeeze the Bar

Studies have shown that by increasing grip strength and squeezing the bar, you can increase bench press strength by 10%. Forcefully gripping the bar will draw optimal recruitment from the triceps to aid throughout the movement.

Don’t Bounce Bar Off Chest

According to Dr. Ken Kinakin, bouncing the bar off your chest in the wrong spot can cause improper ascension towards the abdominals, causing the trainee to compensate by raising the hips. This hip elevation will increase the chances of spinal injury. However, even with the associated risk, lifters still frequently let this happen. This is partly due to the fact that the hip ascension automatically forces the bar back over the chest, thus increasing the likelihood of completing the lift.

Work On Sticking-Points

A sticking point refers to the part of the motion that you most commonly struggle with. This occurs as a result of a few different factors..

Lengthened Muscles: As a muscle is lengthened, it’s potential to exert force is decreased. Think of when you perform a bicep curl exercise, the most challenging part of the motion is the initial 10-20 degrees of arm flexion. This is because the muscle is lengthened.

When you flex your arm, the muscle is being shortened. The more your arm moves into flexion (shortened), the stronger you become. This applies to every muscle in your body. Think of pretty much any exercise, then try to determine the hardest part of the movement. The most challenging phase of any exercise is when the muscle is stretched (lengthened) and you initiate the shortening (concentric portion) of the muscle.

To relate this specifically to the bench press exercise, the chest is stretched (muscles lengthened) the most when the barbell is atop the chest. For most people, this is the most challenging part of the movement.

Weak Assistor Muscles: Assistor muscles refer to other muscles that are involved in the movement. For the bench press, triceps strength is a very influential factor when it comes to optimizing your lifts. Some could even argue that the triceps are the prime mover with the chest being a stabilizer.

Without analyzing the movement too much, the main assistors to consider for pressing strength would be the triceps and the anterior deltoids (front shoulder). Out of the two, the triceps are of more importance. For strengthening the triceps, utilize compound exercises that allow you to push high load.

Close grip presses, dips and decline skull crushers are among my favourites. If you find that your “sticking point” is during the final (lockout) phase of the press, additional attention should be spent on your triceps.

The most common sticking point during the bench pressing exercise is the initial phase of the concentric motion. Ex. The first 6-8 inches of upward movement from the chest. Specific attention needs to be placed on this phase of the movement. This can be accomplished by performing half-reps & isometric holds using a power rack.

Use Variable Resistance

When using a full range of motion, your “sticking point” will be the limiting factor when selecting your training load. This makes it difficult to constantly challenge the muscles during each phase of the movement. Typically when benching, once you get past the sticking point, the remainder of the repetition is easy.

Utilizing variable resistance will allow you to increase the load at joint angles in which you can handle a higher load. A good way to accomplish this is by attaching chains onto the barbell. As you reach your “sticking point” zone, the majority of the chain-links will be on the ground, therefore, the load will be minimized. As you power the bar upwards, the chain links come off the ground and resistance is added throughout the repetition.

This technique works wonders for the majority of the population. However, if you’re in the minority and your sticking point is during the middle or final phase of the movement, attention needs to be focused on increasing the strength of your triceps.

Elbow Position

The degree at which the elbows are positioned plays an important role in the muscle recruitment and strength potential of the bench press. For optimal strength performance, the elbows should be positioned at 45 degrees in relation to the shoulder.

This “tucked in” elbow placement will reduce the stress placed upon the shoulder capsule throughout the movement decent and draws optimal recruitment from the triceps. When utilizing this technique, the bar is brought to a lower region of the chest.

Achieve Structural Balance

If the antagonistic (opposing) muscles aren’t within an optimal ratio, a neural inhibition may occur which will limit your strength gains. The neural inhibition is your body’s way of protecting itself against further muscle imbalances. Renowned strength coach Charles Poliquin has created a table of the ideal strength ratios between major muscle groups.

Getting your lifts within the optimal ratios has been shown to dramatically improve your bench press strength. The first step in the process is to determine your 1 Rep Maximum (there are many calculators online that will enable you to do this). This number will be the foundation for which you calculate the formulas below..

Determined 1RM on Flat Barbell Press

Incline Barbell Press x 83%
Supinated Chin Ups x 81%
Scott Barbell Curls x 46%
Standing Reverse Curls x 30%
External Rotations x 9% (Done for 8 Reps)

The most important out of the group is the external rotations. This is due to the fact that isolation work for the shoulder rotators is commonly overlooked by trainers and trainees alike when designing resistance training programs.

Train Your Legs

I know, I know, training legs isn’t fun! It’s a demanding workout with seemingly little payback – considering that jacked chests and arms are more appealing to most women. What people tend to overlook however is the fact that leg training and upper body development are directly related. The human body will only allow for so much asymmetry. Meaning, if you don’t train your legs, it can place major limitations on your upper body development.

Also, the muscles of your lower extremities represent around half your body. Training only 50 percent of your body seems rather foolish in the quest to add as much lean muscle as possible, doesn’t it? Training legs using compound (multi-joint) movements will also stimulate the secretion of the potentially anabolic hormones – testosterone and growth hormone.

Elbow Position

If chest hypertrophy (size) is your primary goal, you should be positioning your elbows only slightly below shoulder level. A wide grip should also be utilized. This combination will maximally stress the pectorals, thus, stimulating potential growth. For this method, the barbell is lowered to the mid-chest region.

It should be noted, however, that bringing the barbell down to the chest while using this wider grip variation can potentially place the shoulder joint in a vulnerable position.

Since shoulder mechanics make the joint more succeptable to injury than other joints, it is important that your progressions be gradual. This will allow you to slowly build up the tendon and ligament strength required to handle loads at that vulnerable joint angle.

Muscle Manipulation

You can manipulate specific muscles to fire by pushing either inwards or outwards. To focus on chest development, squeeze the barbell inwards throughout the ascent. Visualize performing a dumbbell fly as you drive the bar upwards. This may take some getting used to but it is quite effective. To draw an increased recruitment of the triceps, squeeze the bar outwards as you push up.

Periodize Your Program

Simply walking into the gym and lifting as heavy as possible is not the way to go about gaining optimal strength. What I find works best is a periodized program that alternates between size and strength phases. Size and strength have been shown to be 66% related. Although it is very possible to gain a considerable amount of strength without amassing any hypertrophy (size) simply due to the neural adaptations that occur, a phase specifically dedicated to size will increase the thickness of the muscles contractile mechanisms. Guidelines for the two phases are as follows..

Guidelines
Strength	Size
Low Repetitions (1-6)	Medium Repetitions (6-12)
High Load (80-110%)	Medium Loading (60-80%)
Long Rest Intervals (3-5min.)	Shorter Rest Intervals (1-2min)
Low Volume	High Volume
Rapid, yet controlled eccentric contraction	Slow eccentric contraction
Techniques Examples
Maximum Load Method	Iso-Dymnamics
5,4,3,2,1	Pre-Exhaustion
Wave Training	Post-Exhaustion
5 times 5	Drop Sets

A sample training split will resemble the outline provided below…

	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4
Day 1 : Strength	85% 1RM	90% 1RM	100%+1RM	85% 1RM
Day 2 : Strength	85% 1RM	90% 1RM	100%+1RM	85% 1RM
Day 3 : OFF
Day 4 : Strength	85% 1RM	90% 1RM	100%+1RM	85% 1RM
Day 5 : OFF
Day 6 : Size	60% 1RM	70% 1RM	80% 1RM	60% 1RM
Day 7 : Size	60% 1RM	70% 1RM	80% 1RM	60% 1RM
Day 8 : OFF
Day 9 : Size	60% 1RM	70% 1RM	80% 1RM	60% 1RM
Day 10: OFF

Max. calculations are to be completed following each 10 day cycle. As you may have noticed, the fourth week lowers the intensity. This will allow for recovery. It is also recommended that following the 40 day cycle, you take 5 days off completely. This is classified as a “transition phase” and will allow for neural and muscle recovery while allowing time for glycogen re-synthesis. Clearly, this program is not only for bench press. It is a highly effective total body training system.

There you have it. Everything you need to know about bench pressing. Put the above theories to use and eventually, your pressing sessions will be the focal point for everybody in the free weight area.