5 Ways to Increase Your Bench Presses
Five Ways to Increase Your Bench Presses
- Mix up the rep range- Most lifters continuously stick to the 10 rep scheme when they are in the gym. If you are new to weight lifting this tip may be less useful to you, but if you are experienced mixing up the rep scheme can shock the body into more growth and more overall strength over a period of time.
- Focus on your “upper chest”- Many times the upper region of the chest is forgotten in a workout. You can avoid having a lagging upper chest by including the incline bench press into your chest workout routines. The incline bench press has been proven to be effective for all of the muscles that the flat bench press works as well.
- Change your grip position- Often times it is taught that we should use the same grip for each lift that we complete in the gym. This is wrong. Changing your grip can ignite different parts of the muscle to work in different ways. This is also an effective method for increasing bench press strength. Research has shown that a wide grip emphasizes larger stress on the pectoral muscles where a narrower grip includes smaller muscles within the pectoral region.
- Keep your elbows tucked- Keeping your elbows tucked during the bench press will reduce the range of motion during the exercise but you will feel far more tension on the pecs. This will ignite more growth and increase strength and reduce injury to places like the front deltoid which is a common injury among many people who bench press.
- Control the weight- Many lifters un-rack the weight and bounce it off their chest. To get the most out of your bench press it is best that you control the weight in a slower manner. This will stress the pecs with lighter weight and improve the depth of the pecs as well.
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