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Building a strong bench press for powerlifters and athletics
Matt Wenning
BSU strength coach and Powerlifter
As many lifters do, I started my bench-pressing career as a teen
doing lots of pec, front delt work. This gave me a pretty good
physique and some impressive shoulders, but other than that, the
progress was minimal after my bench hit around 470. Stuck at this
point for some time, I was to say the least frustrated. At the time,
I thought my technique was good. After watching many elite benchers
lifting, doing lots of reading, and asking lots of questions, I
reanalyzed everything and this is what I found. Your First lesson is
that the true pressing movement for a high caliber bench press is
anything but normal and easy.
Pressing movements when done correctly take much of the shoulder out
of the movement. This means keeping the elbows in tight and prying
the bar apart with the hands (as if ripping the bar in half in the
middle). This puts the emphasis on the real pressing muscle THE
TRICEPS AND LATS. Pressing in this fashion keeps the shoulders
healthy and gives you more strength and progress. Now outside of
Westside Barbell, these ideas are rarely used. Many of us think we
just let the bar down and push it back up, but there are many
underlying things happening in an elite bench press.
Lesson Two If you want a strong bench, you better have a strong and
massive back and rear delts. Think about this for a minute, how many
people that you have seen in person or seen in magazines that can
press a shit ton of weight, and don’t have massive backs, that’s
none for me (this goes for gear, gearless, or athletes in general).
One of the main reasons that I think this is true has to do with the
CNS. In your muscles, you have golgi tendons and other sensory
organs that tell the body, the length, tension, and speed of the
muscular movement. The body will shut down muscle fibers if it feels
that it’s in a position to be damaged, hurt, or the imbalance of the
muscles is too great. So a large back will allow the shoulder to
have support, and stability while you press. This will allow the
muscles to work as hard as you want them to, and also have added
insurance both on the field and in the gym. Do most of your backs
work in a supine (reverse of a bench press) position. This has
always seemed to make my back get stronger much quicker, and have
more relevance to all around back strength.
Traps are also an important muscle group in the back. They take a
lot of pressure in the bench press and also help to hold the scapula
secure. When benching correctly the traps should be flexed
isometrically and therefore assisting in retracting and retaining
the scapular position of retraction. This will decrease range of
motion in the press by as much as 4 inches (less distance equals
bigger weights), and also put your body in optimal pressing
mechanics. The traps should stay flexed throughout the entire press,
especially at the top, to keep the scapular motion minimal and
distance short.
Lesson Three You must have max effort and dynamic days, along with
chains and bands in order to press massive weights. When you train
reps (the repetition method which is used way too much in all forms
of lifting), primarily in the core lifts, your training the muscles
and the nervous system to conserve energy, not expend energy. A
great lifter will be able to put tons of force into the bar in the
first rep, then less and less and each rep is completed. Training
reps on a consistent basis will have adverse effects on controlling
volume and minimize potential. You will have the muscle to press the
weight, but the CNS will lack efficiency and coordination with max
effort weights.
For powerlifters to complete a 1-REP all out max in the bench it
takes about 3-4 seconds. This is how long it should take to do
dynamic sets (the energy systems are similar in both) that are why
Westside advocates 3 rep sets on bench in the dynamic day. Training
the energy system too long (failure sets, lots of reps) will give
you hypertrophy, and training for too short of a time (singles and
not optimal loads) will hamper your 1-RM pressing endurance and make
it less specific.
Max effort days are a must for developing absolute strength.
Absolute strength will bring up speed strength, and explosive power,
and also help with coordination and ligament, and tendon density
(injury prevention). Most coaches max in the beginning and the end
of a semester or a training cycle, but when used correctly, can be
used week in and week out. Lift heavy weights, get big and strong:
simple equation.
Chains and bands will manipulate the strength curve, and make the
lifts harder and point where the body wants to slow down, or change
leverage. They will create explosive starts (accelerating strength)
and aggressive lockouts. Look at Westside recommendations for chain
and band amounts for different levels of strength. This also has a
lot to do with athletics, quicker starts, and acceleration through
external forces, and also gives the coach more stimuli both
physically and psychologically. This equals less burnout and
constant progression.
Lesson Four Triceps need to be freaky strong. This holds true for
athletics as well as powerlifters. Triceps are the prime mover, and
most times the limitation for all pressing movements, and if the
triceps are strong, then the weights used in the presses will be
bigger and all the other muscles will get bigger and stronger as
well. Don’t think that the pecs are involved to the degree that most
think. Something I’ve always pondered is the amount of motion that
the shoulder joint does in comparison to the elbow. The elbow joint
seems to have more motion than the shoulder joint when performing
the bench, so if the elbow does move more, then that means the
triceps do the most work. (I may do some pilot data on this for
reassurance). This has worked for me raw and in gear. I would say
40% of my assistance work upper body is dedicated to the triceps and
their development.
The main exercises we use here are JMs, band and cable tricep
pushdowns, narrow board presses, and various DB exercises. We also
JM press the safety bar, which creates a fulcrum for rotation, and
not to mention a very strict position. Chains and bands are a must
for increased development of the triceps.
Lesson Five Learn to push through your feet without raising your
butt. This helps you to push in a straight line and stay tight on
the bench. When you learn to do this, your stability will increase
and as we know from training the back, when stability is increased
so is the weight. Stability is a big key especially with beginners,
we have all seen it, but have we all corrected it?
Lesson Six Keep the shoulder joint as flexible as possible, and work
on external rotators on off days. The external rotators if weak
(which most peoples are), they will inhibit pressing power, due to
(in) stability within the AC joint. Not only will getting this
muscle group strong and flexible help with your pressing power, it
is cheap insurance to shoulder injury. Great coaches have showed the
importance of this muscle group, by doing just external rotators
with an athlete in whom the athlete was sub par, and with no
pressing movements in 4 weeks or so, and the athletes bench went
from mid 300s to over 400, not bad huh for just working external
rotators. This will be a big key for advanced lifters. Whether you
want to or not, when your upper body becomes very strong, you get
tighter. I always know when I’ve been neglecting my flexibility,
because I start to get pain and discomfort from my shoulders. So
keep the shoulders as flexible as possible and stay on it all the
time. The longer your joints stay healthy, the more weight you will
move in the long run.
Lesson Seven Do mini workouts for lagging muscle groups. Lagging
muscles hold back your progress, create imbalances, and eventually
promote injury. In my workout, I do anywhere from 6 to 10 mini
workouts per week, focusing on lagging muscle groups as well as GPP.
To get better you must do more work. The key to this is constant
progression and selection of exercises. Remember that to lift more,
you must be more frequent, and volume must increase, but the hard
part is that squatting more or benching more may not raise those
particular lifts, you must keep changing the stimulus.
Coaches of all types: Benching is an exercise done by all of
athletics, whether the lifters are in the weight room under our
supervision or away for break, the bench press is one exercise that
is going to be used (it’s a favorite). It’s our job as strength
coaches to ensure that the bench is strict.
I hope some of these tips have helped you the lifter or coach
re-evaluate your benching and assistance work. Another paper out
there with similar ideas is Dave Tates article on benching 600, as
well as various Westside articles.
Matt Wenning
585 bench @ 24 years of age
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