{"id":302486,"date":"2025-11-20T04:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T04:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/302486\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T04:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T04:19:08","slug":"how-to-massively-improve-your-bench-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/302486\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Massively Improve Your Bench Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

The bench press, star of chest day, has long stood as the de facto measure for a lifter\u2019s strength. There are, of course, more holistic ways to measure physical strength\u2014and if your goal is simply to build muscle<\/a>, you might not need chest presses at all. But if years of Hollywood montages have taught us anything, it\u2019s that benching heavy counts for something.<\/p>\n

To paraphrase Kenny Powers<\/a>, not everybody\u2019s trying to be the best at exercising. You need not worry if you don\u2019t know, or care, how much weight you can put up on the bench. That said, if you know and very much care, we\u2019ve got some intel that should have you stacking thicker plates on the bar in no time.<\/p>\n

To find out what it takes to maximize the bench press, we spoke with top trainers, coaches, and practitioners who have studied the movement and understand the latest research. If you\u2019ve recently hit a strength plateau, or even if you\u2019re just interested in improving your form and efficiency on the lift, here are the experts\u2019 top tips for taking your bench press to the next level.<\/p>\n

Turn up the frequency<\/p>\n

If you, like most men with lives outside of the gym, train your chest about once a week, you\u2019re going to need to up that. \u201cIf you want to get better at bench pressing, you have to practice the skill of bench pressing,\u201d says Luke Carlson, founder and CEO of Discover Strength<\/a>. Just like training to run faster<\/a>, that means attacking progression from multiple angles with at least two or three dedicated sessions per week.<\/p>\n

To maximize strength gains and progression under the barbell, Mathew Welch, MS, CSCS, ATC, USAW-1, exercise physiologist at HSS<\/a>, recommends a three-day training split that you can do on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first day would be a maximal strength day, where we’re doing 3\u20135 sets of 1\u20135 reps, because you can build strength through that 1\u20135 rep range,\u201d he says. The second day would be for accessory work\u2014to develop the surrounding muscles that play a supporting role in the bench press. These would be exercises like the incline press and chest fly, working up to two sets of 5\u20138 reps for each. And Friday would be back to the bench for what Welch calls a \u201cdynamic effort\u201d day. Here, you\u2019re doing 8\u201310 sets of just 1\u20133 reps, using a load around 55\u201365 percent of your one-rep max and trying to move the weight as fast as possible. \u201cThe dynamic effort method can be very effective for power development,\u201d says Welch. \u201cIf you’re trying to break through a plateau, adding some power development can be very helpful.”<\/p>\n

Set your feet<\/p>\n

Using proper form isn\u2019t just about deterring injuries; it also makes your body a more efficient bench-pressing machine. \u201cYou can improve your form and technique and have your bench press go up, even though your chest didn’t get stronger at all,\u201d says Carlson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bench press, star of chest day, has long stood as the de facto measure for a lifter\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[14125,337,97,2514,2751,777,673,11657],"class_list":{"0":"post-302486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-_seo","9":"tag-fitness","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-strength-training","12":"tag-textbelowcentergridwidth","13":"tag-web","14":"tag-wellness","15":"tag-working-out"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}