Troubleshooting Your Bench Press
The bench press is a very popular lift for building strength and size. It’s often viewed as being simple, but there are complexities to the lift that can lead to mistakes. The main areas of focus are range of motion, bar touchdown, bar path, grip positioning, stance set up, and bar speed. If you are having problems progressing in your bench press, it would be best to add in accessory work (in additional to doing your bench press) depending on which area the weakness is showing up.
Paused Reps In Your Training
Pauses in reps can be very useful for building muscle mass and practicing strict form, especially when doing higher reps or exercises where you tend to zone out or speed through. Pauses at the bottom of each rep helps keep you aware of your form as well as letting your muscles re-engage for the second part of the lift. Pause reps can be a great way to add more difficulty to your workouts, but it’s best to assess each lift to see if it will be beneficial.
The One Way To Improve Your Bench Press
At the end of the day, there’s only one way to improve your bench press (or any lift for that matter). If you don’t know what it is, you’re probably wasting a lot of time.
What Is the Ideal Number of Exercises Per Workout?
Should your workout be short, or long? How many exercises should you use? There's a lot of conflicting information out there - but the reality is that in most cases, it doesn't matter too much.