Get a “MONSTER” Bench Press (3 MOVES!)

If your goal is to increase your bench press then don’t overlook the details specifically accessory lifts. In this video I’m going to show you the top three exercises for increasing your bench press without focusing solely on the actual bench press. Joining me in the gym for today’s video is accompl

JEFF: What’s up, guys? Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX. com. Part two in our series on building up the big lifts by using accessory lifts. Stuff that people ignore and overlook.

Here with me, K. C. Mitchell, the one-legged monster. Hanging out here in the X-Box to go over these big lifts, but more importantly, this is what you do. K.

C. : That’s right. Yep. JEFF: And spend a lot of time doing it. K.

C. : A lot more time on these than actual big lifts. JEFF: That’s the thing, guys. Again, it’s either limitation on time, or being afraid that doing these lifts, in some way, takes away from the energy they could devote to the big lifts? K.

C. : Yeah. If that’s the case, then do the big lifts first. Then transfer over to the accessory and workout what you can do. JEFF: But ultimately, the thing is, if you’re trying to build your big lifts, you’re trying to build your bench-press; if you’re going to take a little bit away from that so you will get a bigger lift there, then that’s the goal, right?

I think guys sometimes get a little off track in their training and they think – they become infatuated with either numbers- K. C. : Yep. JEFF: Or even strength that’s not even there. K.

C. : Yeah, the one thing I’ve noticed people do is “Okay, I want to build a big bench. So, I’m going to go down and bench, bench, bench, bench, bench. This is all I’m going to do. ” That’s what you see.

You see them just benching. Then they get to a point where they can’t get over 225lbs and they don’t understand why. There are a lot of muscles that need to get stronger, but the bench doesn’t actually – it turns them into secondaries instead of full on, actual, primary muscle. Bring yourself over to the accessory side. Let’s hit the secondary muscles that are going to transfer over into your bench-press, and your lift is going to get a lot bigger.

JEFF: With that being said, the first one you’re going to do here – that you do all the time – is a decline from vertical. K. C. : Yes. JEFF: Overhead shoulder press.

K. C. : Yeah. I like that. The overhead press, slightly angled as you can see.

Strictly because it’s going to take a lot of pressure off the shoulders. The anatomy is not made to be bowed back like this. I like hitting the front delts. To help the longevity of my training and competing, I need to take a lot of strain off my shoulders as much as I can. So, for me, putting a bit more of an incline, I take a little bit of that strain off the shoulders.

And I’m able to push heavy amounts of weight just because of that little bit of an incline. JEFF: I can see here you’re just knocking out 100s. But meanwhile, I’ve seen you do a lot more than that. K. C.

: Yeah, I’ve done 130lb presses for reps before. JEFF: Right. So, for me, my standpoint, I think what K. C. said here is 100% right.

When you talk about the scapular plane being angled a bit forward, it’s only natural for your arm to get a little forward by having that slight decline from vertical. Your shoulders are going to come in, and your elbows are going to come in a bit more in front of your body. So, you’re pressing from that position. At the same time, you want to hit those delts – why? Why do you want to hit the delts to prepare yourself for that bench-press?

K. C. : Well, my front delts come into play on the bench-press. Bigger shoulders bring a bigger bench-press. JEFF: Especially out of that bottom portion.

K. C. : Out of the bottom portion, especially. A lot of people, the thing they say about me is “How are you so explosive out of the hole? ” That’s the chest up to about midway.

It’s due to things like this. This lift, right here. There are times where, even with this lift, I’ll add small pause reps. JEFF: Right. K.

C. : And things like that to incorporate more of an explosive, off the chest, up to midway on the bench-press. JEFF: So, talking about pause reps actually leads in perfectly to that next exercise that we do here. K. C.

: Yes. JEFF: The floor press. K. C. : Yes.

Okay. JEFF: That’s it. Easy. Control. All the way down.

Nice. So, guys, obviously he makes this shit look easy. The floor press is an incredible accessory lift. Almost for the exact opposite reasons of what we’re talking about for the shoulder press. K.

C. : Yeah. JEFF: So, the shoulder press is helping you get out of the hole at the bottom of the lift. You’ve got the shoulders primarily working there, but when you get to the top, the points- K. C.

: Yeah. JEFF: Tricep. K. C. : Yeah, the tricep.

I would say, honestly, probably 70% to 80% of our bench-presses are failed at the top, where the triceps come into full engagement. JEFF: But you like to use the pause reps everywhere, or at least pausing at the bottom because – why? Because you want that explosion? K. C.

: I want that explosion. I want explosion on – it’s adding strength. Anytime you can pause and hold weight for a certain period of time you’re building strength. Why make things easy? I want to train to get stronger.

So, if I can make a lift even a little bit harder it’s going to have its benefits. That benefit is strength. JEFF: I think too, the thing that happens is, guys overlook the fact that techniques actually become part of the accessory. K. C.

: Yeah. JEFF: Using pause reps, and using deceleration on that last rep there, really controlling the last one, even in a fatigued state – not necessarily coming out of the box and doing the low rep, but doing it after doing four, or five explosive reps, and then do it. K. C. : Yeah.

I don’t see a lot of people doing it. I feel like that’s something different that I add in. At the very end when I’m fatigued, I’ll always add in some type of slow, controlled descent, some type of long pause. Because the muscles are fatigued and if I can build some type of explosion on the fatigue, imagine what kind of explosion they’re going to have when they’re full on, ready to go. JEFF: In terms of loading on this exercise, what do you like to do?

K. C. : As far as what? JEFF: Loading. K.

C. : Weight-wise? JEFF: Yeah. That should be able to load up pretty good. K.

C. : Yeah. I’ll go 400lbs on these. This is one of those things kind of like what we talked about with the box squat. You can overload with this.

You want to overload this because there is going to be a point when you need to get your top used to holding max loads. So, I would definitely do hypertrophy style training, which is high volume, but don’t be afraid to add those one-reppers, or three-rep heavy loads in there as well. You’re going to need them. JEFF: All right, cool. So, we’ve got one more, which actually hits the back.

Right? K. C. : Yep. JEFF: That’s an area no one ever thinks about, a lot of times when it comes to the bench-press.

K. C. : It’s one of those things – yeah. A lot of people think ‘chest, bench-press, okay’. Chest.

Some people will thing “tris”. But the next one I’m about to show them, a lot of people don’t realize it’s a big engagement, as far as bringing the bench-press and building a big explosion out of the hole. JEFF: Let’s go do it. All right. So, we talked about the back.

It’s a lat pulldown variation where it becomes one of those key accessory lifts of the bench-press. But as the case is, it’s how you do the exercise. There are so many ways to do the exercise here. But when we’re talking about accessory to building a bigger bench, there’s one good way. One ‘best’ way.

K. C. : Right. JEFF: It’s how you do it here. You call it the laid-back pulldown.

K. C. : Lay back pulldown. JEFF: Right. So, let’s see what it looks like.

And we’ll talk it through, as you go through and rep it out. First thing,