How to Increase Your Bench Press (FASTEST WAY!)

The bench press is one of the most popular chest and strength exercises performed. While many would like to continue to increase their bench press they find it difficult to break through plateaus that can stagnate their strength on the lift. In this video, KC Mitchell joins me to show you three more

JEFF: What’s up, guys? Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX. com. Today we’re going to talk about the bench-press. We’re going to talk, again, about how to increase the bench-press by, guess what?

Not actually doing the bench-press. Not just doing the standard, traditional bench-press. You see, a while back – actually, a year ago – K C Mitchell, that one-legged monster, came into this gym and shared something with me that was very interesting. Things that we’ve known about here, at ATHLEANX for quite some time. That is that his biggest gains on the bench-press came from, not necessarily doing bench-press, but by doing accessory movements that would help him to perform the bench-press better.

As a matter of fact, he shared that time – as you can see in this video – that he performed these accessory movements more often in a given training block, than he did the bench-press itself. There’s good reason why these work. They allow us to work through our weak points to get better at the overall standard performance of the lift. Now, we had KC come back again, and this time I put a video out a couple of weeks ago about some main points, and some main tips that you can apply to the bench-press. However, he brought back some additional accessory movements.

I wanted to cover those with you because I think sharing these, and why we do these, and why KC did them as well, is going to help you in your lifts. Let’s go through those one by one. First up is a bench-press, but with a variation. That is the pause-bench. We’ve talked a lot about the benefits of pause-squats.

In this case, the pause-bench is also providing its own. Namely, the time that you have to overcome a non-moving object. Overcome the force of inertia to get that object moving again. It’s going to require a lot of strength to perform it. That’s one of the main benefits you’re going to see KC talk about here, but in addition to that, we’re also talking about going back to that video I mentioned, the importance of leg drive.

When you have that weight sitting on your chest, waiting to be lifted off, you’ll find that if you struggle with leg drive you’re going to instantly see how easy it is to recruit everything in your body to get that weight off you, if you incorporate pause-bench. Now I want to show you how KC does it, and I want him to be able to share with you some of the finer points that he’s thinking about as he performs it. KC: So, pausing. Everything’s the same, you guys. Everything’s the same.

You get yourself setup the same. You’re setup. One, two, three. And then you come down. Then it’s up to you on how long you want to hold the weight.

Some guys do three second pauses, some guys do five, some guys do seven. Honestly, after seven I feel like you’ve kind of- JEFF: Exactly. KC: You’re exhausted. Then, the one thing I was telling Jeff earlier that I’ve realized is, when I was doing bench-pauses like this, I realize that what happens is, my brain is like – right now, this weight is just sitting here for a long period of time. And it’s obviously fatiguing my chest fatiguing my triceps.

So, to get it to move the way I’m wanting it to move, as you can see, leg drive is starting to move me. I’m going to engage this leg drive really, really hard. Just like that. Do it again. Five, four, three, two, one.

Like that. Again, you can see the legs are really coming into play. Even more so than when I was just teaching leg drive. Just because I feel like that weight is just sitting on me and the muscles are getting tired. JEFF: Yeah.

KC: So, the legs aren’t getting fatigued sitting there. JEFF: When it comes to – we know that acceleration of the bar is going to be a great tool for incorporating and recruiting more muscle fibers in that, too. KC: Absolutely. JEFF: So, the thing about that is, when you’re in that pause, you’re going to have to recruit a lot of power and force to be able to get out of that hole. But you’re not necessarily taking advantage of a stretch reflex.

KC: Right. JEFF: Right? Which is going to give us that opportunity to do that and accelerate the bar. This is done from that dead stop. So, because of the fact that it’s done as a reaction to that intimidation of the bar resting on your chest- KC: Right.

Absolutely. JEFF: To get it off, it almost does it automatically. KC: It’s the intimidation of that weight sitting on you. JEFF: All right, the second exercise for your bench-press is going to be the dumbbell floor press. Now, it should look similar to something KC and I covered in that previous video, which you can see here, which was the barbell version of the floor press.

It does provide us with an opportunity to work that lockout portion of the bench-press to help with a weak point if triceps are impeding you from getting into a good, full, strong bench-press. But I’ll tell you this: it has some additional benefits when we employ the dumbbells here. Number one: it’s a little bit easier to perform in a gym. The setup here is going to be much easier to grab some dumbbells and get in position, than it would be to do it in a rack, like KC was doing. Beyond that, we have a couple of other things.

We know that the adduction benefits of the dumbbell bench-press is always going to be higher than it is with a barbell. A barbell is going to require a fixed hand placement on a single bar, whereas a dumbbell is allowing us to approach more adduction, more activation of the chest as we bring those dumbbells up to the top. Additionally, we have a good safety net. Whether we’re using the barbell or a dumbbell, the safety net provided to us of the floor to decrease the risk of any kind of AC joint injury that we could get from a bench-press that goes too low, or uncontrolled. Finally, we do need to know how to get these dumbbells into position.

That’s something that KC went on to show. Again, the ease of doing this. Something that Jesse struggles with mightily, as you’ll see, and of course, he’s going to tell you how the benefit of getting those elbows into the right position because the floor press demands that to make sure the elbows are supporting the wrists. So, I wanted to share those two tips with you here, so you can hear how he feels, or how he thinks about this as he performs it. So, let’s show them how you do it.

Some people don’t even know how to get in. KC: Right. So, basically- JEFF: Like Jesse. Jesse? JESSE: Hey.

Come on, now. KC: I asked Jesse to get these weights for me and he just couldn’t do it for me. JEFF: So, show us. KC: Basically, I get the dumbbells, I put them right here by my quads, set them up, and basically just grab one. Go here, right up high on my hip.

Grab the other one, set it up high on my hip. Then all I do is get myself ready. I get myself tight because once I go back, I’m there. I’m in position. So, I get my lats nice and tight, I roll back with it, and I twist and set up.

It’s very simple. JEFF: Right. KC: It moves right into motion, once you setup. Once you’re here, just press up, just like a bench-press. Then down.

Right here is basically where you want to get. If you watch, it’s right where the cut of your triceps hit. JEFF: I find that the floor press barbell or dumbbell, it grooves the proper positioning. KC: Absolutely. JEFF: Because your elbows stay tucked more naturally than it does any other way.

KC: Absolutely. Yep. JEFF: Just to support the weights. That’s awesome. KC: Let me tell you, it’s a lot harder than the barbell.

JEFF: Yeah. KC: For sure. JEFF: So, the loads down here are comparatively – you’re a lot lighter. KC: A lot lighter. Yeah.

I can do 300 plus on the floor press barbell her