You want to build a bigger chest at home but you don't have room for a benchpress.
Don't worry, I'm going to show you today how you can still do a bench press without the
bench.
What's up everybody?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM.
I said here in the beginning, if you want to bench press to build a bigger chest, that's
great.
It's a standard exercise for that, but what happens when you're working out at home and
you don't have the space for a benchpress?
I mean if you look here this bench right here is a pretty standard bench.
There's a dip attachment set up to it.
But if you have to put the olympic bar on top I mean you need a lot of width here just
to accommodate a bench press.
And I know a lot of guys, they don't have that.
But they do have a set of olympic weights they got on a tag sale somewhere or rusty
old pair of 45 pound plates and an olympic bar.
But they don't have an actual bench to put it on so they forgo bench pressing.
What I want to do today is take a quick break for our series that we've been doing through
Men's Fitness magazine and now show you how you can do a bench press at home and actually
why there could be some advantages to this variation of the bench press.
This is a floor press.
Ok?
What I do is set up 45 pound plates up on the bar.
It could be more, whatever you are going to want to be using.
The idea here is get yourself into position, ok, to do the press.
And we run into a problem.
I can't get myself into position to be able to get under the bench and lift it off the
ground to start.
So What do we do?
Well, we are able to actually utilize another popular exercise which is a hip thrust, hip
extension, right here by getting the bar right into our hips, right into the crease of our
hips.
We grab the bar in position as if we were going to you know, do the bench press.
So, for me, the way I always test this, this is sort of another tip in here, is at the
bottom your arms should be at 90 degrees.
So if you're at the bottom of the bench press, you should be 90 degrees.
So whether you're under a standard bar or whether you're trying to do this, you position
your elbows already at 90 degrees and then just drop the hands forward.
Or, if you are under a bar, you bring them down here first.
You're not holding a bar, get them to 90 degrees, and then reach straight up from there.
Ok?
So for us, we're here.
The bar is inside the hips and now we're just going to do a hip thrust, extension through,
which will put the weight up into position to be able to grab it and get into position
and do the lift.
So from here, thrust up, and it's enough to get yourself into position to start it.
So now from here, you press up, ok?
And now what I like about this is that this is a zero momentum press.
There's no bouncing off of your chest here.
There's no cheating the rep.
You have to start from zero momentum every single time.
And I also like, and I have showed you guys lots of times, that the bench press, if you
go lower than parallel to the ground you can really start screwing up your AC joint in
your shoulder.
You can actually pop the AC joint on a single rep.
So from here you actually get to keep the momentum at a zero starting point and then
push all with the strength of your chest.
Down and under control, pause for a second at the bottom and then come out of it.
We want to spot back in, you just lift yourself up, lower it down slow, and then roll out
of it.
The thing here guys is that there are options, there are always options.
See, I think that it's my job as a coach that when someone comes to me with a problem, in
this case it's you guys, and say I want to do a bench press but I don't have a bench,
what can I do?
Then it's your responsibility as a coach to come up with a way to do it.
Right?
There's always a way to get to a goal and you can't coach everybody the same way.
That's what AthleanX is all about.
That's why I took such great care when I put together the program is to come up with, you
know, all the ways that you can get this workout done and do what you have to do because there
really are no excuses guys.
Excuses are sort of just cop outs.
But when there's really a way to go and there's always a way to go, then it's my job to show
them to you and I think this is one that covers the whole bench press angle.
So guys, get rid of the excuses, get back in the gym and start doing the exercises that
you need to do to get yourself bigger and stronger.
I will see you over at ATHLEANX.COM and I hope to see you join me on Team Athlean so
I can be your coach and bring you to all new heights and levels.
I will be back here guys, next week with another video . We will come back to the Men's Fitness
magazine, sort of how to cope with some of the injurious exercises, and show you ways
to get around it.
Until then, I will see you guys back here in 7 days.