What's up, guys? Jake Hutton from Fitness Culture. Today we're gonna be talking
about five exercises that we feel like people aren't doing enough, that's going
to help you increase your bench press. They're basic exercises, but a lot of the
times when we go to the gym we notice that they aren't included in people's
programs, and besides actually a barbell in your hands
doing the bench press, these are five of the biggest and most important exercises
that are gonna help you bust through a bench plateau and keep climbing up that
bench press ladder. Alright guys, the first exercise we're gonna talk about is just
your standard standing barbell overhead press. So the reason we're gonna talk
about this one is because a lot of people that are trying to get a bigger
bench aren't focusing on this lift at all, and it's kind of a good measure to
see if you have an imbalance between your overhead press and your bench press.
So a lot of great strength coaches will say that your overhead press needs to be
about 70% of your bench press max. I've personally never been able to get my
overhead press really even very close to 70%. But I would say if you're basically
within the 60 to 70% range, try to strive to keep your overhead press within 60 to
70 percent of your bench press to avoid hitting a plateau. We see people commonly
making mistakes on this movement, so we're gonna go over a little technique real quick.
Alright, there's a couple things that we want to cover, just because a lot
of people in the gym are doing a couple things wrong and it's kind of unsafe.
So, the biggest two things, make sure that you're going through full
range of motion so you're not one of these guys that's just sitting back
doing half reps, leaning back like this. And the next thing is going to be
keeping your core and glutes as tight as possible as you drive through the bar.
Number one, it's gonna increase your poundage because you're gonna be really
strong, you're not losing at your low back.
And number two, it's going to protect your low back, so if you are a guy that
has low back pain when you're doing overhead press, there's probably a good
chance your butt's out, you have an anterior tilt, and you're leaning back and just putting
a ton of pressure on your low back. So Brody's gonna show a good overhead press.
So your hand width, really you're gonna go where you're comfortable.
For me, usually for bigger guys sometimes if you have a little bit less mobility,
you have some muscular restrictions here, your your grip will get a little bit wider,
but try to go as narrow as possible. And then from there your elbows
gonna be pointing straight down, your core is gonna be tight, so think about
squeezing your ribs down to your belly button, and then squeeze your glutes.
Squeeze everything as tight as you can before you initiate the rep, and then you're
gonna drive through, all the way through overhead, really press it all the
way out overhead. Good. So notice how Brody is finishing
with his arms right by his ears, that's where you want to be. So a bad rep, a lot
of guys will cut it short, guys leaning back and pressing forward like this.
You want to avoid that. Make sure you're finishing with your head neutral and
your arms right by your ears. Everything's tight, good. All right, the
next move we're gonna talk about is the close grip bench press, and obviously yes,
this is a barbell bench press movement, but the reason that we wanted to talk
about it specifically is because a lot of people use this movement as an
accessory for their triceps, butl they don't actually take their close grip
bench ever during the year through a full bench progression.
Gradually bringing your hands out to go for your next max has been the best way that I've
seen to get people to bust through a plateau. What we want to focus on here is
basically working the close grip bench to get as strong as you can multiple
times throughout the year. And so we're going to go over some technique on
the close grip bench really quick. Alright guys, so the key points on the
close grip bench and where a lot of people make a mistake, well it's not
necessarily a mistake, because it's gonna focus more on your triceps the closer you go in,
but really if your hands are too narrow, and see how it's making his
wrist kind of cock in like that, that's gonna make it so you're not gonna be
able to press nearly as much weight because it's it's not as stable.
So really on the close grip bench you want to find a position where you're
basically stacked over your shoulders, your wrists are able to stack straight,
and you're able to keep your elbows nice and close to your body. So go ahead and
unrack it real quick. So for Brody, he's stacked over his shoulder, his wrists are
nice and straight so he's gonna be able to press a lot of weight, and from here he's
gonna try to keep his elbows as close as possible as he comes down. So he's at a
slight angle away from his body, but that's still nice and close. What you
want to avoid is basically coming down with your elbows out. So you avoid
this because you're not gonna be able to press as much weight here, and honestly,
as long as you're squeezing your shoulder blades down into a good
position it's not gonna allow your elbows to flare out like that.
So elbows nice and tight, and you're gonna drive straight through the bar.
All right, exercise number three is gonna be the single arm neutral grip dumbbell bench.
And the reason that we love this exercise is because it's really going to
work your ability to stabilize the barbell. Where people go wrong sometimes,
is they try to do a lot of weight but they never lock it all the way out. So we
really try to focus on squeezing your shoulder blade down and back into a good position,
so you have a nice high chest set up just like you would on a regular bench press.
From there, every rep you're gonna lock it out completely.
So you're staying nice and tight, just locking the elbow out,
controlling it at the top, and then from there you're coming all the way
down almost to your armpit, and then locking it all the way out, just like this.
Again, so a bad rep a lot of guys will try to go too heavy, and they'll
basically just press halfway up and then go right back down into it. And they're
not really utilizing this movement for what we're looking for. We really want to
press it out and stabilize at the top. Basically a good lockout on this, what I
like to think about, is unless you can stabilize it at the top and basically
think about being able to be rock solid if someone's gonna come up and hit the
dumbbell around, obviously when you're down here that's not gonna happen right here.
It's gonna be all over the place. Don't take it light, go as heavy as
possible, and the more weight that you're able to control on this movement,
the easier it is going to be to unrack and control a barbell on the bench press.
The last two movements were gonna talk about are movements that are gonna be
targeting tricep strength, so we really want to focus on building strong triceps
if you're gonna get better at the benchpress. And one of our favorite
movements to do that is gonna be the dip, so we add dips into our
program essentially every week, no matter what. Our goal is to go as heavy as
possible, but get full range of motion on this movement. So he's gonna start locked out
at the top, and then really you're gonna essentially go as deep as you
possibly can, while keeping your chest up. And what I mean by keeping your chest up,
your shoulder blades are squeezed down and back, and you're in a good position
at the bottom of the dip, and not rolling forward like this. So a lot of guys will
try to increase range of motion, but then they're basically shrugging
with their traps instead of squeezing down and keeping their chest high.
So go as at deep as you can with your chest up and come back up.
Alright guys, our last exercise for tricep strength specifically is going to
be the king of tricep exercises in my opinion. The barbell skull crusher.
You can go really, really heavy on these and it's gonna make a
huge impact on increasing your benchpress. And we're gonna go over a
little bit of form on this, specifically on going heavy on the skull crusher.
A lot of people will tell you maintain constant tension on your triceps,
so start like this on the skull crusher. And that's good advice, but at the same time
there's no reason we can't just come back to neutral between every rep and
let your triceps rest a little bit, and actually go really, really heavy on the
movement. So Brody's gonna start right here, start at neutral, come back
just a little bit as he as he initiates the rep, and try to come to
the very top of his skull, stretching the triceps, and then back to neutral.
Instead of just having tension on your
triceps all the time, and starting in a position that's really not advantageous
for going super heavy, it's gonna allow you to go a little bit heavier, rest in
between each rep, get back into that next rep, push as much weight as possible,
and go really heavy on movement. So one other thing you'll notice is Brody's trying to
keep his elbows in as much as possible. So you really want to avoid letting them
flare out super violently like this. Just try to squeeze them in as you're
going down. Alright, so that wraps it up for five exercises that we really feel
like if you push hard and heavy on these, and do with correct form, it's gonna
really help increase your bench press, especially if you're plateaued. So we put
together a full bench press week where we kind of utilize all of these
things within one week to kind of show you how we would put it together.
So we put the link in the description, so you click that link, download a week if you
want to try it out. I appreciate you guys tuning in. If you like this content,
like and subscribe, and leave me a comment on other videos that you'd like us to cover.
Thank you.