Tips to Increase your Bench Press Fast

What is your Max Bench Press?

The bench press is one of the most popular and well known of weight lifting exercises. Among weight lifters everyone wants to know the secret for an increase benchpress. Very much a measure of progress and achievement you may be asking how can I start increasing my bench press, or, if you are already an established weight lifter, you may have found yourself on a bench press plateau where the improvements just aren’t coming. Stop! Set down the barbell and take in these tips to get your bench press to increase and come off of that bench press plateau.

Tips for increasing your Bench Press Fast

Everyone claims to have tips for increasing your bench press fast, but most of these tips are failures or fads, exchanging proper form or promising results in a way that is dangerous to your longer term increases. Don’t fall for these tips. If something sounds too good to be true it usually is, and that’s true in the world of increasing benchpress too. Fast results are still going to be gradual results and the best way to increase your bench press strength is to build on those gradual results from work out to work out. Key factors in these results will be: work out order, proper warm up and rest periods, and proper nutrition.

• Work out order for improving Bench Press

Often when attending the gym you can observe lifters going through routines that begin with a few sets of curls, pull ups, sit ups, push ups and pull downs all before ever approaching the bench press. They think of this as a way to loosen their muscles before addressing the bench press when, in reality, they are fatiguing the muscles they need for the work they’re doing. The bench press is a compound lift, requiring effort from the large muscles of the chest, but supported and powered through the rest of the body. If the minor muscle groups are already fatigued when you start your bench press they will give out much earlier, moving more and more work to fewer muscle groups and keeping you from being able to increase bench press weight or achievements.

To take the best advantage of muscle synergy the bench press should be the first exercise that you address so that all muscle groups are fresh and able to contribute to the total effort. Feet should be flat on the ground, back flat on the bench and the movement kept smooth. Bouncing the weight on your chest uses momentum to get it up, and runs the risk of cracked ribs. Don’t do this! Work with a spotter and with a slow and steady pace, drawing from your legs, core and arms to support your chest through each lift and breathing in on the contraction and out on the extension. Working this way you’ll get faster results and see an increase benchpress in just a few workouts.

• Proper warm up and rest periods

Once you’ve changed the order of your work out to bench press first it is important not to forget that first still means after a proper warm up. A proper warm up will increase blood flow, bringing oxygen to the muscles which will give you the power for better lifts and longer sets.

Skipping the warm up, which should usually consist of 5-7 minutes of cardio and 5-7 minutes of stretching, can lead to injuries which is, obviously, even more detrimental to your success. Being patient and taking the time to prepare your body to work and then to let it properly rest between workouts is the best answer to increase bench press weights and smoothly tone up. Resting means giving the muscles a chance to heal and relax and workouts should be staggered so that the same muscle group isn’t hit every day. Overtraining will not bring you better results or increase bench press, but can, instead, diminish your returns.

Sleeping seven to eight hours a night and taking a warm shower right after your work out will also help to bump up your muscles’ ability to heal and secure your results.

• Nutrition and Bench Pressing

Now that you know about lifting order and proper warm up you may be thinking ‘I’m ready to start increasing my bench press now!’ but there is one more thing to take into consideration and that is proper nutrition to support the work you’re doing. Most lifting professionals agree that proper nutrition can account for about 80% of your bodybuilding progress.

As increased strength and results are determined by tearing and healing muscle your body needs all of the proper building blocks to be able to make those repairs for stronger muscles in a shorter period of time. Will Brink's ebook, Muscle Building Nutrition goes into much more detail and is definitely worth a read, but the basics to keep in mind are small meals eaten five to six times a day, each meal consisting of a protein portion for muscle building and a healthy carb portion - no junk food - for quick burn energy. As well keep yourself properly hydrated, as muscles and joints need the lubrication of hydration to function to their fullest potential. The average lifter should be drinking no less than a full gallon of water a day, sports drinks and sodas do not count towards this total and caffeinated drinks count against it.

Keeping these tips in mind the last step in a better bench press is simply to get out and do it. Combine these strategies with willpower, drive, desire and, most importantly, WORK and you will see the results you crave.