Chest Day - Bench Press

Bench Press

Now of course Monday was international chest day and every bench in every gym is going to be busy. That's why I trained yesterday!!! Good little tip if you don't want to be distributed and be hours in the gym trying to train chest. Train a different day!!! However the main reason as to why I'm writing this entry is to really focus on how you bench.

The bench press has so many different variations and of course rep ranges which can be used depending your goal from the exercise. Now recently I've opted for a closer grip, pinning my elbows in. This has aided with removing a lot of front delt for the exercise, along with greater lower chest development. This however caused me to push the bar slightly forward when going heavier as oppose to going straight up, meaning I wasn't getting all the power through the movement that I was actually generating. 

This caused me to totally change up my grip placement yesterday, opting for a wider press. The best way to describe it is lie flat on the bench with your arms at right angles, this is your grip placement. This taking into account your back width along with limb length. This grip placement is more of a powerlifting based placement, hence getting mor speed thus power through the push phase. I managed to go slightly heavier than normally, along with it targeting my chest a lot more as a whole. I also managed to hit higher reps and on the descent in weight, hit a PB at 100kg for 12. Some may say however the range of movement is a great deal less, but with correct rep ranges and programming it will aid you more in the long run. 

The rest of my workout followed on very much the say, focusing more on exploding in the concentric phase. Incline DB press focusing on lowering the weight over a four count, exploding up. Take the weight down to really use tempo to generate the power, thus working the muscle slightly different to normal. Flies and dips followed along with clap press ups to finish to really generate the explosive speed/power. 

Now the pump post workout was insane, mainly due to the change up in tempo and ethos of training. Make sure you always keep this in your routine in order to less likely plateau, keeping the body guessing. 

Now even though it's Wednesday, go and hit Chest again!!!

Jack