 question is from real upset stomach. I'm really weak at the bench press and can't seem to gain strength. I have checked and rechecked my form, but have found no issues. What should I do next? You and I should handle this one. Let the real professionals in on the bench press. I mean, it's really tough to answer this actually when you don't, when we can't see the person because a lot of times what makes somebody a great bencher is the way their body is, right? Their genetic maker, their anatomy. Like if you have really short limbs, it's very conducive for benching. Well, if you got a big barrel chest and you got short, short arms, you're going to be a much better bencher than some lanky looking dude like me. It's a long way the bench has to travel and it takes a lot more strength to move that because it's strength is weight over distance. And so somebody who has to go, has to travel the bar 15 inches versus somebody has to travel the bar six inches, that person has to travel 15 inches could do less weight and be technically stronger than the person who's doing more weight. Does that make sense? It's also leverage and all that stuff. But regardless of your genetic build, one of the best ways to improve strength in any lift, I don't care if it's a bench press squat, deadlifter curls is to practice it often. People forget that strength is a skill. So it's not just that your chest, shoulders and triceps need to get bigger and stronger. That's part of it for sure. But it's also, are you perfecting the skill of the bench press and how your muscles fire together? Can you replicate it consistently? Yes. Can you get into that, you know, position but also can you generate and maximize the amount of force output that you're providing to the bar? So, you know, one of the biggest things for me was really focusing in on leg drive and focusing in on how to connect to the rest of my body because when I can access, you know, a density across my entire body and get that irradiating effect where now I have even more stability overall my entire body. It's amazing how much more force you can squeeze out just from that one thing. That's a good, that's a good point. Tensing up the entire body will give you more power, the ability to generate more power. So like if you were to test your grip strength and squeeze something, if you tried to squeeze something as hard as you could, but kept the rest of your body relaxed, you would not squeeze it nearly as hard as if you tensed up the rest of your body. So that's a very good point. I also find being able to keep yourself in a retracted position was like the biggest game changer for me. Like, you know, for the That's the shoulders pin back, right? Your shoulders peeled back and tucked down, right? When you're bench pressing so that your chest is taking over the load and the shoulders aren't doing a lot of the work and your triceps aren't doing a lot of the work. For me, that was the, that was the biggest game changer for improving my strength with my, because we were taught for the longest time to not arch your low back and that the way power lifters lifted was wrong and that the right way to bench presses with this flat back. And, you know, we, so for many, many years I was doing this, putting my feet up on the bench or flattening my back, trying to bench press. And since we do everything in front of us, and we talk about this a lot, everybody is just naturally kind of rounded forward. Then you get into an exercise that, that is, is performed better when you actually have the shoulders in a peeled back or retracted position. You know, it's, it's natural that you're going to go to your default pattern. It's natural you're going to roll forward, which is what you spend 23 of your 24 hours of the day in that position. And so getting to a place where I could train my body to be, to pin that and hold it back while I press. And for me, that's where like priming was like a game changer, like learning how important it was for me to prime, prime my rhomboids, prime my, my back and my lats to pull my shoulder girdle back and be able to hold it in that position before I go into a bench. That was like game changer. There's also compartmentalizing the lift and really breaking it down. So if it's, you know, your, your lockout is the problem, for instance, and like putting a block there. So now like you're not coming all the way down, but now you're just waiting and emphasizing the lockout specifically in the lift and, and just working on that. And then also like, you know, at the very bottom, like using a pause and maybe exaggerating the time length of like the pause. So like lightning the load, but now like generating, focusing on generating that, that, that strength when you need it in the, in its lowest position. Right, right. I remember years ago, watching one of my trainers and he was a super, super strong at certain lifts and watching him train his clients. So what he would do is he would train his, he had a lot of, he had a huge client load. So he'd train a few clients, then he'd have like a 10 minute break. Then he'd go to the bench and he'd bench press and then he'd go train some more clients and the end of the break and then he'd go back to the bench and he'd bench press and then he had some clients and he'd go down and he'd bench press. Now he wasn't bench pressing with tons of intensity. So it's not like he went out there and bench press to failure, but he would take a heavy weight that was decently heavy and he'd practice a few reps and put it up and he would do this throughout the day. And this guy bench pressed a tremendous amount of weight for his size. And I remember watching this going, oh yeah, that makes perfect sense. Let me try that out. And I did. I tried it out and I tried it out with several lifts and I got stronger real fast. And so if you're, if you're following a traditional muscle building routine where you're hitting your, your bench press, you know, once or twice a week, try practicing it more frequently. That this doesn't mean you're going to work out real hard more frequently. It means you're going to go bench more frequently and practice more frequently. You can bench press four or five days a week if you go out and you, you adjust the intensity so you don't overdo it. But just that frequency and practice alone, man, that gets people strength through the roof. So I mean, I don't know what your routine looks like, but I can assume, I'm going to assume that you probably bench press real hard once a week and maybe do another day a week. I would say try benching three or four days a week. And, and a majority of that time, you're just practicing the lift. And maybe one of those times you're actually going hard and heavy. Body building routines are completely different than strength training routines look completely maximized. One of the, the programming is totally different. You can have a very impressive looking chest and not be that strong and bench press. So a bunch. Yeah. If it's just, if you're just doing a lot of body building volume training and that's, and that's all you're doing, but if you're, all your strength athletes, a powerlifting program, man, there's a ton of frequency in there. And that's all, and you're not always moving. You're not trying to get hella sore all the time. You're practicing the lift. So I think that's important, whoever this is that's asking this question is understanding to your, your, your real desired outcome. Are you just, are you trying to chase strength and get better at the bench press? If that's the case, do it more often and doesn't mean you have to go to failure or be sore from it. Practice the lift like crazy. You will get significantly stronger and better at the lift. If your desired outcome is your, you want to build a bigger, more impressive chest. Well, that's a different story. We have a guide for that. We have a free guide that talks all about building your chest, but building your chest and then asking for strength. Although they both. In a specific area. Right. Although they both have carryover to each other. There's a, there's a different type of focus. And there are exercises that will help you with your bench that are not just bench press. So like doing dumbbell presses will help you. Incline presses will help you get stronger at a bench press. Sometimes you need to back off the bench press and just do incline for a while to address some weaknesses. Dips, dips can help people. Yeah. Deep dips can help people with their bench press. So there's other exercises that can help as well.