 Hey, you want to get really strong at the bench press deadlift and the squat We're giving away free access to maps power lift to one lucky person All you got to do is leave a comment in the first 24 hours And if we pick your comment if we'd like your comment as the best one of all the comments You'll get free access to maps power lift now also subscribe to this channel, and this is very important turn on your notifications So you know when we post these episodes Because you got to get in in the first 24 hours in order to win free stuff and for those you guys and girls that win free stuff You got to have your notifications turned on Otherwise you won't know if you won or not you got to do that turn on your notifications Also, we are running a big promotion Maps aesthetic is 50% off and our extreme fitness bundle is 50% off So both half off you can find out more or just sign up at maps fitness products calm Just use the code may special with no space for that discount. All right. Enjoy the podcast I have something to talk about all right. I have a bone to pick with you guys. Whoa. Yeah, this is well Not another bone. No, I mean Sal might have to sit this one out. So just I'm gonna need Let's are you highlighting strength? Hey, yeah, let's yeah, let's talk about Getting the biggest bench in the in the gym how to improve your bench Dude, this was this was like the test of strength when we were growing up It was a standard. No, it's like the goal. It's like nothing else matters. I mean, it's still it's still kind of is Not as much not as much and thank thank you CrossFit, right? I mean, I appreciate the the squatting the overhead pressing and deadlifting that they brought back brought back So there is there is a lot more PR talk around Squatting and deadlifting than there ever was, you know, they're not big benchers Are they those crossfitters? No, not at all. But back in the day. I don't think there's any is there's no bench programming in CrossFit Is there push-ups? Yeah, do emoms or whatever I'm your new email every minute on the minute So, you know when we were younger if you were like if you were talking with a group of guys, right? Let's say I just met you guys. I'm like, oh, you look like you work out. How do you bet? How much do you bench? Yeah, nobody gives us would give a shit about deadlift or squat In fact, nobody ever asked me that until like maybe seven years ago Yeah, nobody ever asked me about any of the lift except for the bench press I mean some of those say it is the squat of the upper body, right? Isn't it? I mean, that's debatable, right? I know they say that or the overhead press is arguably the squat of the upper body Yeah, I mean, I mean if you think about it, you're obviously pressing with your arms like you are the legs involved for sure Yeah, well, it's it's a you know, I trained so different today than you know What I trained like as a trainer or obviously what I trained like when I was competing I'm starting to notice that I say competing as much as Sal says purple, but I got to watch Apologize but I feel like it's I have to reference that time because it was such an anomaly as far as like the volume of training that I was doing So but today, you know bench press many times. I just did this this weekend All I did this weekend training wise over I should say over the last four days that we didn't see each other Bench and squat, you know, I literally did that twice and you know, two and a half different different workouts And that's all I focus on and what's beautiful about doing that Upper body exercise like that a good barbell bench press you get some shoulder work involved You get great tricep work involved obviously the chest And so you can get a lot of development from one great movement So getting really strong in the bench press has tremendous carry over to other other Muscles even it even works a lot of people realize this you even strengthen from an isometric standpoint your back Yeah, yeah, this is actually lots having to stabilize everything They do and now back in the day bench press wasn't really an exercise because the original exercise equipment But the benches didn't have a rack So the way that lifters would lift is they have to clean away go down and bench And so you were very limited as to how much you can lift then they invented the rack and then of course body builders Started presenting themselves with these really massive pecs and it became a popular Exercise and became a test of strength, but because it was so popular When I was younger I focused a lot of time and energy on it. In fact, I would say up until I was in my 30s It was the exercise I was most concerned with in terms of how strong I was just because I was conditioned as a kid I didn't really focus on trying to get super strong or anything else I was especially in my 12 and much like anything else when a girl points something out like oh, wow You have a really big develop chest or whatever that was like, okay. I'm gonna do this forever Yeah, this is my new thing, you know, so I got all into bench pressing be mainly because of that That was the spark. Yeah, and I you know, and of course because of that I think we've all made a lot of mistakes Around I mean I could recall one where I was I've worked out with too much weight In fact, there's one story in particular where I was working out with too much weight and didn't put collars on I was a kid. Yeah, this was at the YMCA one side dumps one side. It started. It's hasn't done that though I mean, I've done that dude. I was like Shaking and then one side started to slide and because I'm fatigued as it slides Of course, the weight gets down the lever so it starts to get heavier Yeah, and then as soon as it came off fling and it just right into the window now Here's one for like the at-home workout thing back when they had those sand-filled weights And yeah, so I had like buckets and things that I would hang off of the sides Like I had to get inventive to add more weight and I was by myself and I and I decided to bench and I'm like I'm really, you know, I was comfortable benching. I had been doing it for a while But I had loaded I tried to max out because I thought every work I had to max out And the last one I'm like I have to really grind my way through it I got stuck, you know, and then there's nobody to help me and I went down to my chest all the way And I was like, what do I do? And so I had to actually like roll it back you went wait hold on you rolled it back back I didn't go forward over which you got to go this way Again, I was a kid Yeah The nose is a little problematic, but yeah, it was bad Yeah, cuz I've done it many times where I'm stuck and then I have to roll it down And then you sit up with the weight and do the whole thing, but I've never I've never brought it to my neck That's very scary. That was dumb. I had so it was I had the worst bench ever So imagine like in high school, right? I was a hundred and thirty five pounds and this lanky six foot tall kid Yeah, big bird. Totally right. That's what that's what I looked like and I used to have to and I think I think I told this a long time ago on the podcast I Used to have to have a buddy who would stand behind me right for where the where the barbell is at right on the Bench and his job was to hold my shoulders down in place And then the other two guys then there was two guys on the outside spotting each side of the bar And then I and I literally could like only do the bar like I could not that was that week It's ever it was such an accomplishment to get to the wheels like 45 of the big place Yeah, that was a big day. That was a big milestone again. It came in like my 20s Most kids most guys get to that like in their early teens like he came for me like what else that's how bad my bench was But for the longest time though, I didn't I didn't understand the mechanics of the bench, right? Like understand like exactly what was going on when you when you see it You just see someone lay down and they just they just pushed the bar off the chest. It's it's Very technical. Yes, actually one of the more technical exercises, but it doesn't seem like that's right technical That's right It looks so basic when you look at someone else do it and if you don't have an eye for biomechanics You go like oh, okay. I get it. I just pushed the bar up off of me I wonder too like because I see a lot of guys and when I'm able to go back into the gym setting Just using machines and these peck decks and all these and I don't see a lot of people using the actual like benches benches And I I would be curious to see like some of the technique if they were to then jump over there and see how many guys Would have a real problem because it is a skill. It's something you have to acquire There's a lot of there was even a lot of misinformation even today There's a lot of misinformation around the bench press. I remember people saying You should not have an arch when you bench press, but that's in fact what you're supposed to have I when you bench press everybody's like, I'll keep your back flat, which is actually terrible advice I mean, I right I perpetuated that myth for a long time as a trainer You know because all of our certifications when we would go through them and they talk bench technique neutral back That's right. They neutral back flat back. So, you know, like an idiot I was telling I had clients putting their feet up on the bench I had clients telling them to press their back flat like total terrible. But again, this is early years as a trainer I don't really I'm still learning biomechanics. I'm really I really am not there yet on Understanding mechanically how the chest works like you're when I 20 years old I've got the basic certification at this play at this point and I have my experience That's like that's the all of my knowledge and so I don't fully grasp like the position your shoulder girl needs to be in Why the arch is good and supports like I think I understand that as long as it's within reason because this can get extreme as well But as long as it's within reason the best people to look for for bench Advice and technique or power lifters. Yeah And mainly because power lifters obviously their goals and move as much weight as possible and it definitely can get a little extreme Okay, but what we're talking about? Raw benching meaning there's no bench shirt. There's no assistance. I'm just you know, my t-shirt. I get down and I'm doing my press They have to maximize leverage and technique to prevent injury and lift as much as possible So they generate the most amount of force possible right in a safe way, right? Because they're lifting so much weight So those are the people you typically want to look at when you're looking at Advice in you know technique and whatnot when it comes to bench press and one of the first things that you'll that you'll notice is that there's a heavy emphasis on posture For proper bench poor posture will take away your Biomechanical advantage right away when you bench now There's one thing that I will challenge about that that is that I think is not true And this is and this is to credit I think bodybuilders do a better job here is if you watch a power lifter lift He's lifting for power and so he trains in the one one one most of time It's it is about getting the most weight up which Getting good at getting the most weight up Okay, if you're a young kid who wants to have a great chest and have a strong bench Is okay, but if you are really looking to develop the chest then learning to train with other tempos is extremely important And so that was where I saw I may not have had my best bench as far as the amount of weight I was putting up but the best development in my chest came from understanding the importance of Manipulating tempos and if you watch just power lifters We're gonna talk about how to lift the most weight, but I think we'll also talk about hypertrophy which you know contributes to lifting Yeah, and I think you and I think that's important because most Most kids are young guys that are wanting to get a big bench They're wanting to get a bench because they actually want a big chest, right? It's like because at the end of the day if I told you hey you I could give you an Arnold chest But you only bench 185 Would you rather have that or would you rather have a bird chest and be able to bench 300? What do you really care about? I would guess that most guys would said want the developed chest That's really what I think to the in terms of like the power lifters technique and in maximizing leverage You could utilize that but also do it in a bodybuilder type of a setting where you manipulate the tempo and really work on that mind-muscle connection of like feeling your way through it, but Definitely, there's lots of value in Understanding why they set themselves up to me that's where my best bench came from so when I finally I took my like bodybuilding type style of training and and then Figured out the mechanics of a chest press then saw power lifters and how they created leverage Marry the two of them together that gave me the the best chest that I ever Right, so let's go back to posture, right? So why is posture something that's so important that you need to work on in order to have a good bench press? I think number one You know the technique of benching to really to really maximize leverage means you need to actually you actually need to have a strong stable Upper and mid-back because you're anchoring your your shoulder girl You're pulling your shoulders down and back and you're holding them in position While pressing up and now why is this important? Well number one if the shoulder blades roll forward as you press Especially if you're pressing a lot of weight it does place your shoulder in a more risky position It's so and it reduces leverage when you keep the shoulder blades pinned back and anchored and strong and tight Which requires good strong upper mid-back muscles Now you have more leverage and you can activate the pecs more so it's both it's good for both hypertrophy and for well I find the posture to me and I'm glad it's the first point that we're bringing up I think is the most important thing when I think back to the clients. I try this was a one of those major hurdles or you know pivotal moments as a trainer for me was I Remember scratching my head for at least a year, you know, which would you know would be you know hundreds of training sessions, right? That I trained these clients Teaching the bench press and just man failing and getting my clients to feel it in their chest again not understanding biomechanics very well and the importance of posture and the bench press is in in direct conflict with Your your your most common postural deviations, right? So what I mean by that is most people have this Rounded shoulders forward head almost everybody does it really I mean everybody's got it It's a matter of how excessive or how bad it is so if you already have Forward shoulders and forward head and then you go to do something that's pressing forward What's going to take over or your your delts and your triceps in that movement? But what we know in order to activate and really work the chest you need to be in that Retracted position right we need to be able to roll the shoulders back and down and lock them into a position Right stabilize with the mid-back like you're saying In order to press with the chest and if you don't address that first You're gonna have a hell of a time teaching someone how to bet Yeah, if you if you bench a lot you should also be able to row a lot with good with good form In fact, I've seen people's bench press go up because they've strengthened their rows because they can anchor themselves Yes, I mean you need to be able to anchor yourself into the bench in order to support well That was the thing It's like first of all you want to have the safety of like safely being able to distribute that force throughout your body and then You know have that escape so it has a way that you're protecting those joints that are most susceptible So now I have to like build this protective sort of Tightening of the muscles around those joints, but then also you look at a performance loss like you get a leak of performance When there's any inkling of instability or any any bit where you know Your body is not purely anchored to where you have like some type of movement that at any moment like maybe Maybe the bar moves travels a little faster one side versus the other and you know now We have to compensate so the body's got to compensate work extra hard to just make this and you know We'll get into technique and all that stuff But if you have bad posture to begin with it can be very hard to bench with optimal technique I think we all do I mean even trainers I would like to think that we have better posture than the average person and I I would tell you spend way more time in This forward position. Yeah, and okay, so and I don't know about you guys but When I think of the two exercises that are the most benefited by my priming work that I do Squat and bench press are one and two Like if I neglect to prime before I squat or neglect to prime before I bench It is noticeably different. I mean noticeably. I'm way weaker or I my shoulder hurts I'm just notice a huge combating repetitive patterns throughout your day all day. Yeah, you know What's funny is bench presses where I figured out priming before any of their exercise. Yeah, in fact Before priming became a thing back in the day You would see guys actually without realizing they would be priming and you know what they would do There's two things that guys would do either one They'd get under the bar like they're gonna bench and they do some body rows You ever see you see this all the time they do body rows before they would bench and they'd say Oh, it helps me bench more or you'd see guys who are actually a little bit more You know in the know would actually do some rows next to the bench before they do their bench press You know, it's funny about that it just reminded me when I skip made fun of a lot because it was just something like Naturally, just I would do before I would I would bench heavy I would like kind of take my arms a grip and make a tight fist and then I would do this like oh Yeah, like real like a total dynamic type of a warm-up before that not just because I knew it Just helped me kind of getting good position But my friend would always he called it like chicken-winging or something like before it would make fun of me And I'm like, yeah, you know it works for me But it it's along that same kind of a thought process of course now like proper priming I've learned how to you know set myself up better with that Yeah So like if you have issues with your bench press what you might want to do in your routine is just Place a focus on strengthening the muscles that give you better posture And then oftentimes you'll notice an improvement in your bench presses from doing that Well, and that brings me to the next point that I think is so important Which is the frequency of it right and that and when we talk about priming especially when you're you're priming to combat a Postural deviation the frequency is so important like if you recognize that you have forward shoulder Then you priming your mid-back and getting yourself in that neutral or more optimal position You can't know you can't do enough of it I mean you should be trying to do it all the time and frequently getting yourself in that better posture so that when you do Go to bed. Yeah, well speaking of frequency. This was a big eye-opener for me back in the day was you know Because when we were you know working out as kids We got our information for bodybuilding magazines and all of them promoted this kind of hit each body part once a week Body part split types workout right so Monday would be chest and Tuesday would be back and then shoulders and so on and we Were told hit it hard leave it alone Let it rest and recover rebuild and then hit it again a week later And you'll be bigger stronger and you know have better performance, so I thought that's it That's it I never want to work out my body parts more than that because I don't want to overtrain them or it's not gonna allow them to Grow and whatever and I remember managing this this gym once I've told the story so many times This guy worked for me and I would notice that first off this guy was very muscular He was a trainer and I noticed in between clients. He would walk over to the bench He'd load it up and do you know five or six reps with some heavy weight But for him it seemed like it was moderate didn't seem like it was too heavy And he would do this throughout the whole day And then when he would do his workout and push himself This guy had a tremendous bench press and I remember asking like why are you like are you just bored like why are you doing? He goes oh no He goes when I practice often he goes I get really really strong at the lifts And I remember thinking like that's so opposite from what I've always learned But I saw how effective it was for him and then that led me to research Olympic lifters and Olympic lifters train Very frequently now what they do is they modify the intensity. So this is the key He didn't go out and bench every day heavy. He went out and practiced very often any benched heavy I don't know once a week and so I practice this and this is the first time in my life that I was able to bench Press over 300 pounds. I was stuck forever at whatever it was Then I started increasing my bench frequency where I was bench pressing three days a week or more Maybe one of them was hard But the other days were relatively easy where I'm practicing on form or whatever some days were low reps some days were higher reps But when I bumped the frequency my strength went through the roof. Yeah, it was interesting that's when I really started to kind of appear into and understand more of how the central nervous system works and it made so much sense that Just if I think about sports and how to get better at certain movements and certain things I have to practice them all the time and I have to do them not necessarily at full blast Like I want to do them just so I'm perfecting each part of the movement And I have never applied that to working out But once I started to understand that it made a massive difference in my strength Well, this is when I really started to learn about how power lifters and Olympic lifters train like up into this point I was really kind of a Oblivious to that I had no idea what they were doing to to get this strong and I assumed that they were maxing out all the time That's how they got there. Yeah, and then I remember meeting somebody that was a power lifter and seeing his programming and realizing like Dude, this dude doesn't lift heavy at all. I can do that. Yeah I'm like when I watched his workouts many times He was working out with a weight that was lighter than what I could press yet He was bench pressing all the time. That's right But then when he would go to a meet he would lift two three times what I could lift and it was like I'm scratching my head going like this doesn't make sense to me But in order to lift bench, you know three times a week You can't be lifting 80 plus percent of your max load every single time or else you do so much damage Your body's constantly trying to repair that was the first time that kind of light bulb went off for me about Frequency when I saw that and realized how strong they were was a huge Yeah, and then you had like the the popular power lifting clubs like the West Side Barbell Club and so on I think they the way that they would organize it They had like a dynamic Day and then like a max effort day or something like that where the dynamic day you had lighter weight and you would lift for speed Then you had the heavy day where you're grinding out as much as you can lift So frequency is huge and by the way, this works for any lift So with any lift you want to increase in weight Practice it more often you will be surprised you actually you'll be sure if you've ever done this before it'll shock you at How effective it is at improving your strength? You just had a you have to modify the intensity You're not going super hard each time you're practicing maybe one of those days a week You're going kind of hard especially with the compound lifts. Yeah, that's where this really makes a big difference There's it's there's so much detail in a compound lift And I mean you guys have know this for sure like how many times have you done a bench a squat any of these compound lifts? And you're just slightly off you just slightly It's it's like swinging a bat or a golf club like it's when you're when your mechanics are Just and the way you get good mechanics at swinging a golf club or a bat is you practice and you do it all time You don't swing it makes its way into your subconscious. That's right You get so good at it and then there's those times when you're fully rested you're fully fed You've been consistent with your lifting and then you go hit that thing and you can you're twice as strong and the ball goes twice You're right you're right because you have the central nervous system adapting and the way it's adapting is because of the frequent practice Your body's getting really good at that movement by the way, it makes a huge huge difference You can have somebody who's got massive pecs and shoulders and triceps that by themselves are very very strong But if they never practice the bench press, they're not going to be able to do nearly as much as they could if they practiced Just that lift so there's that central nervous system adaptation that gets you good at the skill of that Particular lift in other words the muscles are firing in unison you've got your technique you feeling very stable your body feels safe Therefore it outputs more juice to get you to lift more weight But then you also have the muscle building effects and here's what ends up happening especially for natural lifters When you work out you get this spike in muscle protein synthesis that lasts for about 24 to 48 hours in some advanced lifters Maybe as long as 72 hours, but after that it dips down quickly and it doesn't matter if you're still recovering So here's the thing like recovery and adaptation can be two separate things So you can still be sore for five days later, but that muscle building signals gone It was gone two days ago So what the frequent lifting does is it maintains this kind of high muscle building signal Throughout the week and you can do this even with a moderate intensity even light intensity Somewhat sends a muscle building signal. Maybe not as loud as a heavy signal, but it's still there So the frequency just benefits all of these things by the way studies support this you'll see when they'll control for volume In other words same volume throughout the week, but one group worked out three days a week Each body part other group did it once a week the three-day a week Tends to perform better both in strength and in muscle So bet if you only bench once a week and you want your bench press to go up sometimes Just benching twice a week again modify the intensity, right? So it's not hard each time Just doing that alone oftentimes you'll see an increase in your bench press and by the way you tend to see it within the first week This is the crazy thing you'll see it within like one or two weeks and that's what happened to me The first time I benched, you know three days a week. It was like by the third time I felt stronger and I was like what the hell's going on. This is this is absolutely insane now the next one This one's actually quite important. I don't learn this one till later on but all compound lifts all the big lifts They all have another lift that tends to have a lot of carry over to it, right? So like For example, if if my squat goes up my deadlift usually goes up It's like so much carry over for my squat to my deadlift, right? So if I want my deadlift to go up if I just work on my squat It tends to boost it as well where there is a lift for the bench press That's got a tremendous amount of carry over and that's the overhead press if your overhead press goes up 50 pounds You can pretty much bet that you're gonna see a pretty decent increase in your bench press So if you're not practicing getting strong at the overhead press, you're probably missing out on that No, I didn't I didn't see this until I actually got into Full range of motion overhead pressing So I for the longest time I did the you know the bodybuilder shoulder press sitting down in the material military press and you know The shortened reps only going down to 90 degrees. Oh, yeah, you got to go all the way down Yeah, and I just didn't so as the lock out the the hard part for you when you went to bench Yeah, you know, I don't I don't remember. Remember what was like the hardest the whole part of the Yeah, we'll consider this Justin that it's you're not you not only are you not going all the way down, but you're not going all the way Oh, right. Yeah, it's either one. Yeah, so I mean the whole What my point of bringing this up or telling the story is that I was doing overhead press for a long time And and I didn't feel the carry over but the reason why I didn't was because I was you know overhead pressing or shoulder pressing military pressing like a bodybuilder this whole Time under tension Stopping at 90 degrees keeping a slight bend in the elbows not locking out coming down to 90 degrees getting this massive pump on my delts But then I go to do shoulder stuff not I mean go to do bench press don't really see a big difference It wasn't until I started to do a full range of motion shoulder press and full lockout extension and stabilize the top Did I really feel the carry over that and that wasn't till way later on in my career? Yeah, if you show me a guy with a good bench by a guy or girl with a good bench press You typically have someone with a pretty damn good overhead press It's just one of those exercises that and that's the thing sometimes you're stuck in your bench And it's hard to work it out with your bench. So sometimes it's like, okay I'm gonna keep doing my normal bench stuff. I can't figure out how to get that to go up Let me see if I can make my overhead press go up instead and then that and then that'll give me that carry on You think about that too how much more That that puts pressure on you being able to stabilize your shoulder joint in itself It more emphasis on that and so I could see like how that would translate really well and the range of motion point Which you brought up, you know, but also like taking those different degrees and angles of pressing So like even like an incline bench, you know, it's got value. So it's like it's this whole gradual, you know Different angles of force that that you account for with your shoulders and chest Yeah, it helped me it helped me dig out the bottom big time Right because when you think about when you're when you're on a on a deep bench press I mean and you're pulling those shoulders are rolled all the way back Those those triceps that up or back also how stable your core has to be to use that to push yourself out Right when you when you benched like how I used to bench as a kid Which was only coming down to 90 degrees I could have this flimsy core and bench the same amount I could have my feet up on the bench and basically bench the same amount I didn't have to brace very much Because it was all here. It was all in this 90 degrees coming down and pressing up I wasn't getting my entire body involved the overhead press a full range of motion standing overhead press Taught me to connect everything that is what carried over into that like better bench Which brings us to the next point which I think is connected to this which is improving your shoulder mobility and stability this one I figured out Relatively early on just because I saw an ad in a bodybuilding magazine for something called a shoulder horn It was just this plastic thing that you went over your shoulders And he did rotator cuff exercises and I mimicked the exercise at the gym And I couldn't I couldn't believe that I added I added five pounds of my bench press Almost right away just from doing that now people think well, why does that help? Well? Here's why your body will not allow you to To to put out as much strength as it as it can if it thinks it's gonna get hurt Your body just won't do that and if your shoulders are not stable You might be able to lift another 20 pounds But your body's not gonna let you push 20 more pounds because things aren't feeling very stable I had the same sort of epiphany mainly on the rotational end of it So I hit a wall I would always get to a good amount of weight on bench But then my shoulder was the limiting factor where I would start to get pain or there'd be You know some kind of an impingement that inevitably would occur and so I started to Get into more unconventional type of tools and I Researched and found these Indian clubs and started out with lightweight So it was like one pound but really just taking it through the all those ranges of motion that the shoulder joint is capable of and and Really like reteaching it to be able to respond properly helped that added element of stability that that was lacking in my shoulder joint I didn't even realize was lacking and then I started to kind of load it and you can strengthen those muscles just like the rest Well, one of my favorite and I think I did this on my Instagram Probably like six months ago, which is the suspension trainer warm-up where you do W's and you and it's basically like your shoehorn type exercise Yeah, I'm using my body weight that are rubber bands. Yeah, it is and to me it was It was very logical, right like that that this would make a big difference You figure the the you know, the humerus goes there. You have this ball and socket joint, right? That's the shoulder, right? So it's like floating and if you don't wake up all the muscles that are Supporting and stabilizing that floating joint then what do you expect when you load it? You know and you go to press I mean, it's not gonna be gonna get off track. It's gonna get off track It's gonna float around it's gonna move around it's gonna be in stable And that means that's that's energy that you're going to lose in that area right there and a major area That's taking on a lot of direct force. So waking that up and stabilizing that really good You know another good one that Justin you do all the time that I know Sal you talk about about after Justin You know got you doing it. Just the overhead carries. Oh, yeah, you know doing something like that before you start I was just talking to my brother-in-law yesterday about this because he's you know, he's oh man I always got shoulder issues before I bench press and I was telling I was like dude get some kettlebells You know and I was showing them You know get yourself in the right posture all the way above your head pack the shoulder Stabilized there tighten the core and walk with all your joints stacked and just and just stabilize and hold you're gonna wake up All those muscles that are supporting that that shoulder and then when you go into bench Watch how much because you don't lose that energy Whereas if you don't you go right into bench pressing and a lot of people think oh, I'll just warm up Why doing more benches? Well, that's great. You're warming up and getting some blood flowing But you're not really reinforcing the stability in that joint the same way as you are if you're doing something No, the stability the shoulder joint has to match the strength Otherwise, you're gonna hurt yourself or the risk of injury is quite high and again the body Senses this in fact, you know, there's been studies that have been done on this where people will try to exert max force and And and then they'll have there'll be some kind of an emergency and you'll see them exert even more force than that Because their body overrides the you know The story of the mom, you know moving the car lifting the car to save their kid and later They realize they like ripped their muscle off the bone correct like your body won't let you and there's also just a logical component Like imagine if you're pushing a heavy cart with a stick But the stick is got like it's like half of the stick is a spring like it's you're not gonna be able to push it Very far because you can't push the the force all the way through it would be much more effective if the stick was You know strong stable and rigid and rigid now I can push the cart with a lot more force So strengthening your just the muscles around the the shoulder joint that stabilize it the scapula So this is there's other parts of the shoulder joint, right? You have the shoulder the humerus But you also have the scapula that needs to be very stable and strong as well This is where some people have issues with like winging you see is when they bench press and their shoulder blade will pop out That could be an issue with maybe their serratus muscle or anterior It's just all shoulder stability issues and this was one of my favorite things to do Whenever I would get a lifter who hired me somebody who's already worked out and I'd say to them You know I'd watch them bench this I bet I could add 10 pounds through bench press in you know the next three weeks Which they'd be like I I dare you let me see what you can do I'd strain I'd work on their shoulder mobility and stability and boom there goes another 10 pounds on the bench press Yeah made that big this is why the suspension trainer w's are my favorite because you get you with the way the w works Is you're kind of like it's kind of a row With an external rotation by the way, I want to I want to just caution everybody if you do that Start very easy because it's it's a it's a very difficult exercise. It looks easy, but it's not especially when you get to the top Well, it's great about that as you can kind of walk close to the anchor for intensity and back You know for less. So it's it's very manageable. Yeah Yeah, I mean and the idea is is to get controlled in it not see how how hard you can make it, right? It's thank you. Yeah stabilization exercises are like that. Yeah, it's not like you're maxing out Yeah, I'm not gonna get good. Yeah, exactly. I I always I mean I'm doing 15 reps slow control Pausing at the end like that. I mean you're just you're trying to wake All of that up and then I'll go right for that. So I'll do that for like two sets Right, I'll do two sets of 15 of that and then I'll go right into deep push-ups on the suspension trainer So I'll go in and that really just kind of solidifies it and again not going hard I'm not trying to make it the hardest push-up ever It's a real basic angle. All I'm doing that was taking it through its full range motion right after I woke up those shoulders Stabilized it a little instability on the suspension trainer then go over to a barbell press. Oh, I feel so good. Yeah, that's excellent We we still have suspension training. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah was at mine pump store.com some people get those All right now. Let's talk about the the technique. Let's get down to the technique of the bench press because It is a very technical lift. It's actually one of the more Technical lifts that you can do It's not just pushing up a bar off your chest. So the first thing that's important is to have An arch in your in your low back You want your hips on the bench? But you so your butt is on the bench, but you want an arch in your low backs You can almost put your arm underneath it now in extreme cases power lifters will exaggerate the shit out of this We're not talking about these extreme exaggerations But you definitely want to have an arch in your back because what it does It allows you to pull the shoulders blades back and anchor your upper back on the bench to provide a nice stable Base for that bench press. You don't want to flat back flat back can cause the shoulders to roll forward Um, and you can cause problems with the shoulders to talk about why that's not dangerous for a bench press where we know That's dangerous when you talk about other exercises, right? You're talking about vertical forces versus horizontal forces And so when you put yourself in that position the horizontal forces of the load is going to go direct Right there towards the chest and then the extension of the arms So really like the lower half of your body you have to be concerned with stabilizing and generating that Anchoring uh effect. Yeah, I know the the the weight is anchored and up on your upper back So my my low back can be arched, but I'm not putting weight on my low back The weight is on my upper back that's supporting So you want that strong arch? It also lifts the chest and allows you to really activate the chest more as well Because if you roll the shoulders forward, you're going to find that you're going to just feel it more in your front delts And maybe even cause problems with your bicep tendon In fact, sometimes people will feel pain in the front of their shoulder and my shoulder It's the bicep tendon that's inflamed from oftentimes poor poor technique. Here's another one. Um, activate your lats I remember when I first heard this I'm like, what like why would I want to activate my lats? I'm trying to push the weight away chest exercise. Yeah now bring it in But then I remember when I first tried it, um, you know, I gripped the bar real tight And then I activated my lats and kept them tight and then I dropped bring the bar down It was like I felt way more stable. Oh, yeah with the lift way more stable You feel all this control that you didn't have it was sort of like the weight was moving you versus you're You know allowing it to to move and I love that. I love gripping the bar now Yes, and then also like just trying to you know bend the bar part Like I'm I'm literally trying to like bend the bar and that helps me to activate those lats more effectively Yeah staying tight is very important which brings me to like the leg drive I remember hearing people say this like Put your feet in the floor and drive with your legs. I remember as a trainer thinking well, that's stupid What the hell my legs have to do the legs of the do thing. Yeah, I'm not squatting like I'm just bench pressing And then I remember I tried it and I felt so much stronger and it didn't make sense to me and still I Until I learned about how the central nervous system fires And really it's about this look if I act if I'm trying to To lift something and let's say I'm trying to do something with my right arm And I keep the rest of my body relaxed my cns is not going to fire As forcefully as when I tighten everything up. By the way, this is a natural thing Like when you go open a tight jar or go do something that's very challenging You'll find everything in your body tense up naturally including your face This is because the central nervous system fires with more force When it's activated and mass versus when it's isolated It's a much louder more powerful signal when you get more muscles involved in that actually like helps you to generate more force overall And so to get your legs involved is actually a massive advantage In generating more force, which helps you then propel the way to way This is a hard one for me. It took me a long time to figure this out Like it I still don't think I'm good at this like I think that it's a definitely a technique and a practice thing that Um for the and I think a lot of it is because of how I bench pressed like a bodybuilder for so long Where I wasn't thinking about my core and the rest of my body And so here I am in the back half of my training career still trying to piece this together and I catch myself with bad habits I catch myself get under there I go through like all my cues rolling the shoulders back and get bending the bar doing stuff and then I Forget the lower forget the lower body It's just it's so hard for me to remember to do that where I find I'm better at it is when I go through the checks I actually do that that arch and then I brace the core and then I and then I like then I grip the floor So it's like a core the core braces and I even like squeeze my glutes in that arch position And then that's that's what kind of lights up my yeah, you should feel your glutes should be turned on It should not be off and just relax on it should be pushing Almost like you're gonna push your butt up off the bench You can't do that obviously that makes you unstable But you want to feel that and there's a couple different ways to do this Now the one the the way to teach it to most people Is feet are flat on the floor and you're driving with the legs keeping everything tight while you're doing it The other way to do it, which is a little more advanced is you bring the feet back So that's your your your toes are in the floor and that this is how I like to do it because it keeps me really really tight But it's more of an advanced way of lifting you really get your quads to screen Yeah, so I'm just like my feet are back here and I'm squeezing now Some uh, if you're a competitor if you're going to compete in the bench press Some organizations don't allow you to do that some organizations require you to keep benching like that too To keep your feet flat. I didn't know that yeah, so but but some of them allow you to pull the toes back But for me when I bring the feet back like that because my quads are quite tight anyway It's like everything feels very tight and then when I drive my body doesn't budge But I'm driving everything feels real turned on and of course and then I can you know lift more weight All right, let's talk about advanced techniques, right advanced ways of getting yourself to to lift How do we add in variable resistance? Chains bands all the toys. Yeah. Yeah, so the first one. This is the easiest one doesn't require any Additional equipment is to to focus on pausing Your bench press repetition and folk and then strengthening your areas of weakness For most people the area of weakness is at the bottom other people. It's at the top But let's say it's at the bottom right let's say when you you notice when you bench That the hardest part is that first five inches right off the bench How can I get but then after that it gets much easier, right? How can I improve upon that? Well, one thing you can do is you can bench press bring the bar down to your chest Stay tight. Don't lose connection Hold it at your chest for you know, three to five seconds and then pressing that isometric in that portion of the rep We'll get you stronger in that portion of the repetition Actually, I did this for so long that I made that weakness one of my strengths now It's my strength is at the bottom. Well, this is another great way to build in that frequency that we talked about Right. So this is how I would do something like this. I would have a day where You know, I'm messing with you know isometric stuff and tempo stuff for a whole workout So like I'll do a bench. This is something I just recently did So I one of the days this last four or five days that we were we hadn't seen each other I told you I did all benching and squatting basically. Well one of the days I was benching I was going heavy another day was all tempo stuff super light like I'm working with 135 Which is really really lightweight for bench press for me But then I'm doing like the pausing at the bottom or I'm doing like an eight second negative It's really slow negative just tears me up. I love it. Yeah, real. So or I was doing I did an alternate incline dumbbell press where I come down and then I actually don't lock out I keep a slight bend so my chest is at the almost like the contracted position And it's stabilizing where the other one goes down and then I press up And I have to I'm working with 50 pound dumbbells 135 So I'm not going to do a lot of damage like I did on the the previous workout where I was lifting like 215 for reps That's really going to do a lot of damage to me. So this is how you build in the frequency I think is you use tools like these to be able to do another day of work But then you do light lighter work another advanced technique is just to Literally unrack a very heavy bench press hold it for about five to 10 seconds and then rack it back up Just that stabilizing at the top boy What is that turn everything on especially if your lockout is where you have an issue where You'll find that as your bench once you get past halfway you get kind of stuck Try just unracking a heavy weight and just holding it for five to 10 seconds and doing that for a spotter for those kinds of things Yes, that's a very that's why it's advanced. Yeah, but yeah, I love doing that because it's too acclimating towards Um, you know familiarizing yourself with heavier weight. I think it's just an important thing to do If that's like your goal is really to start moving weight and getting stronger I think it's it's important to also kind of feel your way up And so there's you know, there's another fractional weight plates too is another kind of a technique where you can add in Uh, like one pound at a time. Yeah, it's like you barely feel it. Um, it's it's one of those things you just slowly Uh, you know gradually like add load, but like in in a very very small amount Um, it's it's definitely like one of those it's going to take a bit of time to get you through But a lot of times it helps you get past some plateaus where you got stuck Yeah, I've always wanted to try that I've always wanted to do where like I work out modern intensity I would love to see how this works, right modern intense I'm not going to failure, but I'm going kind of hard And then all I do is every week I add a total of one pound to the lift So every single week non-stop modern intensity half a pound on each side And just see what ends up happening in terms of my progress I have a feeling that I probably progress pretty well For a while before my body would start to have you done that before justin. I've never done that before I've done it before yeah And it was great because I was in a gym where that was like it was a lot of olympic lifters and people that like had the fractional Plates and like they didn't even have magnets That they would put on to the side and I never had thought about that But it just it makes total logical sense, uh, and you really don't Necessarily feel it right away, but it's you once you start building up the volume That's where you really start. Yeah, what's it? What is it wasn't that fable or whatever he carries the bull up the hill? I mean my low it's the whole progressive overload sort of yeah He lifts up a baby, you know calf every single day until it grows up and of course he gets stronger That's the that's progressive overload, right? Bands have to be my favorite. Uh, they feel the most smooth Um, I love just a very very smooth I can also do speed with bands, which you can't really do with a lot of other things So some what I'll do is is and this is for power Power definitely contributes to and I mean by when I say power I mean the speed at which you lift I would take let's say my max bench was 300 pounds I'd put maybe 135 pounds on but then I'd put heavy bands on And then my goal is to lower the weight down to my chest real controlled and then push it up as fast as I could Almost like I'm trying to throw the weight out of my hands and just practice speed So and I'm not even going anywhere close to failure. I'm just like one or two of those And man, I would notice a huge carryover in the speed of my heavy bench like my heavy bench would move faster because of that Well, it's another great example time going back to the frequency topic, right? Here's another tool that you use for a great frequency day not going to do a lot of damage, right? Doing band work speed work like that where you're going really really lightweight or doing just bands by themselves like doing speed work You're not going to do a lot of damage, but a great way to build frequency for this I would throw in like even body body weight stuff here or suspension trainer type work here too I think that's an yeah an underrated tool for building your bench Especially when we talk about building frequency You don't want if you build frequency and you lift your chest three days a week You do not want it to be barbells and dumbbells every single lift or else you're going to end up probably overtrain what I love about the a suspension trainer like doing just like some presses and You know putting more intensity on that Right away just holding yourself in place in that plank position really exposes any little weakness and instability It's glaring at that point into it and even every incremental Angle of the way down to and then the way up It's it's a struggle. And so it's it's a very valuable Exercise then that applies and translates nicely. Yeah, we don't think I like to do with the for speed with the suspension trainer And I won't set this very low because we're looking for speed As I'll do the deep push-up right go all the way down the bottom and then from there and again This is an advanced technique. You have to have good stability My goal is to press myself up to a standing position with it with speed, right? So I'm focusing on speed with this really nice range of motion and I do notice a good carry over One time and I haven't done this in a long time I use the device that hooked on the barbell So you can put plates on it and when you lower the weight the device hits the floor unhooks from the bench and then you lift So you like overload the negative, which is actually quite interesting It's actually a very interesting feeling to do a heavy negative them with the norm Well, I mean that's We awesome right if you don't have a spotter right because that's what I remember as a kid We used to we used to love negatives We used to love putting when back when I couldn't even bench 225 throwing 315 on the bar Having your friends help you have your friends, you know help you down like that There's some there's some tremendous value to that. I just boy does it wreck you It does that so I mean I'm careful with teaching techniques like that because one I think we ordered this correctly right with the posture being your number one thing to Frequency man. I cannot stress that that will be the biggest game changer for most people Most people are not training their chest three days a week just doing that But if you do that you can't have heavy bench in Dumbbell day and then followed by heavy negatives the next day in the gym You'll just trash your chest and you won't give it you won't give it the recovery that it needs and so You know that heavy negatives would replace like a you know heavy bench press day for me Now chains is another easy way to do this kind of progressive resistance You could buy these at your hardware store and essentially what you're doing is you're hanging the chain off the bar As you lower the weight the chain hits the ground thus making the weight lighter So the weight is heaviest at the top lightest at the bottom Which kind of matches your typical strength curve on your bench right because you're weakest at the bottom strongest at the top You got to get a long enough chain to pull it off Yes, you wanted to coil down on the ground as you're as you're coming down so that way Yeah, you do lose some weight and then you gain weight as you can then press In your strongest part of the the strength Yeah, and one thing you can also do with the chain is you hang the chain and at the bottom You put a lot of chain so that the top it's real heavy and as soon as you go down It gets so much lighter because most of the weight is on the bottom Of the chain but again that progressive resistance and you know, it's funny. This this was again This was I think the soviets were the ones to really figure this out Power lifters started doing this kind of stuff and what I love now is you're now starting to see like bodybuilders and stuff Utilizing progressive resistance because it's not just going to make you stronger It makes you build. Are you sure they're not just putting on their chest for pictures? Or they'll attach it to machines, which drives me crazy. I guess some of those photos. Yeah. Well, there you go. Look at 42 Look if you like our information head over to mind pump free calm and check out all of our guides and books Totally free lots of great information. You can also find all of us on instagram So you can find just in a mine pump justin me at mine pump salin adam at mine pump adam Everything you do as a trainer is selling now. You might not be selling For money always you might not be selling products always or even services always But you're constantly selling ideas. In fact, here you are talking to mrs. Johnson who has never exercised can