About the Bench Press
In my opinion and in many other people’s opinion the bench press is the best upper body exercise there is. The bench press is used in weight / strength training, bodybuilding and power lifting competitions. The Bench Press uses all the ‘push muscles’ of the upper body – the chest (pectoral major), the shoulder (deltoid) and the triceps. (This is as opposed to the ‘pull muscles’ in the upper body which are the back, biceps and traps).
The reason the bench press can be used as in strength training is because it uses a lot of muscles at once as opposed to a lot of other body building exercises that isolate a single muscle group. The bench press along with the dead lift and the squat are the three main high intensity / compound exercises. High intensity exercise is a good way to naturally increase your testosterone levels. They should form the core of anyone’s bodybuilding or strength training workouts. If you only have time to go the gym once a week the I see the Bench Press as a must.
Description and How to Perform the Bench Press
You will have a bench that has two pins that hold the weight up. The weight consists of a long bar (a barbell) that you can put as many discs on to as you like, assuming you can lift them! Always have the same amount of weight on either side. Remember to include the weight of the bar when calculating how much you are about to lift. The Olympic barbells which are in most gyms weigh 20 KGs.
Whenever you bench press if possible have someone standing at the head of the bench to help you get the weight of the pins for your first repetition (rep) and back on again after your last rep. You should definitely have someone there to spot you if you are going to bench press 70% or more of the maximum weight you can lift (known as your 1 rep max). It is obviously possible to get any amount of weight stuck on your chest so if your not sure or you don’t know what your 1 RM is then it’s best to have someone there to spot you.
You hold the bar at a medium / wide grip. Some barbells will have a marking on the bar to guide you. Then you should lift the weight of the pins and extend your arms out. This is where your first rep begins. Lower the weight in a slow controlled manner coming to a stop as the centre of the bar touches your chest. Your wrist, elbow and fore arms should now be in a straight line at 90 degrees to the floor. If they point outwards your hand are to wide apart and if they point inwards then your hands are to close together. Then you pause for a split second and lift the weight at a constant speed (not a jerking motion) until your arms are extended again. Repeat this until you have completed your desired number of reps. Then from the extended position carefully place the weights back on the pins.
What Weight, Reps, Sets, Rest time and Variations for the Bench Press?
This depends on the type of training you are doing and goes beyond the scope of this guide and should be varied on a regular basis but a good starting point for the Bench Press would be if you are attempting to body build then you should bench press from 65% to 85% of your 1 RM and do 4 sets of between 6 and 12 reps. With a one minute rest between each set. For strength training you should bench press between 85% and 100% of your 1 RM, 5 to 8 sets of between 1 and 3 reps. This time with two or three minutes rest between sets.
I hope you found this bench press guide helpful.
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