How To Boost Your Bench Press To A New Personal Best Fast
If you are trying to figure out how to increase your bench press fast, you are not unlike the majority of other guys in your local gym. In fact, boosting performance on this particular exercise seems to be one of the areas of fitness training that baffles the masses of gym members around the world.
The good news is you're going to learn three tried and tested methods of breaking your plateau today.
We must begin by assessing what your actual problem is. Most guys don't take the time to do this, but it is vital if you ever want to correct the problem at hand. It's usually one of three things:
1. The muscles surrounding your chest are poorly developed.
2. Poor grip.
3. Simply not enough strength in the muscle you are trying to lift the weight with, i.e. you are shooting above your weight.
Once you have discovered which of the three aspects above is presenting the biggest issue, you can start working to correct it. Sorting out an issue when you don't actually know what the problem is can prove impossible, yet that's what most guys in the gym are trying to do. Look out for these issues next time you hit the gym. If you notice your grip losing tension first, there's your biggest issue...
You might find more than one issue strikes. That happens to a lot of people. It doesn't really matter, it just means you have slightly more to work on than you originally planned. If you get the correction process underway quickly, you can achieve a new personal best within a very short period of time.
If you can identify the issue first, correcting it is really rather easy. For those who are affected by their shoulders and triceps giving way too easily, it would be wise to spend some time strengthening those muscle groups in your routine before you attempt to pack on more weight to your chest-based exercises. No matter how big or powerful your pecs might be, they won't perform at maximum ability if the smaller muscles in the exercise are underdeveloped. This is a sign of someone who is undertaking an unbalanced training program and you should move fast to correct it before it reflects in your physique.
Also, the importance of a strong grip cannot be underplayed. If you do not work on developing your forearms to handle large loads, you will notice that your progress on power lifts such as deadlifts begins to wane quite quickly. Your legs and back might be able to take the stress, but your grip will fail first, causing you to stop short of your true maximum. Likewise, learning how to prise the bar apart on a chest press is a useful tool to increase your results and requires a strong grip.
Some top exercises for improving your grip are barbell reverse curls and plate grips.
Finally, those who simply cannot lift a weight because the muscle has reached a sticking point also have a solution. If your chest simply cannot take any more weight and you don't have either of the other two issues mentioned above, you need to vary your chest training to spur new strength gains and muscle growth. There are numerous isolation exercises which can be used in that situation.
Many different variations of push-ups, flyes and machine presses are good alternative chest exercises which will help to isolate the area more than a barbell.
It is easy to look at the way others are training and pick the areas they need to work on, but not very many people are able to do this with their own training routine. This is why so many people wonder how to increase your bench press fast but so few actually learn how to do it, because they refuse to see the areas which are holding them back. Take a moment to criticize your own form and see what the problem is, before moving to wipe it out completely.
The good news is you're going to learn three tried and tested methods of breaking your plateau today.
We must begin by assessing what your actual problem is. Most guys don't take the time to do this, but it is vital if you ever want to correct the problem at hand. It's usually one of three things:
1. The muscles surrounding your chest are poorly developed.
2. Poor grip.
3. Simply not enough strength in the muscle you are trying to lift the weight with, i.e. you are shooting above your weight.
Once you have discovered which of the three aspects above is presenting the biggest issue, you can start working to correct it. Sorting out an issue when you don't actually know what the problem is can prove impossible, yet that's what most guys in the gym are trying to do. Look out for these issues next time you hit the gym. If you notice your grip losing tension first, there's your biggest issue...
You might find more than one issue strikes. That happens to a lot of people. It doesn't really matter, it just means you have slightly more to work on than you originally planned. If you get the correction process underway quickly, you can achieve a new personal best within a very short period of time.
If you can identify the issue first, correcting it is really rather easy. For those who are affected by their shoulders and triceps giving way too easily, it would be wise to spend some time strengthening those muscle groups in your routine before you attempt to pack on more weight to your chest-based exercises. No matter how big or powerful your pecs might be, they won't perform at maximum ability if the smaller muscles in the exercise are underdeveloped. This is a sign of someone who is undertaking an unbalanced training program and you should move fast to correct it before it reflects in your physique.
Also, the importance of a strong grip cannot be underplayed. If you do not work on developing your forearms to handle large loads, you will notice that your progress on power lifts such as deadlifts begins to wane quite quickly. Your legs and back might be able to take the stress, but your grip will fail first, causing you to stop short of your true maximum. Likewise, learning how to prise the bar apart on a chest press is a useful tool to increase your results and requires a strong grip.
Some top exercises for improving your grip are barbell reverse curls and plate grips.
Finally, those who simply cannot lift a weight because the muscle has reached a sticking point also have a solution. If your chest simply cannot take any more weight and you don't have either of the other two issues mentioned above, you need to vary your chest training to spur new strength gains and muscle growth. There are numerous isolation exercises which can be used in that situation.
Many different variations of push-ups, flyes and machine presses are good alternative chest exercises which will help to isolate the area more than a barbell.
It is easy to look at the way others are training and pick the areas they need to work on, but not very many people are able to do this with their own training routine. This is why so many people wonder how to increase your bench press fast but so few actually learn how to do it, because they refuse to see the areas which are holding them back. Take a moment to criticize your own form and see what the problem is, before moving to wipe it out completely.
About the Author:
Content from: Top south shields personal trainer Russ Howe PTI teaches athletes and models every week in the gym. His full guide showing how to increase your bench press fast will get results on this subject for you.
You are receiving this because you signed up for it on 2011-08-21 from IP 72.177.83.171
To fine-tune your selection of which articles to receive, just login here
using your username:
To unsubscribe please use the following link:
Unsubscribe
