We’re about to enter a new month, a new challenge. With that, a whole bunch of new Mondays…

That annoying day when nobody wants to work, that day that many people would remove from their week. The only really great thing about Monday is that smell of Bench Pressing around the gym. Doesn’t it lift your spirits?

Walking around the gym with a pumped up chest and hiding your legs (hold up, we’re not trying to discriminate) is a great feeling, which many people love. It’s easily observable, since it’s the busiest day in the gym. Now why’s that, I wonder…

RELATED: FOREARMS, THE FORGOTTEN MUSCLE!

But all of that doesn’t matter. Now that you’re here, you’ll do the course and set an example!

1. AMS– This acronym is very important; it stands for Accessory Muscle Strengthening. What does that mean? Isn’t the Bench Press all about the chest? Well, sort of. It’s a compound movement. Even though it primarily works the chest, it also recruits your anterior delts as well as your triceps. So a good way of progressing and gaining strength on the Bench Press is to strengthen these muscles. How? – you ask. Well, thanks to the Military Press for your anterior delts and the Close Grip Bench Press for your triceps. These two exercises will be important in your Amateur to pro transformation. You can fit them in on the days that you work these muscles, but you should increase the training frequency for these 2 exercises to 2-3 times a week.
2. Strengthening your upper back – What? There are even more muscles intervening? Yes, but these upper back muscles act in more of a passive way. Basically what they do is provide stability to the exercise. Long term it will also keep your shoulders healthy, since keeping your back tight while pressing relieves unnecessary tension from the deltoid. Less pain, less injury.
3. Foot placement – In the benches for pressing area, it’s common to see a plethora of bamboos, like a bamboo forest. Some with their “bamboos” (legs) wide, some close, some on the bench…even in the air. The goal here, so that you have better leverage to perform the press is to place your feet firmly apart, but not too much apart, while keeping a good amount of tension going through your legs, trying not to arch your back excessively. That’ll only shorten your range of motion, which can result in incorrect muscle development, injuries and lack of “gainz”, brah.
4. “Bar pathway” – The most efficient way, mechanically speaking, is to raise the bar from the bottom of your chest until the bottom of your neck. So, it’ll be a slightly curved trajectory, since your elbows will rotate throughout the concentric portion. Try to maintain tension on the pecs throughout both phases, both concentric and eccentric so that you optimally recruit its muscle fibers.
5. Elbow and wrist positioning– When we execute a flat Bench Press, we should keep our elbows and wrists aligned with the bar, specially on the bottom portion of the exercise. When you bend your elbow to reach this point, you’ll eliminate unnecessary tension on your rotator cuff and tendons. So, more health for your joints and tendons. The wrist, which you must not confuse with your fist, should not lean back. It should remain aligned with your forearm. Many weightlifters have broken their arms because they incorrectly placed their wrists in relation to their arms. This obviously happens when great amounts of weight are used.