When you begin strength training, the first year or so is a really exciting time because you'll find you can constantly add weight to the bar every single workout and it feels like you could just keep adding weight forever until you're eventually bench pressing 1000lbs!
But then, you hit that moment in your strength training career where weight doesn't go on the bar so easy anymore. Maybe you haven't increased the load on the bar for three or four weeks. This can be a super frustrating time, but every athlete hits this plateau at some point. Its normal!
Now here's the good news: once you've reached your first plateau, it is my opinion that you are no longer a novice lifter and have graduated to a more intermediate level of training. This means you've put in the hard work in the gym to reach this point, so kudos on that!
So now that you've reached this plateau (that you'll eventually reach on all your lifts) with your bench press, here are a few things you can do to break through and keep making gains:
1) Increase Your Volume
Once a novice lifter reaches the intermediate level, a new wrench is thrown in by the name of periodization. You've probably heard this term before. It's just a really fancy way of describing the organization and planning of your training over a given time period. I'm not going to start blabbing about microcycles, macrocycles etc. because, in my experience, nobody actually uses these terms outside textbooks.
To break through your bench press plateau, I recommend going through a block of high volume training in an attempt to build bigger muscle fibers that can, in turn, produce the force you need to put up more weight!
Here's an example of a progressively-loaded volume-based block of training:
Week 1: 3x6 @ 80% 1RM
Week 2: 3x7 @ 80% 1RM
Week 3: 4x7 @ 80% 1RM
Week 4: 4x8 @ 80% 1RM
So instead of prioritizing adding load to the bar every week, we are instead focused on adding volume through added sets/reps.
2) Horseshoe Triceps!
Another way to keep pushing your numbers on your bench press is to work in more triceps isolation exercises. The triceps are a prime mover in the bench press that are crucial to locking out the arms at the top of the lift.
While the pecs and the shoulders work hard in the descent and the first half of the ascent of the bar, the finish calls upon the triceps to a large extent to finish the lift.
So that being said, if you increase the strength of your triceps, you'll greatly improve the finish of your bench press.
You can do this by introducing some higher-volume triceps exercises. Exercises like triceps pushdowns, kickbacks and dips for 3-4 sets of 8-15 reps.
3) Experiment With Your Grip
The grip you use on the bench press will determine what muscles take on how much of the effort of finishing the lift. For instance, a close-grip on the bench press will call upon the triceps to a greater degree, while a wide-grip variation will target the pecs to a greater degree.
So by playing with various grips on the bench press, you can work to prioritize the different muscles that come into play on a big bench press!
So if you've hit the stubborn (but inevitable) bench press plateau, use these tips to get back on the road of glorious, glorious gains.
Comments