How to Increase Your Bench Press & Grow a Bigger Chest

Chest day is probably an all-time favorite training day of all athletes around the World. Everybody likes hitting chest. That’s why you must sit in line for the bench press each Monday. I remember Phil Heath said this in an interview: “when I’m training chest I have hundreds of fans sitting in line to train with me. When it’s leg day, I’m happy if I have 2 or 3.”

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As an untrained beginner, you will notice rapid strength gains. You can add more weight to the bar every time you get to the gym. That’s perfectly normal, and that’s how it works for newbies.

Once you’ve reached a certain level and have been serious about your training for 6-12 months, you will notice that it will become increasingly more difficult to make progress. Eventually, you will plateau. You just won’t be able to do more reps or increase the weight anymore.

I remember that happened at 245 pounds for me. Anyways, this article will be helpful if you’re at that point right now. We’re outlining a handful of tips to help you push more weight quickly.

#1 Start off with bench press first

When you’re trying to break through a plateau on a specific exercise, whatever it might be, always start your workouts with that exercise. You are always stronger on the first exercise you do and lose a little bit of strength as you go through your workout.

ATP is being consumed, glycogen levels get lower, and lactic acid accumulates inside your muscles. All these factors decrease your performance as you go through your workouts.

So regardless of what your normal routine looks like when you hit a plateau on a specific exercise and want to overcome that, start your workouts with that particular exercise.

#2 Be focused & determined

This tip is probably the most underrated thing you can do to improve your performance. Being mentally prepared and “in the zone” before a massive set is crucial. So shut off any distractions and think about your next set.

Listening to music that gets me pumped up and works great for me, and I’m sure it does for many of you as well. I also like to take a few seconds while I’m under the bar to clear out my mind and picture in my mind how I’m grabbing the bar, un-rack it and then perform the rep successfully.

I came across a study that confirms this as well. It looks like when you’re all pumped up, your power output can go up with 8% and when you are distracted, it can go up with 12%. So I guess, it’s not just me.

#3 Try out different rep ranges

Another thing you can do is to mix-up your normal rep range. So if you’re a guy that always sticks in the 4-8 rep range, drop the weight a little bit and do 8-12 reps instead. And the other way around, if you’re doing high rep sets most of the times, switch to low rep sets.

Even if this might not seem like a big deal, it makes a lot of difference on the inside. High reps will help you fatigue your muscles, which will stimulate growth, medium reps will trigger myofibrillar muscle growth; and low reps will increase strength.

Sometimes it takes a combination of all three to break through a plateau if you have been stuck with it for a while.

#4 Tuck in your elbows

I learned this trick from a friend of mine who’s a power-lifter.

When you keep your arms at a 45-degree angle from your body and use a slightly narrower grip, you will actually push the bar up using more of your chest and triceps. At the same time, you will be taking a lot of weight and stress off your shoulders, improving performance and minimizing the risk of injuries.

Getting the form right will require a little bit of practice at first. It’s like imagining you are bending the bar when you tuck in your arms closer to your torso. Practice this using light weight and work your way up when you feel you’ve accommodated the movement.

#5 Double check your setup and form

Last but not least, you want to make sure you’re setting up everything correctly and you are using proper form.

The bar should align correctly with your eyes when you lay back on the bench. That’s how you’ll know if you are too high up or too low on the bench. Then, the height of the bar should allow you to easily un-rack it, without reach out or pushing it up too much when you do so.

Hand placement should be just a little bit wider than shoulder-width apart. Make sure your wrists are straight up, not bend backward.

Next, start lowering the bar from the top position using medium speed. The negative part of the rep should last 1 second or so. I’m sure you’ve heard many people saying that you should do the negative really, really slow, but if you are trying to increase your performance, that doesn’t help.

So lower the bar at an average speed until it touches your chest, and from there, push it up as explosively as you can. There should be no pause at the bottom of the movement.

It helps to imagine you are pushing yourself away from the bar instead of pushing it up. Kind of like when you’re doing push-ups. Don’t know why that is, but many experienced bodybuilders share this thought.

#6 Eat more

Nutrition is crucial when you’re trying to increase strength.

First and foremost, if you have been training for more than one year, you want to make sure you are not in a deficit when you try to increase your bench press PR, or any PR for that matter.

Yes, when you’re a newbie, you can lose fat and build muscle simultaneously, but once you have trained long enough, you will never have that privilege again. If you want to get stronger, you will need to eat more. And not just anything; you want to eat more of the right stuff.

Now, it doesn’t have to be a whole lot more. That will make you fat. A 10% surplus should do the trick. So if you usually eat 3,000 kcal, add another 300 kcal to your daily meal and get those 300 extra calories from carbs.

Carbohydrates are broken down into glycogen, which gets stored in the muscles and used as the primary energy source during workouts.

#7 Make sure your training frequency is in check

I increased my performance in the gym, not only for the bench press but other key lifts as well, just by adjusting my training frequency.

If you’re not taking enough time off between workouts, or on the opposite side, if you’re taking too long between two workouts, you can’t optimize your performance. So you will be either over-training or under-training.

There are no strict rules regarding this topic, so your best course of action would be to play around with your training frequency and see what happens. Sure, you will also need to take a look at your training volume – how many reps and sets you’re doing – and at your training intensity – how heavy you go.

When you’re training at high intensity, you will need between five 5 and seven days to recover.

#8 Work on other areas of your chest

One mistake that I’ve seen many people do is to stick with the flat bench press forever. Like any other muscle, your chest is tridimensional and needs to be trained using various exercises that will target different areas.

Having a well-developed upper chest is very important. So if you feel like your upper chest is lacking behind, work on improving that by focusing on an incline bench press for a while. The chest version of dips is also great for strengthening the lower part of your chest.

Switch over to using dumbbells instead of a barbell for a while. You will target different areas of your pectorals and build a stronger all-around chest. So when you get back to hitting that bench press PR again, you might have a pleasant surprise.

Conclusion

So there you have it – 8 different tips you can implement immediately to break through your bench press plateau. Pick one or two and give it a try. Doesn’t work? Pick another one and another one. Eventually, you can figure out what works for you and increase your bench press in no time.