Lose Weight And Build Muscle

The Bench Press is the most popular lift in the gym. It's the upper-body exercise that lets you lift the most weight. The Bench Press builds upper-body strength like no other exercise. Unfortunately the Bench Press causes most injuries, especially shoulder injuries. This article will teach you how to Bench Press with proper technique so you can bench more weight without injuring yourself.  Master The Bench Press What's The Bench Press? Lie on an upright support bench or a bench inside a Power Rack. Unrack the weight & lower it to your chest. Press it back up until your arms are locked. You've done a Bench Press. Here's a video where I show and explain how the Bench Press with proper form in order to build a bigger chest. Watch it, then continue reading the tips below this article. Benefits of The Bench Press. Why should you Bench Press? Here are two reasons to do the exercise. Builds Muscle . Bench Press if you want a big chest, as popularized by ...

1. Use Your Thumb s.  Forget the thumbless grip. Put your thumbs around the bar. This is: Safer: the bar can not roll out of your hands More effective: more power can be transferred to the bar 2. Squeeze The Bar .  Not only should you use your thumbs, you should also squeeze the bar. Try to break the bar apart, as if you were breaking spaghetti. This will involve more muscles leading to more weight. 3. Be Fast .  One rule for all exercises: lift as fast as you can. All sports are done fast,  strength training  included. The only reason the gym manager don’t want you to lift fast, is so you don’t break his equipment. The faster you go, the bigger the weights you can move: Touch & go: explode from the bottom Be as fast as you can on the way up Then try to go even faster on the next set. Add 10kg (22 lbs) To Your Bench Press in One Workout 4. Keep Your Upper Back Tight .  This will make you more stable on the bench: Put your s...

Avoid Wrist Pain From The Bench Press Why Do Your Wrists Hurt? A common error on the Bench Press is gripping the bar high in your hands, close to your fingers. The weight of the bar makes your wrists roll back, stretching them beyond their normal range of motion. Gripping the bar incorrectly increases the risks of wrist injuries. Your elbows and shoulders are forced to overcompensate, which can also get them injured. Wrists wraps and wrists curls won’t help, you need to grip the bar correctly. Correct Bench Press Grip Technique. Your wrists must stay inline with your forearms on the Bench Press . The only way to do this is to put the bar in the palm of your hand, close to your wrist. Picture below. The bar is close to the fingers on the left. Notice the pink: the fingers can’t wrap completely around the bar. The solution is to put the bar close to your wrists like on the right. How to Grip the Bar Correctly. Your fingers support the bar on the Bench Press. But they don’t control th...

Want to add more weight to your bench press ? Sliding more plates onto the barbell and just letting it rip isn’t always the answer. In fact, in my 16 years of coaching, I’ve seen far too many guys miss solid reps—or worse, take a bar to the neck—by allowing their egos to get in the way. Instead of piling the extra weight on immediately, train smarter: There are a bunch of tiny tweaks lifters can adopt to reap large rewards on the bench press . And I mean increasing both your size  and  the amount of weight you can push. There are two types of bench press tweaks you can make: The first involves the setup, which guys notoriously flub. Most guys just plop on the bench like a dead fish, feet splayed out and putting no thought into their shoulder position. That’s a problem, since the bench press is more of a full-body movement than most people give it credit for. It’s the full-body tension and how you position yourself that will often dictate how much weight you’ll be ab...

Another programming tip to consider would be to bench press two times per week. I really have to twist your arm to get you do that, right? One day can be a “heavy” day where you perform more traditional strength-based set/rep schemes. That can be 5x5, 4x6, or working up to 3 to 5 sets of challenging singles and 90 percent of your one-rep max (that one's for more advanced lifters). On your second day, however, you can perform more repetition or “technique” based set/rep schemes where the focus is insatiable attention to detail on technique. I’m a firm believer that most guys fail to get better with their bench press because their technique sucks. They often go too heavy, too often, and end up missing reps week in and week out. On “technique day,” the idea is to purposely go lighter, using a load that’s around 55 to 75 percent of your one-rep max, so that your technique is impeccable. An example may look like this: Heavy Day Week 1:  3 sets of 5 reps at 80 percen...

Getting ripped involves a number of activities, most importantly, eating a muscle building diet, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and engaging in intense muscle building exercise. There are a number of exercises that are specially designed to build muscle mass fast . In this article I will introduce five of the most basic exercises to build muscle mass fast and take a look at how you can incorporate them into your workout routine. Pushups Pushups are one of the best ways to build muscles and get ripped and have been used for many years by body builders. Pushups are an endurance, body weight exercise that is often recommended to people who wish to gain muscle mass without the assistance of weights. This simple exercise requires you to lift and lower about 60% of your bodyweight off the floor against gravity using your arms and upper body muscles. This leads to quick development of the muscles in your chest, shoulders and triceps. Varying the push up position or adding resistance to ...

bench press feet on bench Feet Up. You have 2 reasons to Bench Press with your feet on the bench, in the air or on the  leg extension bar:  Lower Back Pain. Your lower back hurts when your feet are flat on the floor. Stop avoiding what hurts, work on spinal flexibility: cat/camels. Overload. You want to make the Bench Press harder by removing your legs from the movement. Feet on The Floor. I recommend to Bench Press with your feet flat on the floor. It has 2 benefits over pressing with your feet up. Safer. Feet flat on the floor is more stable. Your body isn’t fixed when pressing with your feet up or on the bench.  Stronger. You can squeeze your glutes & calves more easily when your feet are flat on the floor. This makes you stronger. How to Put Your Feet? The correct foot placement to achieve more stability and strength on the Bench Press : Weight on Heels. Curl your toes up if necessary. Push from the heels. Squeeze your glutes and calves while...

Set your equipment first. Put the safety pins of your Power Rack at the proper height so they can catch failed weight. Center your Bench. Then set yourself before unracking the weight. Your wrists will bend if you grip the bar wrong. Your shoulders will move if your shoulder-blades aren’t tight. And you can’t fix it mid-set when heavy weight is crushing you. Setup properly to improve your form and increase your Bench Press Bench Press Setup Lie Down.  Sit at the end of your flat bench first. Then lie down by lowering yourself back on the bench. Put your eyes under the bar. Squeeze Your Shoulder-blades. Raise your chest and tighten your upper-back. Put your shoulder-blades back and down. Squeeze them. Grab The Bar. Pinky inside the ring marks. Hold the bar low, close to your wrist. Squeeze the bar using the full grip so it can’t move. Set Your Feet.  Feet flat on the floor using a shoulder-width stance. Set your one foot under your knee ...

How to Bench Press with proper form: setup on the bench, grab the bar, unrack it, lower it to your mid-chest and press it back up. Bench Press in the Power Rack for maximum safety. Set the safety pins at the proper height so they catch the weight if you fail to lift it. You don’t need a spotter if you Bench Press inside the Power Rack as I do. If you don’t have a Power Rack, ask someone in the gym to spot you when you Bench Press. Then follow these five simple steps to Bench Press with proper form. How to Bench Press  Setup. Lie on the flat bench with your eyes under the bar. Lift your chest and squeeze your shoulder-blades. Feet flat on the floor. Grab the bar.  Put your pinky on the ring marks of your bar. Hold the bar in the base of your palm with a full grip and straight wrists. Unrack. Take a big breath and unrack the bar by straightening your arms. Move the bar over your shoulders with your elbows locked. Lower ...

 Increase Your Bench Press “How much do you bench?” . I’m sure you often get that question. The Bench Press is the most performed exercise in the average gym. No wonder many want to increase their Bench Press. If you’re a football player or if you just want to be the strongest at your gym, you need a big Bench Press. Here are 5 ways to increase your Bench Press. 1. Improve your Technique. Solid Bench Press technique will help you lift more weight & avoid injury. Follow these tips: Bar Close to Wrists. Grab the bar close to your wrists, not close to your fingers. Read this article on correct Bench Press grip. Squeeze the Bar. Squeeze the bar hard so it doesn’t move. Try to break the bar apart like breaking spaghetti. This activates your triceps more. Tighten Your Upper-back. Pull your shoulder-blades together & keep them tight. This gives your body a solid base to press from. Drive Into the Bench. Use your legs to drive yourself into the bench. This puts pres...

bench press plateau The bench press is a staple in most men's exercise regimens, and even a point of pride when it comes to gloating about their max. But what happens when your gains come to a halt, or even worse, your strength decreases? We talked to personal trainer and owner of RomanFitnessSystems, John Romaniello, for a rep scheme method to freshen up any bench press numbers that are going stale. Smart Pyramiding SET ONE True warm up. Light weight. 115-135 pounds. Eight repetitions. What it does: The true warm up is exactly what it sounds like—it's to prepare the chest and supporting muscles for the workload it will endure. Properly warming up will not only increase blood flow and reduce the chances of injury, but also allow the body to begin releasing endorphins and hormones. SET TWO Working warm up. 75% of your heavier work sets (170 pounds). Eight repetitions. What it does: The working warm up further prepares the muscles for an increased workload ...