POWERED BY TRUCKS: Make your bench lifts more impressive

The bench press is one of the most widely performed lifts in the world. 

If you walk into any gym in America you will most likely find that there is a line just to use the bench press. It’s all about who can press the most weight. Now if you stand there long enough watching all the lifters take turns on the bench then you’ll see what I see, HORRIBLE form and technique. 

There is your old school lifter who is stuck in his ways and scoffs at any new information that studies provide, all the way to your new school lifter who thinks he knows everything there is to know about lifting because he’s never read a single study in his life, or he’s read too many yet he isn’t qualified to even understand what he’s reading. 

There are many basic coaching points that are necessary to successfully complete this lift, as well as some basic principles that many are unaware of when trying to increase their bench press strength. Below you will find my simple, yet crucial, coaching points and principles that many people are not aware of.

Basic Principles

• It IS ok for the bar to touch your chest without tearing your chest muscles. In bench competitions the rep does not count unless it touches the chest. So stop doing quarter press’ and grunting like a yeti. No one likes that.

•  In order to increase your strength you must apply a periodized program for progression. If you always bench heavy you’ll simply fry your nervous system and be counterproductive into gaining strength. So have a plan to build up OVER TIME. Nothing happens overnight. Every day is NOT max day.

•  To increase strength, use less reps and heavier weight, don’t just keep banging out sets of 10 until the cows come home.

•  When pressing, keep in mind that the shoulders and triceps are very important muscles when benching and must be trained for strength similarly to aid in the motion.

•  The bench press is a free weight lift, so train it that way. So many guys try to use the chest press machines and load tons of weight thinking it will fully transfer. The problem is that once you go from an exercise where the machine maintains stability, to an exercise where your body maintains stability, the overall ability to produce strength diminishes. Moral of the story, use free weights more often to increase bench press strength. 

Coaching Points

•  Strengthen your upper back: A strong upper back stabilizes the upper torso region making it easier to press through the chest muscles.

•  Think about pulling the bar apart when pressing up: This engages the pressing muscles to help throughout the pressing movement.

•  Tuck your feet to stabilize your body which allows you to push through the hips. Yes it is possible.

•  Incorporate stability presses into your regimen. Simply stabilizing your pressing muscles will allow you to press more. When your arms start wiggling the muscles do more work trying to balance than they’re doing pressing.

•  WARM UP to heavy weight. JUST DO IT, you know you should.

Apply these techniques, and use these principles and start to see your bench press climb. This is only about 50 percent of what you need to know, but it is the most important.  

Anthony Trucks was a decorated football player for Antioch High and the University of Oregon before spending time on multiple NFL rosters. His Trucks Training facility has been operating since 2008. Powered By Trucks will run once a month in the magazine and will include additional content at SportStarsOnline.com. Send your weight training questions to Anthony at [email protected].