So you want to know the Best exercises to increase your bench press.
Well, you’ve come to the right place because, in this post, I’ll be revealing the muscles that you use in your bench press.
You see, your chest isn’t the only muscle group that’s involved in benching as I’m sure you already know.
The best way to increase your bench press is to do it strategically.
Figuring out which muscles are critical to the lift and strengthening them.
There are 3 main muscles that are critical to bench more weight:
- Triceps
- Lats
- Shoulders
Triceps
Your triceps will be used more than your biceps, lats, shoulders or any other muscle except your chest. So it’s important that you train them well and look after them.
What’s the most effective way to train your triceps. When it comes to arms day, of course, that’s when you should be training your triceps.
When you train arms, you should train your triceps before your biceps.
WHY?
Because when you first walk into the gym, that’s when you have the most amount of energy.
Don’t train your triceps when you’re exhausted having training other areas.
Dips
Using your own body weight as the weight is great to increase your tricep strength.
If you really struggle with lifting your own weight, then you can go on the assist dips if your gym has one. Or you can do reverse dips.
Reverse dips are basically normal dips but in reverse. If you find your weight much too easy to lift, you can add weights to make it harder.
Cable push down
This is another great tricep exercise. Cable push downs really target your triceps and will help you get your ideal weight to rep range.
Kickbacks
kickbacks are a brilliant way to exercise your triceps.
They’re very easy to do…
…simple get a dumbbell, put your knee on the bench, and swing the dumbbell behind you in a controlled motion.
Make sure you incorporate this into your arms routine.
Lats
The same applies to your lats. On back day, don’t start training your traps and other areas. Instead, train your lats first, when you’re at full strength.
You want to really go in on your lats with the correct form and maximum effort. I would recommend taking a pre-workout to really help you get that push.
You see, the last few reps matter the most and a good pre-workout supplement can assist you in that.
Lat pulldowns
Lat pulldowns are my favorite exercise to train lats.
It’s pretty simple to do…
…go to the lat pulldown machine, grip the bar and start pulling the bar down in a controlled motion.
Wide pull-ups
Wide pull-ups is another great activity to help recruit your lats and break down your muscle fibers.
When training lats, try and feel your lats in the exercises, this is going to help you shock your lats into growing.
Shoulders
Shoulder day has to be my favorite day after chest. Make sure you’re hitting your shoulders from all angles.
Make sure you’re getting the front, back, and sides of the shoulder.
Not only is this the best way to really grow your shoulders but it’s going to make them look like a nice round bowling ball. It really does look epic.
Shoulder press
I personally like doing shoulder presses as my main exercise to increase the strength of my shoulders.
The beautiful thing about the shoulder press is it can be performed with dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, resistance bands or a machine
Front raise
Make sure you’re doing the front raise to help get a nice shape for your shoulders.
It’s pretty simple to do…
Simply get some suitable dumbbells or a plate and raise the weight up in front of you. Aligning your hands and shoulder.
Rear deltoid raise
Now to finish rounding the shoulders, make sure to incorporate some rear deltoid raises.
To do this exercise, simply sit on a flat bench, get some suitably weighted dumbells, lean forward and raise the dumbbells as far back as you can.
Conclusion
So those were the best exercises to increase your bench press.
By training your triceps, lats and shoulders, they’re going to come to the aid of your chest during the bench press. Many people train hard but not smart.
Now you have the knowledge to rapidly increase your bench and consistently move up the weights.
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