Bodybuilding Workout

Posts Tagged ‘bench press’

So, what’s your maximum bench press? It is one of the most frequently asked questions around the country by gym enthusiasts. In fact the amount you can bench is a great yardstick for over all strength and is probably the best way to gain muscle mass on your upper body and therefore the exercise has reached almost mythical status. So in this article we will provide you with three tips for developing your bench press.

1) Make use of drop sets. These are fantastic in giving you a real burn and really forcing your muscles into new muscle growth. To do these quite simply do your bench-press exercise as normal but once you can no longer do anymore reps simply take off a weight disc and bang out as many more reps as you possibly can. Then reduce the weight once more and pump out as many more as you possibly can. Keep reducing the weight on the bar in this style until their is no weight left on the bar or until you cannot complete any more repetitions. This technique will leave you rather sore for quite a few more days than normal as it is very intense. Keep your protein intake at a high level to ensure your muscle grow back stronger as soon as possible and to get rid of the muscle soreness.

2) Stop training your chest. Instead train your triceps on their own. By doing as suggested you can indeed really focus on increasing the strength of your triceps. Once you have done this for 3-4 weeks go back to your benchpress and I can you will more than likely beat your previous best. This is due to the fact that your chest will have had a really good rest period to completely recover from all of your previous workouts and also your triceps will now possess greater strength. Because you triceps take a great deal of the work load during benchpressing it is obvious that you will be able to press more if you strengthen your tricep muscles.

3) 10 sets of 10 reps. This is another really hard core technique, indeed Arnold Schwarzenegger was a fan of this. Basically you benchpress as much weight as you can handle for ten reps and then complete another ten repetitions. Proceed once more until you have finally completed ten sets of ten repetitions each. You ought to be lowering the weight gradually from one set to the next and you’ll probably be needing two to three minute breaks in between sets. The reason for doing this is to try and give your pecs some new varied stimulus to trigger muscle growth. Once more expect to be particularly sore for maybe a week or so following this workout but also expect increase your maximum bench-press on your return to the gym. This is perhaps the fastest way to gain muscle on your chest if done correctly.

OK, I hope you found that useful so why not go ahead and give those tips a try in your next pecs workout.

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Everyone knows to build muscle mass one of the best exercises for the upper body is the bench press. As always certainly one of the questions most bodybuilders want to know the answer to is: how much can you bench press?’. Whilst it may not be the best measure of overall strength it does have a certain macho feel to it and a big bench press is certainly very impressive. So lets cut to the chase and find out how to build muscle fast and get a bigger bench press:

Grow your triceps. As much as two thirds of the complete muscle mass on your arms is made up of the tricep muscle. It may well be that under-developed triceps are restricting your bench press progress. The best exercises to build muscle mass on your triceps are using barbells and dumbells: close grip bench-presses and skull crushers. Less effective are isolation type exercises such as tricep press downs. They will definetely help add weit to your bench press.

Why not try training your triceps individually by themselves. Usually bodybuilding programs recommend that you train the chest in the same session as the triceps. Try training them on their own for a change. Doing this means that you can train them very inensely and trigger muscle growth in the process. Do this over a period of weeks and then go back and see how many more kilograms you can press.

Variety. have you been repeating the same old workout for months? time to switch things around a bit. After your muscles have done the same workout a few times, they have already adapted to it and therefore the need to grow has been removed. Keep changing things, they can be subtle changes like altering the grip width or reversing the order of your routine or they can be larger changes like doing super sets, compound sets and so on, these will give you a real pump by the way.

Make sure you are not doing too much! While with most things in life more is better, in muscle building this is not quite true. If you do too much and overtrain your chest then it can struggle to recover and find it hard to grow more. Do not focus on quantity rather go for intensity and quality instead. A short intense workout is much more effective than a long drawn out one.

Good rest periods. Muscles are not about to grow whilst you are working out! At rest is when they grow. You won’t grow if you don’t allow enough time to grow. Of course do not workout again when your muscles are still, a fair rule of thumb is to limit yourself to 6-9 sets each workout for each muscle group, any more and you may be at risk overtraining.

Take a prolonged training break. Try taking a break if you reach a training plateau. let your body fully recover, get rid of all the niggles aches and pains and then comeback fresh a week or two later with renewed energy and motivation.

Give your chest muscles a much more intense hit by doing negatives. Negatives are when you get the help from two spotters to intially help you press the weight up but who the allow you to take the weight completely to lower it. We do this because you can actually lower more weight than you can lift. So if we can get the body used to lowering more weight this will help you get stronger for the lifting/effort phase. The lowering/negative phase also stimulates more muscle growth than the effort phase.

Do a diet review. Are you taking on board a minumum of 5 meals a day whilst consuming at least 1 gram of protein per each lb of bodymass? If you are not then it may well be the case that you are limiting your gains by not following a muscle building diet strictly enough. Each meal should be roughly 50% carbohydrate, 30% protein and the rest made-up of fats. Take supplements if you have the money to, things like: whey protein, essential fatty acids and multi-vitamins.

Focus on your technique. Are you pressing correctly. Poor technique can shift the focus away from the chest muscles and can also put you at increased risk of injury. Make sure you are not lifting your feet off the ground and that your hands are not too close together, these are two very common errors.

By following the guidelines above you will be giving yourself the best chance to build muscle mass on your chest fast. Go get em!

Technorati Tags: bench press, Bodybuilding, build muscle mass, chest training, how to build muscle, weight training