Whether fair or not, the bench press has become the gold standard for measuring lifting skills among gymgoers nationally.

To dominate your neighbourhood gym, you’ll need to press decent amounts. Make some tweaks if your bench hasn’t improved in a while, here is why bench press is not increasing.

My Bench press is not increasing-why? 

1. It can be the plateau
2. You not eat enough.
3. Not Sleeping enough.
4. You do not practice seriously enough?

It can be the plateau

The other  3 why are the result of Plateau, Indeed most of us find ourselves or our friends in the question, “I am steadily increasing the bench press every week; why can’t I push it up this week?” or “why have I been able to do this weight only for the past few weeks and can’t gain anymore?”. That is an example of the plateau.

So, what is the plateau? Is it related to the why bench press not increasing? Let’s find out here:

The Plateau phenomenon occurs when progress slows down while we eat, sleep, or rest irregularly:

You don’t eat enough.

 Because many times, you do not eat enough, and in fact have not reached the number of calories your body needs to recover and develop muscle.

Press, you need to Pay attention to eating more closely for a few weeks, and see if progress improves. Track you calories carefully as well.

Not Sleeping Enough.

This is an element that most of us forget. Lack of sleep increases stress and affects the performance of the next session. Sometimes, your recovery isn’t enough to return to that stagnant exercise.

 

• Not Practice Seriously Enough

Sometimes it’s just because of seemingly small things like skipping the last rep, skipping an exercise you think is unnecessary or don’t like, or even skipping a workout in the program.

If so, then you should correct yourself and get back on track. How does the plateau phenomenon disappear?

Plateau will not quickly disappear in the short term. So, one way to make your workout more effective is to focus on other minor factors.

The more experience we practice, the more likely we are to encounter plateaus,

Here are some small tips to help you improve:

•  When you are benched, try to find variations closest to the bench and improve, such as DB bench press, push up, let your body recover and then gradually return to the primary bench variation.

• Improve your bench press by Eating more: 

• Yes, do you ensure the kcal you take in is enough to recover? Try increasing 200->300 kcal per day and listen to your body to see if your recovery progress has improved; if The better the recovery progress, the plateau will no longer happen.

•  Improved bench press technique: 

• Plateau will disappear as your approach improves; not only that, but It also lessens the chance of being hurt when practising. The wrong method. This everyone knows, but how can the form be improved?

Take a video yourself and see your technique. Did the bar path go in the direction you wanted?

There are two types of bar paths: straight-line and J-Curve. J-Curve will require more elbow movement. Specifically, I will think right in my head: “Flare and push.”

When the entire upper back is set up tightly, my elbows will tend to open slightly away from the body (still between Tuck and Flare), control the bar down to the end of the chest, and push up at the position. In the initial post, the bar path will be a J; that’s why the bar path is said to be a J curve.

Also, see how strong you are. Is your weakness when liftoff (weak chest) or lockout (weak triceps)? Are the muscle groups involved in the bench press powerful enough? And find ways to improve it.

• If you can’t push the weight off your chest (assuming you don’t have a lockout problem), you probably need to be more explosive at the bottom. One way to improve on this fierce Dave Tate is dynamic effort training. This method aims to push the weight up as quickly as possible, so it will only work with light weights, high sets, and few reps, e.g., 50% 1RM eight sets x 3 reps.
• You can add chains or practice with a band to gradually increase the weight when you reach the lookout point. The more you concentrated on the speed of the bar. If the slower the bar moves after the reps, the weight is too heavy.

•  But if your problem is with the lockout, then the triceps are the muscle group you need to work on. Use variations of close grip bench press, board press, reverse band bench press, or backhand isolation exercises like triceps extension, dumbbell skull crusher, etc. (should focus on the long head as it engages the bench press).

•  Lats are also a muscle group that needs attention and needs to be attacked from many angles. Pull up, pull down, bent over row, and t-bar row are exercises you can apply. Bill Gillespie takes bucket training very seriously because he has noticed that his bench press decreases when pull-ups decrease.

•  The upper back is essential for stabilizing the shoulder and improving the arch. Suppose the shoulder blades are not held firmly while benching and transition from retracting to protract; you will lose your stability when lying on the bench. You can hardly push the weight if you don’t build a solid base on the chair. The Cuban press, pull apart, YTW raises, and no money exercises will help strengthen the upper back.

•  Increasing front delt muscle, the rear delt not only improves shoulder stability but also reduces the risk of injury and improves bench press thrust. Some good exercises like Handstand, Shoulder press, Rear delt raise, Thumb down lateral raise, and Face pull.

•  Increase the Volume of bench press during the week;

• A friend told me that if you want to be strong in a particular exercise, the simplest thing is to practice that exercise more, as well, as if you want to kick a good soccer ball, you have to practice kicking a lot. More so, weight training too.
• So the question is, how do you increase the Volume? Depending on the amount of Volume you are practising, there are many ways to improve it, but one of the simplest ways I just said is: Practice the movement itself more; my one little tip is to find out the total Volume of the bench press. Currently, for one day, do more bench press on another day with importance equal to 2/3 of the whole Volume on the first day, and the weight will be 10% lighter.

• Practice in variations that ask “super normal ROM,” e.g., close grip bench press, cambered bar bench press, etc.

Final thought

The best course for you would be to develop a sound plan for expanding your bench. However, your task is to find where you are weak before that. I hope this article will help you install more weights on the bar in this Bench Press exercise.

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