If You’re Not Focusing On The Bench Press… You’re Missing Out On A Ton of Muscle and Strength That Could Be Yours!
By Vince Del Monte & Mike Westerdal – Creator of Critical Bench
That’s the SINGLE BIGGEST reason you need to start focusing on lifting more weight on the bench: So you can gain more muscle mass!
Not only that… the bench press is a very intense and demanding exercise for your entire body.
When you do a heavy and intense bench press… you can shock your muscles into growing faster than they usually would. And because of the intensity of the bench, your body releases a ton of anabolic hormones into your bloodstream. Things like testosterone and human growth hormone.
So bottom line… if you focus on increasing your bench press… and the amount of weight you lift on the bench press, you WILL gain muscle and lose fat. And as a result… you’ll look bigger, more muscular, and also leaner.
Again, we’ve seen it time and time again.
Check out Mike Westerdal before he discovered his Critical Bench program…
Have You Ever Wondered Why People
Are So Obsessed With The Bench Press?
We used to ask ourselves, what’s the big deal with the bench press anyway?
It didn’t matter if it was at school with our friends… at work with our co-workers… or at the gym with our lifting buddies… everyone would always ask us, “How Much Do You Bench?”
But over time, as we became more informed about exercise and muscle growth…we soon learned that the bench press did a lot more for your body than just about any other exercise.
3 Reasons Why You’ll Want to Focus on Increasing Your Bench Press
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The bench press is not just about boosting your ego, having a head turning upper body, or about the ability to push people around on the field.
When done correctly (which most people don’t) the bench press uses every single muscle in your body. You stimulate the chest, shoulders, triceps, biceps, your back and even your LEGS.
The #1 Mistake People Make When Failing To
Bench Press More Weight
We want to let you in on a little secret:
Because there are SO many muscles involved in the bench press… you don’t want to neglect and forget them.
In order to up your bench press max and start packing on muscle mass… you’ll need to pay close attention to the other muscle groups that are involved in the lift.
For example, just bench pressing more often will NOT help you gain strength or muscle. In fact, the opposite occurs… you actually lose strength and muscle if you start to benching too often.
It’s because you’re OVERUSING the chest muscles… but UNDERUSING your other muscle groups.
The second biggest mistake we see people making is using incorrect form.
If you’re not benching the right way you’re losing a lot of leverage plus you put a lot of extra strain on your shoulders. Tomorrow we’ll give you some tips on modifying your form so that you can immediately bench press more weight.
We’re not kidding. Whether you want to do your bodyweight for reps or set a new personal record for yourself in the gym just making a few changes will help you the very next time you workout.
I’m not kidding, people have emailed us the very next day after trying some of these techniques so excited that they were able to add up to 25 pounds to their bench.
If you have any other questions about the bench press ask them now and we’ll be back tomorrow with the answers for you.
Vince Del Monte and Mike Westerdal
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Great post Mike! I really like how you cover the importance of form in this article. It’s oftentimes overlooked, especially in the bench press, but it is definitely a BIG key to success!
Mike I used your program with great success! Thanks for putting such quality information out for people to read and an even bigger thanks for assembling quite possibly the best raw bench program ever!
I’m getting overwhelmed. This seems like great information and it makes sense to me. I’m glad you reminded me. The reason that I’m overwhelmed is that I just started using the 1000 calorie challenge. In it, you don’t do any bench at all. Should I add some bench pressing to my workouts, I’m just afraid that since the 1000 calorie workouts are so intense, that adding bench pressing to my routine will cause me to suffer from over-training.
Hey Rich,
Being in a state of overwhelm will hurt your ability to focus and train with positive intention.
I hope my answer helps you find a place of confidence and security, which is a better state to maintain to build your body.
1,000 Calorie Challenge is a program in itself and follows specific protocols so I wouldn’t combine any other program into it. I know their plan has you doing a lot of horizontal pushing movements for the chest so you’ll be ready for critical bench work once you complete 1000 Calorie Challenge.
My advice: finish the program you’re currently on before diverting your focus.
I have to ask, in the second picture of Mike, are you flexing or are your shoulders that internally rotated? Just thinking how this stands against muscle balancing and proper posture, shoulder health etc?
I can remember a few years ago when I was benching 415 lbs. I was super impressed with myself. I kind of back off the bench press since I lost 70 lbs. I just got to weak to bench that kind of weight.
But after reading this article, I think I might it a shot again. I’ll mix it in with my full body workouts.
James,
Hey guys,
Interesting article so far, always good to be reminded of the facts.
At the moment I’m on Vince’s MYM program and in P2 so haven’t done bench press for close to a month so really keen to get back on it.
But even before doing MYM, when I began training I loved bench (still do) and had a pretty mean chest to prove it but really struggled with adding more weight consistently whilst being able to handle the load and still get quality reps (usually aim for 8 or more) out for 3 sets. I’m also a great believer in being able to handle the load myself (so no assisted reps when partner involved). I knew I was becoming desperate when I starting to do smith-machine bench presses cos I knew I could handle more weight and not worry about my arms failing.
Would you have any recommendations for being able to add weight consistently whilst still getting a quality benchpress without struggling or needing assistance?
Also, how do you think normal benchpressing compares to benchpresses using a smith machine or similar?