Whether you’re new to the gym or an intermediate to advanced lifter, you probably want a big bench press. However, with everybody having a different body shape and coaches having different approaches with loads of content out there, it can be hard to sift through it all. All of this content usually just tells you what the issue might be and how to fix it, but only when you’re already on the bench.
Did you know that accessory exercises are more than just workout fillers? When building a program for something like the bench press, it’s not enough just to add movements after the main lift for the sake of it, but accessorise your program with movements that help you lift better.
Here are seven sticking points and an accessory or two for each to help you get a bigger bench:
Accessory exercises to improve your bench press
Accessory movements are those exercises that should help you stay injury-free but also help you get stronger. Getting stronger doesn’t mean that they need to be heavy or super high volume, but can be as simple as adding it to your warm-up.
Plant/Root your feet
When lifting, especially when lifting heavy, you want to be as stable as possible. A better bench press starts with good foot placement and making sure they’re not all over the place when pressing. Unless you’re doing Larson presses, you want your feet rooted to the floor.
Because you’re about to drive with your legs, having your feet under your hips as much as possible is a great place to start. Make sure your heel and toes are planted to keep you connected and stable.
Accessory Exercise: Ankle mobility
For most people, getting their feet planted under their hips is hindered by ankle mobility. As a warm-up, grab yourself a plyo box or bench, and place your foot on top as if you’re about to do a step-up. Instead of stepping up, lean forward so that your knee goes over your toes. As your heel lifts off of the bench, lightly force it back down as you breathe through the stretch. Do this for one or two sets of 30 seconds for each leg.
Leg Drive
Yes, you’ll be using your legs during the bench press. If you have your feet planted, you’re already most of the way there. Using leg drive in the bench press is very different to squat or deadlift. Even though some people drive their hips to the sky like a glute bridge, one of my favourite ways to drive with my legs is to drive them along the floor toward my head and shoulders.
When competing, you’re not allowed to have your butt lift off of the bench, so driving your hips to your head and shoulders could help. The technique will not only help keep your hips down but drive your traps into the bench and even improve your arch.
Accessory Exercise: Bulgarian split-squat
Everybody’s a least favourite exercise in recent times, adding the rear leg elevated split-squats to your warm-up can help you get the feeling of the correct leg drive. Usually, you’re focusing on the leg drive from the front leg to work on the glutes and hamstrings, but focusing on the stretch in the quads and hip flexors on the leg elevated behind you can help with your bench press.
With the back leg balanced on your toes, drive through the back leg for a couple of reps and sets, teaching you to transfer the force through your body to the bar.
Bracing
Bracing during any lift not only keeps your spine safe, but because of the tremendous pressure in your abdomen, you’ll be surprised how much more you can lift.
How to brace
- To breathe properly take a deep breath through your mouth with minimal chest expansion forcing air into your stomach and holding it, then brace your core muscles as if you are preparing to take a punch in the stomach.
- Bracing is an all-around feeling, so if you’re tired after a run, place your hands on your obliques and feel them expand as well as your back muscles, expanding your whole trunk.
- If you’re an intermediate lifter and start wearing a belt, you need to feel the tension pushing into the belt all around.
Accessory movement: Planks
Do your elbow planks and side planks. Not only will you learn to brace and hold in the right positions, but you’ll also learn to tense your entire body as part of the core bracing. Don’t just try and keep your body straight but dig your toes into the floor, brace your core, and tighten your shoulders as hard as you can for at least thirty seconds.
Don’t neglect your abs, even if you’re not exercising for aesthetics.
Elbow position
You want as much of your body under the bar as possible when benching, including the elbows. As an easy rule, you want your elbows at a 45° angle, especially on the lowering phase. This position helps your arms stay connected to your lats, giving keeping that tension you’ve built. If your elbows flair out, you’ll notice an immediate decrease in power.
Warm-up: Neutral grip dumbbell bench press
Close grip Dumbbell bench press: When lying on the bench with light dumbbells, have your palms facing each other instead of towards your legs. Slowly lowering the weights, imagine your triceps resting on your lats as you get into the full chest stretch. Press up explosively, using your triceps, chest, and lats.
Accessory exercise: Close-grip bench press
A popular bench accessory where your hands are as narrow as possible (narrower than chest width), lower the bar slowly with your elbows staying close to your body and only press after the bar touches your chest.
Gripping the bar
As we mentioned before, you want as much of your body under the bar as possible, including your wrists. If your wrist is bent too far back, you lose a lot of the tension and drive you’ve worked on so hard.
Try placing your hand on the bar and then twisting your thumb into the bar. The bar will mostly be in contact with the padding under your thumb and pinky. Trying to death grip the bar will force your wrist back and put tension on the forearms while you try to focus on pressing.
Accessory Exercise: Finger curls
Hold onto a barbell hanging in front of you. Extend your fingers let the bar drop and curl the bar back up by flexing your fingers.
The bench press grip is more for control instead of a death grip.
Bar placement
When lowering the bar, we are often too worried about where exactly it should land. With everybody having different body shapes and arm lengths, there’s a spectrum. If your elbows are at the right angle and you’ve got your grip sorted, the bar will touch your chest where it needs to. A good range is somewhere near your nipple line and mid-to-upper chest.
Accessory exercise: Inverted row
Inverted rows are a great mid-workout accessory. Setting up a bar in the rack at different heights can help you increase or decrease the difficulty. If your body is straight, even if your knees are bent can help you pull yourself to the bar. Where the bar touches your chest is often going to be where it lands during pressing. It’s also great for strengthening the back muscles in the same position you would be pressing.
Training frequency
After deadlifts and squats, you often feel like a few days, if not a whole week, is necessary to recover from the workout due to much larger muscle recruitment and weight lifted. Your chest and arms have smaller muscles and the impact on your body is much less. That means that you can recover faster, and can train sooner. It’s time to ditch the “bro-split” and get some more chest training days into your program.
Depending on how long you’ve been training, adding a second or even third chest workout can benefit you.
How to increase bench press frequency
You don’t just want to jump into doing 3 bench press days a week. Start with adding an extra day about 2-3 days after your workout, especially if you don’t feel sore anymore.
A common way to split two bench press days is by adding variations like doing one heavier day of conventional bench press and a lighter close-grip bench later in the week. If you’re just splitting 8 sets of bench presses into two workouts with 4 sets each, the volume isn’t going up and won’t help you. When splitting your workouts, add two working sets to each of them.
Conclusion
There are many different cues and accessories to add more weight to your bench press. These are just a few easy accessories you can add before or during your workouts to help improve your pressing technique and strength.
Finding out what works for you is always going to be more important than clear-cut advice, but this is a great place to start.
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