11 Mar Five tips to boost your bench press

Are you stuck in a bench press rut, seemingly always benching between 200-250 pounds for your max, while watching guys rep out at 225.
Maybe you’re not even able to bench press your weight.
There are really some simply ways to increase your bench press, and surprisingly to some people, many of them involve doing exercises other than the bench press.
Here are five tips to boost your bench press in a month:
Work on the stabilizer muscles – The upper back and shoulders, especially the rotator cuffs, are the most common reason people are stuck using small plates on the bench press.
Do exercises such as dumbbell rows, seated cable rows, lat pulldowns and front and lateral dumbbell raises to strengthen the stabilizer muscles. These will not only help your bench go up, but protect you from injury.
Use proper bench press form – Make sure to keep your elbows tucked in to your side and take advantage of your triceps to help power the weight up. Make sure to do several auxiliary lifts to work on strengthening those triceps as well.
Use your whole body – A good bench press actually starts with the feet. Push against the floor with your feet for a good base. Keep solid against the bench all the way up to your shoulders.
Power straight up – Don’t have a herky, jerky motion, Use lighter weights to get your form down and focus on powering the bar straight up.
Know your weaknesses – If you’re weaker on the lift-off part of the press, getting it off the chest, then focus on becoming more explosive. Focus on really powering the bar up at the start of the lift, even with lighter weights. Do lots of pushups and flyes to further strengthen the chest.
On the flip side, if you have trouble locking out the lift at the top, that’s often a triceps problem. Do even more work to strengthen your triceps, such as close-grip bench presses, triceps pushdowns or extensions.

At Home Fitness consultant Aaron Dorksen’s blog deals with a variety of fitness topics, ranging from workout tips, motivational ideas and feature stories on how exercise impacts people’s lives. E-mail him with comments, questions or ideas for future blogs at aaron@athomefitness.com