Should I force myself to continue bench pressin even tough I don't have good sensations with this exercice? It's been years and my chest is the most undertrained part of my body. When I BP, my shoulders are always making most of the work (probably because they're my strong point and chest is my weak point).
But since I always hear how BP is the most basic exercice that everyone is doing and must be doing, I never dared to take it out of my routine. But now, I need to know. Is it a good idea to take out BP out of a routine for good? And if yes, can I replace with DB Bench Press only or should I add something more with it?
Luke Rivera
Depends. How strong is your bench? It was my weak point too for a long time, weak as shit and could even get a pump out of it. But ever since I focused on getting stronger on it, and upping the volume, it got way better. It is my main chest exercise right now (home gym). But again, upping the volume helped (as did working on the mind-muscle-connection of my chest).
Today for example, I did a 1 to 20 rep scheme with a light-medium weight. Basically start at 1 rep, and work yourself up to 20 reps, one rep at a time. I still feel that pump in my chest.
Jacob Jenkins
I'm the same OP. The majority of the time when I bench I don't feel shit in my chest so I've really been trying to feel the movement when performing it. Drop the weight a bit, slow the movement down and really get in the groove.
That then led me to realise that my shoulders are internally rotated, which is causing my shoulders to take over the movement, and that's also throwing all my other lifts out. Kelly Starrett has some great material on general shoulder health and so does Trevor Bachmayer.
Isaac Clark
Incline DB Bench Press bby
It's the way to go when flat bench fails you
Mason Rivera
It's weak as fuck. Never been to two plates in my entire life. But I never tried that volume thing. I always went as heavy as I could wich was never a lot and most of the time since my chest is weak as fuck, my form gets worse and I usually injure my elbow or shoulder.
i'll check that out.
Yeah but Incline DB Bench Press is already in my routine. I want something to replace for flat BP.
Nathan Morgan
Yeah man, you need to get stronger. I am by no means super strong with my bench, but after focusing on slowly increasing the weight week by week (for different rep schemes - I did 3x12 for a while, then 4x8 and 3x5 and sometimes mixing it) my bench feels so much better. I guess it's quite a technical thing too, because your shoulders should not be the main muscle working obviously.
What you could also try is exhausting the shoulders beforehand. I don't mean crushing them, but working them enough that you won't be doing any PR for bench that day. And then work in some set of bench, like 3x5-8 or so, staying lowish with the weight. This is more of a technical workout though, where you want to focus on feeling your chest during bench.
And yet another thing, you could also try benching like 3x a week, but staying either low with the reps 3x3-5 and medium/highish with the weigh, or lower weight and more of a bodybuilding style workout.
I guess tl:dr just focus on your bench for a while
Jordan Rogers
>flat db press >flat db fly >decline cable fly problem solved
Kevin Wood
press your shoulderblades together and make an arch
Matthew Powell
Op here. Want to see a picture of my cock?
Jacob Jones
>When I BP, my shoulders are always making most of the work (probably because they're my strong point and chest is my weak point).
The problem is if your training BBBP for strength its no longer much of a chest exercise anymore... and people seem to have an aversion to dropping the weight from their "max" and doing bodybuilding style BBBP, which focusses on chest.
there's almost a 30kg difference for me between the two styles of BBBP.
