One of the biggest misconceptions in the weights room is the idea that you have to push yourself to the limit, to the point where you’re screaming and grinding out that last rep with all your might. Often it’s the guys who have been training a while and know a fair bit about lifting.

They get the overload principle – they know you should be steadily adding weight and reps, and upping the intensity as you progress. The problem is, when you push yourself to the limit and train to absolute failure each workout, your progress can go backwards.

If you push yourself too hard to bench press more weight each week, you end up breaking your muscles down too much for them to fully repair by next session, and burning your nervous system out in the process. The fatigue builds up, and even if you only bench once a week, you could end up over-trained and burned out without realizing it.

If this how you bench press – struggling for ten seconds on that last rep with everything you’ve got – every week – take a week or two off. If you’re really looking to bench press more weight, it’s more than worth it.

Come back fresh, and keep a rep or two “in the tank” – i.e. rack the weight a couple of reps before that all out effort. Your nervous system will thank you for it, and in return, you’ll start gaining well again.

Although most people see the bench press as a chest exercise, what they don’t realize is that the triceps do as much if not more of the lifting. In order to bench press more weight, you must strengthen your triceps.

Professional power lifters, whose careers depend on performance on the bench, know the value of tricep training, and they know how to do it. Try something called the close-grip bench press to begin this strengthening.

Essentially, the close grip bench press is a standard bench press movement, with elbows “tucked in”. That means, at the bottom of the lift, you want your elbows touching your sides rather than flared out.

You keep your elbows in line as you press. If you’re doing it right, you should be pressing a fraction of your bench press weight, and your triceps should be pummeled like never before after your set.

To gain strength in the big lifts, your body needs ample fuel and recovery time. Your body has priorities, and if you’re sleep deprived or starving, it’s not going to waste resources building muscle fibers or strengthening neural pathways. Ultimately, to bench press more weight and keep gaining week after week, you want your body to be in a well-rested, anabolic state.

That means you should be getting adequate sleep, which is about seven to eight hours a night. Add a surplus of calories and protein to this formula and you will have the energy your body needs.

If you’re diet isn’t up to par, you won’t gain in the long term. Try upping your calories – throw in an extra meal or protein shake per day.

Drink more water to stay well hydrated. Once you get your body back into the anabolic “sweet spot,” you might find yourself rapidly adding weight to the bar on bench day.

It really is true that a change is as good as a rest. Similar but distinct exercises cause the nervous system to send different patterns of electrical signals to the muscles, in turn stimulating different patterns of contraction in the muscle fibers.

The result is that some fibers get broken down more in different exercises, even though the movement feels similar. Which means, you can gain new size and strength just by switching up your routine.

You can put this into practice very easily. If you’ve been doing barbell bench, switch to dumbbells for a period.

Swap flat bench for the incline or decline. Even switching up the order in which you do flat and incline bench on chest day may be enough to cause a change.

Then when you switch back to your old workout, you’re likely to find that you bench press more weight and surpass your personal best. Remember, you still need to be pressing Viagra Professional free weights.

Using these simple techniques, you can improve the quality of your lifting, and the amount of weight you are able to lift every time. Take care of your body and keep your routines changing, and you will immediately begin to notice a difference.

Author Bio: Tom Selwick is a personal trainer and author of numerous articles relating to physical training and fitness equipment. He has been helping others find a greater fitness level since the 80’s.

Contact Info:
Tom Selwick
TomSelwick09@gmail.com
http://www.FreemotionFitness.com

Category: Fitness/Equipment
Keywords: fitness equipment