Truth About Rugged & Functional Abdominal Strength
You know that I am not your typical "Flashy Abs" Fitness Super Star that’ll pose in panties pulled so low that you can practically see his pe*is.
I’m interested in teaching you the TRUTH about getting strong, rugged, healthy and functional.
Learn my secrets for battling that nasty belly bloat and tighten up your gut from the INSIDE – OUT.
Categories: Abdominal Exercises Tags:
Powerwheel Core Training For Fun & Functional Fitness
I hate crunches… with a passion.
I hate to do them and I hate making others do them.
So, we have BANNED CRUNCHES at Strength Camp… no one is allowed to do them from hence forth.
We’ll ONLY do this for “core” training for now.
Check it out:
Get one of these bad boys here – Power Wheel
Categories: Abdominal Exercises, Strength and Conditioning for Sports Tags: core training, power wheel
Bodybuilding For Athletes ?!?!
Early in my education as a Strength & Conditioning coach I was taught by several well known and highly respected coaches that athletes should NOT body-build.
These “geniuses” told me that bodybuilding would make athletes “tight and unathletic” and that bodybuilding had no functional carryover to the sports being played.
10 years later…
I body build to get bigger and stronger and my athletes body build to get bigger and stronger.
The fact is that the only way to gain mass is to eat more calories than you expend AND to add bodybuilding to your program.
In this video you’ll meet Drayton (again), and see what we have done to force his body to gain…
10 pounds of muscle in less than 3 weeks!!! – using the exact bodybuilding system that I taught you in my Football Strength Program
PS - In less than 3 weeks I will be re-releasing the Football Strength Program under a new name and I’m adding a TON of new updates, bonuses and gifts. But the price will go up also!
Make sure you get on board before the price hike. Oh, and all members get unlimited free upgrades too.
http://www.FootballStrengthProgram.com
The Truth About Ab Training For Athletes
Thanks for posting your questions yesterday guys, I managed to answer some of you right away and others I will be trying to answer them in my blog posts, articles and products.
One thing for sure is that most of you guys are watching my blog and are hungry for information about football training. You probably met me because of my Football Strength System.
Many of your football questions are answered in the book. Also, I am working on a new update for the program and will be relaunching it again very soon.
But here is the catch… once I update it the price will go up! BUUUUT, if you purchase a copy of my Football Strength System now, before I do all of the updates you will get the old version and unlimited FREE updates forever.
So, you may want to get your hands on it soon – http://www.FootballStrengthSystem.com
Here is another video of Draydon performing a great ab exercise that is often done wrong!
Also, if you are looking to get into shape just for good health and aesthetics (abs and guns!) then check out this sick program from my buddy Zach Evan-Esh http://www.Real-Man-Muscle.com
HARD Core Performance
If there is one topic in the realm of strength and fitness that receives the most attention due to an overabundance of conflicting information and myths – it’s the abdominals. Everywhere you look there is some fitness guru claiming to have the “secret” to rock hard abdominals. Every gym that you visit is teaming with “functional training” equipment such as oversized beach balls and wobble boards designed to train the core. Every magazine on the news rack shouts that it contains a brand new and exciting routine for constructing a 6-six pack or a chiseled midsection.
With all of this information available to the average gym-goer you’d think that more guys would have a better set of abs than that geek from Saved By The Bell who now gobbles on all of the women’s talk shows, in the middle of the afternoon when most real men are at work.
Is all of this conflicting information necessary? Does all of this ab-blasting and crunching have any impact on the appearance of your abs and, significantly more important – the strength and function of your core? In my search for the answers to these questions I looked to where I typically find the real essence of human performance and potential – Primal Man, the raw, and untainted version of you and I.
I am under that impression that primal man had an awesome set of abs. It’s hard for me to imagine that being subjected to the environmental pressures of prehistoric Earth would yield primal man a set of love handles and protruding abdomen. It is also difficult for me to imagine him banging out a few sets of crunches in order to maintain a sexy midsection for primal babes to gawk at.
To consider that the abdominals are nothing more than a canvas for us to construct a sexually stimulating mural would be analogous to saying that the sun is only a source of light. This is ridiculous! The sun provides warmth, nutrients and life to everything that we know in existence. In the same light, consider that your abdominals are several times more complex and significant than just a 6-pack.
The Abdominal Brain
Your abs have got a lot of nerve! Yep, these muscles have over 4 times the amount of nerve innervations from the spinal chord than any other muscle group in your entire body. Most muscles only have two sources of nerve innervations, one primary and one secondary. But your “nervy” abdominals have nine innervations from every segment of your spinal chord from T5 all the way to L1!
This is pretty important information considering that each one of these nerve innervations receives specific messages sent from The Master (your brain) through the spinal chord directly into the muscle. This basically means that your abs have nine distinct brains!
Why would a group of muscles designed to just look good and perform crunches have nine brains?
The reason why the abdominals have physical evolved to contain such an abundant sum of nerve innervations is due to the enormous amount of responsibility placed on this muscle group. The abdominal wall stabilizes joints, supports your organs, supports breathing, supports that circulatory/immune system, as well as the digestion/elimination system.
It the purpose of this article to show you how to train your abdominals in the manner that was intended by our Creator. I will make it blatantly obvious that with the exception of specific rehabilitative attempts to isolate weak upper abdominal muscles, base-conditioning programs focusing specifically on hypertrophy of the abdominal wall, or aesthetics, crunches, sit-ups and similar isolation tactics are relatively useless for improving abdominal function and athletic performance!
Primal-Survival Abs
We are primal men living in a modern world. Although controversial, it has been established by several scientists that it takes over 100,000 years for .001% of a genome to change. What this means is that for all intents and purposes, yourself and primal man are physically the same. The bodies that roamed this planet hunting for food and building shelter with nothing more than stones and sticks is an exact replica of the pile of flesh that we use to stare at computer monitors and thumb through television channels today.
During the majority of the past 100,000 years, man survived as nomadic hunters and gatherers, sustaining life on available meats and plant life. Scientific evidence also exists that supposes that man had established a preferential taste for animal meats as far back as 2.3 million BC. Meat as a source of nutrition was and still is superior to plant life due to increased nutrient density. Two pounds of deer meat, for example, contains six times the amount of calories as the same weight in veggies.
One of the biggest differences between the foraging of veggies and berries and the hunting of meat is that, meat moves! To get his hands on the delicious and nutritious meat of buffalo, deer or kangaroo, primal man had to perform such feats of strength as throwing stones, tossing spears and, wielding clubs. It takes a tremendous amount of effort from the deep abdominal wall to stabilize joints and requires the powerful expression of strength from the outer unit abdominal musculature to accelerate spears and swing clubs.
Lets imagine that we are a hungry primal man squatting behind a bush as we wait for the perfect opportunity to accelerate a spear into the chest cavity of an approaching deer. As the unsuspecting deer comes nearer to our bush in order to nibble on some berries, we sneak out from behind the bush and forcefully thrust our sharpened spear into our juicy meal.
Within this story is the secret explanation as to how the abdominal muscles work and how we can best train them for maximum performance.
When thrusting the spear, the musculature of the oblique system coordinate efforts with the action of the lead leg, torso, and opposite shoulder and arm. This is important to note because in most functional activities there are necessary requirements for the same degree of synergy. Weather you are battling an offensive lineman in football, throwing a baseball, wrestling an opponent, or walking your hyper active Great Dane your abdominal muscles are required to coordinate efforts with several other systems and muscle groups. It is very rare that the abs will work alone.
Let’s again consider primal man and his journey for sustenance. Once he has successfully killed his prey he now has the arduous task of getting it home to feast on with his primal buddies. This most likely required that he drag the carcass a considerable distance or find a way to get it on his back to carry. If this didn’t work, he may have to cut it into pieces, quite a task to complete with only a sharp rock and his teeth.
Pulling the carcass would require that his lats, rear shoulders and low back provide the majority of pulling force. Because it is typical to pull more with one side of the body over the other, it is likely that there was considerable rotational torque placed on the core. Along with the efforts of the pulling muscles, the abdominals would provide a significant amount of rotational force as well as acting as stabilizers to the prime movers.
During his trek through rough terrain carrying a heavy load, the primal hunter would have encountered numerous obstacles including large rocks and logs, high grass, potential thieves, and predators. Traversing across these objects and obstacles required the hunter to lunge, push, pull, squat, crawl, twist and bend – all of which require a significant contribution from the lower, upper and side abdominal muscles. This constitutes real abdominal training!
Aside from feeding and protecting his tribe, primal man had to build shelter, which required significant physical effort in the form of “functional exercises”. Lifting, pushing and pulling heavy stones and logs would surely require massive physical support from the abdominals and core muscles.
Core Performance For Men & Athletes
Abdominal condition which integrates human movement patterns such as squatting, lunging, twisting, pushing and pulling is superior to floor based, crunch-type exercises for increasing athletic strength and performance. It is these types of movements that provide you with a 6-pack that works!
Exercises that improve core stability and abdominal strength in this truly functional manner include the Single Arm Push, Single Arm Pull and Wood Chop movements pictured below. Also, when performed properly, all other “Primal Pattern” exercises like Front Squatting, Dead Lifting, and Barbell Presses will elicit a significant demand on the core muscles while reinforcing sound motor skills and movement efficiency.
SINGLE ARM PULL
SINGLE ARM PUSH
WOOD CHOP
Isolation exercises for the abdominals do serve their purpose of making you a better cruncher. They may also serve to strengthen the abs in the absence of supporting muscles. But as for increasing athletic prowess, functional strength and agility, it is essential that you include core-conditioning exercises that place a similar demand on the nervous and muscular system as the movement that you intent to improve.
The ultimate goal of core conditioning any exercise, aside from the benefit of improved strength, is to develop athleticism. This is the ability to produce movements with optimal form and at real-time speeds without having to think about it. After all, if you have to think about how you are moving, your brain will not be free to concentrate on how to win the game!
Why fat guts = sexual dysfunction
If you are even slightly concerned with your sexual health and are committed to avoiding Prostate Issues and Cancer, Uterine Fibroid, Endometriosis or if you are sick and tired of pissing yourself – you need to watch this video of Paul Chek.
Paul was my first mentor in the fitness industry and I still subscribe to much of his methods and teachings. The man is a freaking genius. Subscribe to his YouTube and buy every book that he offers… it’s that good. In fact, the entire foundation for my book Unleash Your Primal Edge is based on Paul’s methods.
Learn more about how you can strengthen your DEEP ABDOMINAL WALL here: Unleash Your Primal Edge
What do you want? What are you willing to do?
Elliott Hulse
Categories: Abdominal Exercises, Strong Body, Strong Food Tags: ab strength, abs
Wide Grip Bench Press – Chest Exercise
Main Muscle Worked: Chest
Other Muscles Worked: Triceps, Shoulders
Equipment: Barbell
Mechanics Type: Compound
Tips: Same as the Barbell Bench Press but with a grip that is as wide as you can go safely. Keep your head on the bench and do not arch your back. Exhale on the way up.
Upper Back for the Bench
By Jim Wendler
For www.EliteFTS.com
Several years ago, in order to fully immerse myself into powerlifting, I changed my eating habits (from semi-shitty to all-out crappy), bought a truck load of Chuck Taylor’s (a fashion no-no, even for someone with such a laissez faire attitude towards fashion as I), and began my quest to become one of the most physically unappealing males world wide. It was a fun but difficult road. As John Stafford once said, “We work so hard to be so ugly.” Anyway, on the road to immersion I, like many of you have done, printed out Louie’s articles and engrossed myself in them. I had copies of his articles in my backpack, in my bathroom and next to my bed. I should point out that I was in college at the time, hence the backpack. After re-reading Lou’s article about 1000’s times, one of the things that I noticed was how important the upper back is for bench pressing. I was never a big bench presser, so when this knowledge was bestowed upon me, I was a little taken aback. Isn’t the bench all pecs, shoulders and triceps?
From all the years of deadlifting and doing Olympic movements, I had accumulated an impressive set of traps. I thought that this is all I needed to do to build the upper back for pressing. I eventually found out that this is not the case. Many of the movements below, unlike the deadlift and Olympic lifts are done so that the end position mimics the feel of how your upper back is when you bench press.
So why do you want to build a strong, thick upper back? There are a couple of reasons:
- Stability – I define this as being able to take a maximum weight off and NOT get flattened. You need to be strong and thick enough to maintain a good arch in your upper back to maintain the correct pressing position. If you take the weight off and immediately flatten out, you are in for a long day.
- Structural Integrity – Since the majority of us have done much more pressing than pulling and have a huge imbalance, making the upper back a priority will hopefully lead to fewer injuries.
I have classified upper back exercises into two categories; direct and indirect. I only do this to make things a little bit easier. Now the direct exercises, while not isolation exercises, are more directed towards the upper back. The indirect exercises target the lats and the upper back. There are two laws that I adhere to when training with these two kinds of movements:
- With direct upper back exercises, volume is king
- Train your indirect upper back exercises heavy.
So what do I mean by high volume? This is open for interpretation, but for me, it’s generally 4-5 sets of 10-20 reps. I like to perform 1-2 exercises from each category a week. For the heavier movements, 3-5 sets of 5-10 reps seem to work well.
Direct Upper Back Exercises
Face Pulls – This is one of the most popular upper back exercises. It works well and is easy to do. The face pull can be done with just about any kind of rope, triceps strap, straight bar…it really doesn’t matter. Just pull something to your face.
Seated DB Cleans – Next to the JM Press, this exercise is probably the most asked about. This has replaced the long lost (and let’s keep it that way, people) Paul Dicks Press in the category of, “Most likely to interpret wrong” category. The word “clean” does not make this movement an Olympic or explosive movement. Think about doing an external rotation but starting the movement with arms straight and down to the sides. This is usually done as one fluid motion, not broken up into stages. If you want to see it in action, get the EFS Exercise Index for the Bench Press DVD.
Rear Laterals – This is simple enough. You can do these with dumbbells, holding on to plates or by using a cable machine. I like to use two different hand positions: thumbs pointed towards the front (this is what is most commonly used) and thumbs pointed at each other. The latter is a little bit harder. Which one is better? Neither, they are just different. This is a good way of adding some variety in a fairly dull movement.
Standing Cable Cleans – This is exactly like the seated DB clean, only that you use a cable and a single D attachment. Start by holding the handle, performing an upright row, and finishing in an external rotation.
Band Pullaparts – Another very simple movement done with the aid of Jump Stretch bands. Usually a mini or light band is used. Give it a tug and hold it for a few seconds. You can move your grip in/out for more/less tension. You can also pull from various angles; you can raise or lower your arms for a different feel. I like to keep my arms straight throughout the entire movement. I also think this movement will help you realize how tight your upper back needs to be during a squat or bench press.
Rear Delt Machine – This one is pretty easy because it’s a machine. This makes it fairly hard to screw up.
High DB Rows – These are best done while lying on a bench. This is very similar to a chest supported row, but you simply pull the dumbbells to a higher position. Lie down on an incline bench, grab two dumbbells and with your elbows out, pull the dumbbells to your face or slightly lower.
Muscle Snatch – I think this is a great exercise and I should probably do it more often, but somehow, the ease of the face pull always beckons to me. To do this exercise, grab the bar with a wide grip. What’s wide? To start with, try putting your index fingers on the rings of the power bar. You can go narrower or wider as you see fit. With no leg drive, begin by doing an upright row. Make sure you keep your elbows higher than the bar. Once the bar reaches (approximately) your chin, being rotating your shoulders until the bar is overhead with your arms locked out. Your final position should be the same as a snatch: arms overhead and fully locked out. This does not (and really cannot) be done with heavy weights.
Indirect Upper Back Exercises
Chest Supported Rows – This is one of the best lat and upper back exercises you can do. Plus, there is little lower back stress.
DB Rows – Just pick up any bodybuilding magazine for pics of this exercise. You can do these with several different hand/elbow positions. For example, you can have your elbow tucked or straight out to the side. You can bring the dumbbell high to your upper pec area, or you can tuck your elbow and bring it lower. The farther your elbow is out (generally) the less weight that you will do. What you can do is do a few lighter sets with your elbow out and as the weight becomes heavier, tuck it in.
Bent Over Rows – This is a staple of any lat/upper back workout. This exercise has been described to death, so I don’t think there is much need for me to do it. Like the dumbbell row, you can vary where you pull the bar; high up on the chest (elbows out) or brought low to your stomach (elbows tucked).
Pull-ups/ Chin-ups – This exercise is a favorite of mine and one of the best overall upper body exercises one can do. Even if you cannot do 8-10 reps, multiple sets of low reps (2-4) work very well. When I first began doing these, I would perform 6 sets, all with different grips. Each set consisted of 3 reps with about 30 seconds rest between sets. I would do this two times through with about 2-3 minutes rest between groups. The 6 grips that I did were:
- Wide grip pronated
- Medium grip pronated
- Narrow grip pronated
- Narrow grip supinated
- Medium grip supinated
- Neutral grip (palms facing)
I hope that this article introduced you to some new movements or reinforced the idea of how important the upper back is to your training. If anyone has any more great exercises for the upper back, please let us know. I’m always looking for some variety.
Copyright© 2006 Elite Fitness Systems. All rights reserved.
Close Grip Bench Press – Chest Exercise
Main Muscle Worked: Chest
Other Muscles Worked: Triceps, Shoulders
Equipment: Barbell
Mechanics Type: Compound
Tips: Just like the Barbell Bench Press but with your hands only 12 – 14″ apart, centered over your body. Works more of the inner pectorals and triceps.
Making the Max Effort Easy
By Jim Wendler
For EliteFTS
There are a ton of questions on how to work up to a 1RM on max effort day. While many lifters don’t use percentages, it certainly makes it easier on coaches and novices on how to pick attempts. Since many people who are new to doing these movements are not familiar with their maxes, use the following to help guide you.
• 2 Board Press – 105% of 1RM of raw bench press
• 3 Board Press – 110-115% of 1RM of raw bench press
• Floor Press – 90-95% of 1RM of raw bench press
• All of these movements are done with a medium grip (pinky on the ring of the power bar) and all 1RM on the raw bench press are done with a maximum legal grip. If you use different grips, then I have no idea of the approximate percentages.
I’m going to point out that these numbers are approximate values and should be used accordingly. These are not set numbers. So if you are reading this article and already have a calculator in hand and find some kind of discrepancy, it is ok and you will live. Everyone is different. Also, you will notice that there is no numbers for the incline press or the reverse band press. This is because there are a ton of different angles of incline presses and there are too many discrepancies on how to set up a reverse band press.
If you are guessing your 1RM, always err on the side of too light. So now that you know an approximate number for your 1RM on each movement, use the following set/rep scheme. Notice that the percentages start at 50%. This is NOT your first set. Warm-up to that first set anyway that you want. Many times, it could be 2-3 sets and you are ready for the 50% set. For a stronger, more experienced lifter (“experienced” is code word for always beat up and hurting), it may take 5 or more sets to be ready for your 50% set.
• 1×5 @ 50%
• 1×3 @ 60%
• 1×2 @ 70%
• 1×1 @ 80%
• 1×1 @ 90%
• 1×1 @ 95%
• 1×1 @ 100% or new PR.
Here’s how it would work in a real life example. The lifter has a best 2 board press of 450lbs.
• 225×5
• 275×3
• 315×2
• 365×1
• 405×1
• 425×1
• 455 or 460×1
Now let’s say that you don’t know your best performance on a floor press, but you know your 1RM on the bench press. Your best bench press is 315lbs. 90% of 315 is 285. So your goal is to do perform a floor press with 285, thus 285 = 100%
• 145×5
• 170×3
• 200×2
• 230×1
• 255×1
• 270×1
• 285×1
Because this is your first time performing the floor press, I would advise you to stop. Don’t worry if this isn’t a true max effort. It’s not going to kill you if you don’t work up. You’ve got another week of the exercise. The next week, you have a new goal to shoot for. Because your new goal is probably going to be fairly close to 285, I would advise you to use the same weights or fairly close for your warm-up sets as used before. If you feel like you were good for at least 300, then base the percentages on that number (300). The %’s will become a thing of the past the more experienced you get. You will begin to know instinctively how to work up to a 1RM. These percentages are great for the beginner to this program as well as coaches and trainers that would like a more concrete way (and something they can put on paper) for their athletes.
With the squat and deadlift variations, we have found that it is very difficult to find any kind of % carryover between lifts. For example, if you can parallel squat 500lbs. doesn’t mean that you are able to squat 475 with a SS Bar on a parallel box. There are way too many variables with the squat and deadlift. My advice to you is simply estimate some very reasonable goals for each movement. In fact, if you are completely new to the SS Bar or any other movement, simply use a couple training sessions to familiarize yourself. Don’t try to work up to a 1RM. Learn how to do the exercise correctly and safely. So let’s say that you squat 500lbs and are trying the SS Bar for the first time. This is how you would use the bar the first couple of weeks; (for all you number-freaks and statisticians out there, we always count the bar as being 45lbs. because it’s easier this way! Plus it doesn’t matter how much you do on these movements as long as the way that you track it is consistent.)
Week One
Bar x 10
95×5
135×5
225×5
275×3
275×3
Week Two
Bar x 10
95×5
135×5
225×5
275×3
315×3
After the second workout, set a goal (say 365×1) and use the set/rep/percentage scheme as outlined above.
Some notes to help you:
• Once you establish a record with a certain grip, STAY WITH THAT GRIP! While it’s nice to use different grips and more variation, you won’t ever know how you are progressing if you constantly use different grips. The box height is the same concept as the grip; use the same box height when using a certain bar. While you can have a low box, parallel and high box record for each bar, this can get confusing for some. Just stick with a parallel box for now.
• When you are beginning, you will probably break more records than the PMRC. (A little Tipper Gore humor…) This is typical and very fun. Run with it but not at the expense of bad form. A bruised ego is better than a bruised sternum.
• Use a grease board to chart your progress. If you are in a home gym, proudly display your records in the garage/basement/family room. If you put it up in your house, make the max effort movements appear to be stock exchange symbols and impress your neighbors.
• Don’t use a ton of different movements; pick about 5 different max effort movements for the bench press –
1. 2 board press
2. 3 board press
3. Close grip bench press
4. Incline bench press
5. Reverse band press
And the following exercises for the squat and deadlift -
1. Safety squat bar box squat (parallel box)
2. Manta Ray box squat (parallel box)
3. Cambered bar box squat (parallel box)
4. Deadlift off of 3” elevated platform
5. Rack pulls from below the knees
6. Reverse band deadlift
To sum it up:
1. Find your goal weight of the day for the exercise.
2. Figure out which weights to use for each %’s.
3. Train and establish a 1RM.
4. Use new (and correct) 1RM for upcoming workouts.
Flat Bench Press – Chest Exercise
Primary Muscle: Chest
Secondary Muscle: Shoulders, Triceps, Back
Equipment Needed: Flat Bench, Barbell
Mechanics Type: Compound
Proper Exercise Technique:
Lie down on the bench with your feet, butt and shoulders firmly planted on the ground. Space your hands evenly across the bar slightly wider than shoulder width. Un-rack the weight and lower the bar until it makes contact with the lower portion of your chest. Drive the weight back up into the starting position and complete this motion until you have reached muscular failure.
Tips: The bar should always come to a complete stop after it touches your chest. It is very important that you do not bounce or jerk the weight up using momentum. You should also make sure to keep your butt planted on the bench at all times throughout the lift, and also try not to arch your back too much. In order to avoid injury and stress, do not lock your elbows out at the top of the movement. Obviously if you are competing in the bench press you will want to arch your back to shorten the distance the bar travels and you’ll have to lockout your triceps for a good lift or rack command.
There has been some talk lately about how bench presses are not sport specific and that football players should not do them. I say that’s bullshit! Everyone knows that a huge, massive upper body is essential for football strength and the best way to do this is with heavy weights the best exercise for moving heavy weights in a pushing manner is the bench press. The bench press not only builds a massive and strong chest but it is an incredible exercise for the triceps and shoulders also. If you are not bench-pressing heavy weights you are truly missing out.
I’m sure I don’t have to spend too much time convincing you to bench press as everyone loves to do it, but the majority of athletes and coaches put too much emphasis on this movement and are usually performing it improperly.
1. I like to have my athletes take a slightly wider that shoulder width grip; also I prefer that they wrap the thumbs around the bar. Another little trick is to grip the bar as tight as possible; you’ll notice that when you do this all of the muscles in your arms tense up.
Also, I teach my athletes to draw their feet under them and squeeze their glutes. This is a technique that I learned from power lifters, it really adds to the force production when pressing.
Another little benching trick is the draw your shoulder blades together and ‘sit’ on your traps. This will raise your chest up a bit higher and allow for less room for the bar to travel. Also, make sure that your elbows are at a 45-degree angle from your body, not straight out the sides.
Sure, I can hear you now… Elliott, I want my athletes to get stronger why are you teaching them how to cheat in the bench press? Well, if you consider that the way we are going to build super strong athletes is with heavy weights then wouldn’t it make sense that we do everything in our power to have our athletes lift the heaviest weights possible? These are tricks, yes, but I assure you that they will allow your athletes to lift heavier weights and get stronger than using the typical bodybuilding bench press form.
2. Once the bar has been lowered under control, simply push it straight back up. Forget the whole push back in an arching pattern. Just press straight up! And repeat.
For variety you can also perform bench presses with rubber bands and chains. This will add some ‘accommodating resistance” as well as offer a different stimulus to the muscles to allow for continued progress. Remember that we want to change exercises every 3 weeks or so, this just adds to your arsenal of exercises. You don’t need them but they are a great addition, especially with athletes who have been lifting for a while.
