It is well known that the bench press is one of the ideal exercises to build up muscle in the upper body. A common question that many bodybuilders want to find out is how much you can bench press. Let us get to the point and see how to build up muscle and get a larger bench press.
Build up your triceps. Nearly two thirds of the total muscle mass on your arms is composed of the triceps muscle. The ideal exercises to build up muscle on your triceps are using barbells and dumbbells, and doing close grip bench presses and skull crushers. Exercises that involve isolating the muscle are not as good because they isolate the muscle completely. Building up your triceps will certainly add weight to your bench press.
Work your triceps separately. The majority of bodybuilding regimens advise that you workout the chest in the same session as the triceps. If you train the triceps separately, you can concentrate on them and get the muscle growing very quickly. Try this over a few weeks and then have a look at how many more kilograms you can bench press.
Variety. Have you been repeating the same old workout for months? After your muscles have done the same workout a few times, they have already adapted to it and therefore the need to grow has been removed. Keep changing things, they can be subtle changes like altering the grip width or reversing the order of your routine or they can be larger changes like doing super sets, compound sets and so on, these will give you a real pump by the way.
Do not over do it. Most of the time more is better, but in regards to muscle building that is not the truth at all. If you over do it and over train your chest, then you will find it difficult to recover and to grow further. Instead, focus on intensity, technique, and not quantity. A short vigorous workout is much more effective than a long one.
Rest well. Your muscles will not be growing at the gym! You need to be getting a good amount of rest, as muscles will grow as you are resting. If you do not give enough time for growing then they will not grow. A good rule to set is to is to limit yourself to 6-9 sets per session for each muscle group otherwise, you will risk overtraining.
Take a break from training. If you find yourself reaching a training plateau, then think about taking a complete break. This will allow your body recover from all the strain you have put on it. After you have taken a break for a couple of weeks, you can return to your workouts with more conviction.
Check your diet. Are you consuming around 6 meals a day with at least 1 gram of protein for each pound of bodyweight that you have? If you are not then it is quite possible that you are restricting your gains by not adopting fully a muscle building diet. In each meal try to get the proportions of them to be 50% carbohydrate, 30% protein and the rest can be made up of fats.
Pay attention to your technique. Are you bench-pressing the proper way? It is imperative to pay close attention to your technique and to use proper form when doing your exercises. If you practice bad technique it can take away focus from the chest muscles and can put you in great risk of injury as well. Make sure you are not lifting your feet up off the floor and that your hands are not grabbing the bar too close together. These are the two most general mistakes people make when bench pressing.
By sticking to the tips above you will be greatly increasing your chance to develop more muscle mass on your chest quickly.
