4 exercises that will help strengthen your shoulders and improve your bench press results

fitness trainer

How to strengthen your shoulders for the bench press? What happens if you don’t strengthen your shoulders?

The bench press is one of the most effective exercises for pumping the upper body. It engages a large volume of muscles: we pump the pecs, triceps, delts, anterior cogs, abs and much more. By how much weight you are able to squeeze from the chest, you can assess your upper body strength.

This exercise will help you progress quickly in building muscle and strength, but proper technique is required. The bench press is a technically challenging exercise with its own nuances and limitations. Knowing about them will help keep your joints safe from injury, which means you’ll be able to train continuously for years to come without interruptions or setbacks.

Read more of Egor’s tips on how to improve your bench press performance here.

What’s important to know about the bench press

It is extremely common for lifters who do the bench press to suffer from shoulder pain. This is manifested in pain, swelling, discomfort, loss of strength. Therefore, it is important to strengthen the shoulder joints and keep them healthy. Heavy weight of the barbell and excessive loads together with improper technique and ignoring the recovery process lead to injury of the rotator cuff of the shoulder.

The rotator cuff is a large muscle group made up of four smaller muscles. They are responsible for fixing and stabilizing the bone in the shoulder joint and protecting it from dislocation. Damage to at least one of the four muscles leads to a sharp limitation of movement.

There are special exercises that strengthen the rotator cuff of the shoulder, making its muscles and tendons more powerful and stronger. This training is suitable both for the prevention of shoulder injuries and for recovery from existing ones.

Important! If you have acute pain, you should not do these exercises.

Extension of the arm with an expander to the side

Technika

• Fix the expander on any support at about the level of your chest. Stand up straight and bend the elbow of the arm under development at an angle of 90 degrees, the arm should be at the waist. Keep your shoulder blades down.
• Stand sideways to the support and take a light expander in your hand: if you stand to the support on the left side, the handles should be in your right hand and vice versa.
• As you exhale, move your arm to the side. For maximum effect, hold the position for about 3-5 seconds and return the arm to the starting position.
• The rotational movement is performed strictly in the shoulder joint.

Perform two approaches of 10 times. Rest between approaches – two to three minutes.

Bringing the arm with an expander inward

Technika

• The expander is fixed on a support at about the level of your chest. Stand up straight and bend the elbow of the arm under development at an angle of 90 degrees, the arm is at the waist. Keep your shoulder blades down.
• Stand sideways to the support and take hold of the handles of the expander: if you are standing on the left side of the support, take the handles in your left hand and vice versa.
• As you exhale, bring your arm inwards. For maximum effect, hold the position for about 3-5 seconds and return the arm to the starting position.
• The rotational movement is performed strictly in the shoulder joint.

Do two approaches of 10 times. Rest between approaches – two to three minutes.

Arm bending with an espander

Technika

• The expander is fixed on the support at about chest level. Stand up straight and raise the arm so that the humerus almost reaches the parallel with the floor. The fist is pointing upward. The elbow is below the shoulder and forms a 90-degree angle at the arm being worked out.
• Lower the shoulder blades down and keep them in this position throughout the exercise.
• Stand with your back to the support and grasp the handles of the expander, on exhalation smoothly lower the arm down to the floor at 90 degrees.
• For maximum effect, hold the position for about 3-5 seconds and return the arm to the starting position.
• The rotational movement is performed strictly in the shoulder joint.

Do two approaches of 10 times. Rest between approaches – two to three minutes.

Extension of the arm with an expander

Technika

• The expander is fixed on a support that is approximately at the level of your feet. For example, a low bar on an outdoor gymnasium.
• Stand up straight and raise your arm so that the humerus almost reaches the parallel with the floor. The back of your palm is facing upward. The elbow is below the shoulder and forms a 90-degree angle at the arm being worked out. Keep your shoulder blades down.
• Grasp the handles of the expander and on exhalation smoothly lift the arm up to 90 degrees.
• For maximum effect, hold the position for about 3-5 seconds and return the arm to the starting position.
• The rotational movement is performed strictly in the shoulder joint.

Do two approaches of 10 times. Rest between approaches – two to three minutes.

These recommendations will help you avoid injury and achieve high strength performance in the bench press, preserving the result for many years.