How to squeeze 100 kg from the chest in just a month. Top 5 exercises from a master of sports in bench press

master of sports in bench press, president of Pride Fitness and the Hardcore Boxing Professional Boxing League

How to squeeze a “hundred” in the bench press in a month? What exercises to do and what to pay attention to?

Let me tell you right away – if you are a beginner and have never done strength training before, it is unlikely that you can reach a working weight of 100 kg in a month. This is a serious load on the body, which requires general physical preparation. There must be endurance, strength, and simply a habit to such training.

But if you are not the first day in the gym and you have the basic skills, it is quite realistic to move to a new stage in working with weights and squeeze “hundred” in a month of training. To do this, I recommend to include in your basic program strengthened training on the muscles of the arms and chest, gradually increasing the weight.

Do not neglect warming up

Warming up is the foundation, and you can’t neglect it. Otherwise, your only result will be injured tendons and joints. The main task of warming up before training for arms and chest is to increase blood flow to the muscles that will be loaded. You can start with standard arm circles, add simulated punches, and do up to 10 reps of a standard shoulder press with a light weight – within 50-70% of your maximum load. You can see a variation of the warm-up in this article.

5 exercises to improve your bench press results

Reverse Grip Incline Pull-Up

If you can’t feel the broadest muscles of your back when you bench press, then you don’t have them (just kidding). You need to learn to include them in the work, because the broadest muscles are very important for lowering and for creating the initial acceleration of the bar.

The reverse grip assumes that the palms of your hands should be facing upwards, and they should be positioned narrower than the shoulder girdle. You need to lower your arms down, fully straightening the elbow joints, the body – at a slight inclination forward, back straight, knees slightly bent. As you exhale, pull the bar to the waist along the hips, the movement should be smooth, without jerks and swaying. I always try to concentrate as much as possible on the contraction of the broadest back muscles and at the peak I hold the movement for a couple of seconds. On an inhalation I smoothly lower the bar to the bottom position. Simple and effective.

Push-ups

A basic exercise that will help strengthen not only the chest and arms, but also the entire body. Working only those muscle groups that are involved only in the bench press will not give you the desired result. As a result, the load will still fall on the lagging muscles, and they will not allow you to do the bench press qualitatively. That’s why you should definitely include a variety of push-ups in your workout. I usually alternate between wide and narrow hand positions, and also add weights to the back. The standard variant is 10-15 repetitions in four approaches.

Dumbbell bench press

An excellent basic exercise that is familiar to all athletes. Despite its apparent simplicity, it has its own subtleties. Firstly, the angle of inclination of the bench should be within 25-30 degrees, otherwise all the load will go to the triceps. Secondly, you need to watch the position of the elbows – when lowering, they should go slightly forward and in no case backwards. By the way, this exercise can be slightly modernized to work on stretching the pectoral muscles – this is an important condition for their harmonious development. The general principle is the same, but your task is to spread your arms apart and maximally lower them below the level of the chest. Then smoothly raise your arms up, bring them together and repeat all over again. The weight in this exercise should not be too heavy.

Arnold press

I don’t think you need to explain who one of my favorite exercises is named after. The Arnold press is good because it allows you to engage literally all muscle bundles of your arms. And it happens gradually: first the front delts are activated, then the middle delts, then the back and the back. We use the delts to lower and stabilize the bar during the press.

The technique may seem complicated, but it’s worth it. Starting position is sitting, dumbbells are taken with a straight grip and raised to the level of the neck, turning the palms to yourself, forearms – along the body. The movement begins with an upward press with a turn, that is, the hand smoothly rises and turns so that the palm looks forward. When you reach the top point, start the reverse movement, also with arm turn. It is important to keep the body straight, fully straighten the elbows at the upper point, and at the lower point – do not rest them on the torso.

This exercise can also be performed standing. This way stabilizers will be more actively involved, but it is very important to keep a “neutral spine”. That is, you should stand strictly straight with your abdomen tucked in and your feet resting on the floor so that your back does not slouch and the movement in the shoulder joint remains natural.

Bench press

When preparing for the 100 kg bench press, you should include this exercise in your basic training, starting from a weight that is comfortable for you and gradually increasing it. You can alternate different principles of performing the exercise: today take a heavier weight, but do fewer repetitions, and tomorrow – on the contrary, take a slightly lower weight, but increase the number of repetitions and approaches.

You should do sports thoughtfully – only then there will be a real result. What does this mean? First, pay attention to the technique of performance. Secondly, try to develop the whole body in a complex, not just one muscle group. Thirdly, do not forget about rest. The same arm muscles are very easy to overtrain – you will definitely not like it. And of course, include nutrition: if your diet lacks protein, no amount of training will help you get strong biceps, and if you lack carbohydrates, you won’t have enough strength.