I get this question all the time. You know?. The one...Dude How much can you bench?? It's a fact that everyone and their dog wants a bigger bench, more muscle, strength and a better body. Most People I know who lift and athletes especially, want to have a strong bench press. I can remember in high school how lousy and weak my bench was. The crazy thing was I was benching something like 3-4 times a week! Little did I know this had an adverse effect on my bench. Another thing I really didn't know was that by doing other exercises other than benching itself, would actually increase my bench! Who knew? The greatest thing I discovered was implementing different variations of body weight movements into my workout programs to help "supplement" my bench press workout. When I finally learned this in college, I went from being able to bench 225 for a measly 7 reps, to in just 3 months, benching 225, 17 times at my pro day NFL combine! That showing of strength still didn't get me into the league unfortunately...
Anyways, the important thing was that I learned how to add in different body weight supplemental exercises to my weight lifting routines. To increase my benching poundages! And now, I'm going to let you in on how I did it! With these 7 different body weight "MUST DO" exercises! 1) Advanced Range Of Motion Push Ups (ARMPU's) This is taking your regular push up and increasing the range of motion. It will not only make you work harder through an extending range of motion but also help stretch out your pectoral muscles giving them more strength over time. Benching alone will decrease your range of motion over time. Especially if you start building up a big chest, the bar will stop once it hits your chest. With ARMPU"s , you can move more freely and let your body go through an extra couple of inches that makes a HUGE difference over time. When you start to bang out more than 20+, you can obviously add a bit of weight if you need to, to add more resistance. I would master being able to crank out 30 solid ARMPU's first before you add any kind of weight. 2) Pull Ups Wait? Pull Ups?? Isn't that a pulling movement? How will that increase my bench press?? Trust me. You need to have a strong back and lats to have a bigger bench press. Pull ups are the king daddy of building up a nice thick Bruce Lee "cobra" back. Think of it like this. You can't shoot a cannon out of a canoe. It just won't work. Think of your back as the canoe and the cannon as your chest and arm muscles pressing up a 405lb bench press. If you have a weak back, you'll break. You want a freaking titanic supporting your cannon if you know what I mean. Start adding in, if you're not already, different variations of pull ups. Mix your grips up and just like with the push ups, once you master hitting a solid 20 reps, start adding some weight. You'll be jacked not only with a bigger chest from a heavier bench, but your back will match!
3) Explosive Plyometric Push Ups There's nothing better that fires up ALL of your muscle fibers than explosive movements like plyo push ups. You force all of your muscle fibers to turn on in order to move as explosive as you do with plyo push ups. In turn, you'll turn on more muscle fibers to recruit for when you're benching. I like to throw in a few sets of plyo push ups before I hit bench presses. I like to do this especially when I hit heavy presses. WHY? It fired up the muscles and gets me ready to roll! 
Think of it as a wake up call for all of your muscle fibers in your shoulders and chest. Don't go overboard! All you need is a few sets of about 6 reps. Also focus on being as explosive and fast as humanly possible. If you can't crank out 30 solid push ups quite yet, leave these along till you can! 4) Reclined Rows Another pulling exercise??? Yep ? pulls do your bench good! Reclined rows or horizontal rows help balance out your pulling and pressing strength. You don't want to be too over balanced. Again, any type of rowing movement is going to help you build up a nice solid "canoe". You must have strength in your back to have a big bench. You ever see a 405lb bencher have a small back??? I? don't think so! 
Now go out and ROW! 5) Ring Dips These are by far one of my favorite exercises alone. I love dips! These babies alone will add slabs of muscle and strength to your whole upper body. When you properly progress to these, you'll have a set of solid shoulders and triceps. First of all, you don't want to have weak shoulders. This will keep you from a big bench. Think of your shoulders as the base of the pillars holding up your roof. Especially when you have a heavy barbell across your chest, you don't want this base to be weak. Weak base = weak pillars. Dips are important in creating lots of strength, stability, and mobility in your shoulders and will also increase overall tricep muscle strength, which you?ll find out next are important for your final push when benching. I would start out on regular dips on a bar then after you can knock out a solid 15-20 reps, hit up some rings to increase difficulty. From there add weight with chains around the neck! 6) Bodyweight Skull Crushers These are a lost art and I have yet to see anyone else in my life do these other than in magazines. It?s a shame because not only do bodyweight skull crushers work the heck outta your triceps, but you?ll work your abs super hardcore as well! What?s a big bench without some nice strong abs right?? Bodyweight skull crushers can be done in various amounts of ways. I started out by using a smith machine (yes the smith machine does have some use, but not much). I would lower the bar down to about hip height, then I would grab the bar, with a regular grip, facing down, and perform basically a free standing skull crusher. The key to these is to keep your elbow in and tight! Now, I prefer to use a TRX to perform Skull Crushers. 
These types of skull crushers are more difficult because, A) Your abs are being working extremely hard and, B) Most people lack this basic bodyweight strength to skull crush close to half their bodyweight. Depending on your angle, you add difficulty the closer to parallel to the ground you are. If you?re doing these for the first time, do them at a higher angle. Start backing your feet away once you start to increase both strength in your triceps and abs. You?ll need both! Bodyweight Skull Crushers are an excellent movement, especially for isolating the triceps. If you didn?t know, the triceps are responsible for the final press of your bench press. Your triceps are what extend you arms straight, and if you have weak triceps, you will hit a wall in the middle of your press. Have you ever got stuck half way up on a bench press?? Yeah, if you have, you have WEAK triceps and you need to start adding in bodyweight skull crushers ASAP! Just take my word for it! 7) Hand Walking Now we?re ending with a highly primitive way of adding strength to your upper body ? hand walking. It?s funny, I had an old client athlete who really wanted to add both strength and mass to his chest. In the first few weeks of his program, we did tons of hand walking. This not only helped build stamina in his upper body, shoulders, abs, and back, it added tons of useful strength as well! In just a few short weeks, his bench press numbers increased and we didn?t even bench in that time frame! Hand Walking is SUPER functional and when added into your program, like plyo push ups, it will help turn on lots of ?dormant? muscles that are waiting to be awakened! You can do partner ?wheel barrow walks? or my new favorite, Power Wheel walks. Either way works but you got to add them into your routine if you want to increase you numbers! 
So there you have it! Add in these different variations of movements into your program to help blow your bench up! Don?t go too crazy! I would use these as ?supplemental? movements meaning, use them in conjunction to other weighted exercises you should be currently doing anyways. So exercises such as barbell bench press, dumbbell presses, rows, military, deadlifts, ect. When you add these in with you current movements, you?ll have a lethal program!get Critcal Bench Press Program 2.0 click here now
