The Most Slept On Exercise to Crush a Bench Plateau
This exercise will help you get past your bench plateau
EXERCISE
Evan Walsh
1/17/20243 min read
Intro:
The barbell bench is probably my favorite workout as it is a true test of upper body explosive power and strength. I love training my bench for power, generally sets of 1-3 reps at around 90% of my 1 rep max. I love throwing on more weight and seeing my max go up, but sometimes, that just doesn’t happen. There are many reasons why you may be plateauing on bench, it could be overtraining, undertraining, or you may even fail a max because you had a bad day. All of these have relatively easy fixes, but what if you are seemingly doing everything right, yet still cannot get your max bench to increase? Hopefully, the following exercise can help you out!
Speed Bench: (Figures Below)
This is the most important exercise to help break a bench plateau, but I can honestly say I have seen maybe two other people in my life do this exercise. When lifting for a max, you are using power. Power is a function of work and time. Work is equal to force times distance (F x D). For example, it could take you 100 Newtons of force to push a block, and the farther you move the block the more work you are enacting on it. Power is work divided by time (W / T). The faster you can perform a certain amount of work, the more power you are generating. When we are not strong enough to provide more force (remember F x D = Work) when performing the bench press, we can use an increase in speed to supplement the needed increase in power. The less time needed to perform work, the more power generated. At this point, I’m gonna stop boring you with the physics and get into the actual exercise. Speed bench involves the same setup and motion as the barbell bench press. The only change is the weight and the speed at which it is moving. You want to use a weight that is around 30-50% of your max, and I personally recommend going closer to the 30% mark to start and adding a band for resistance. You want to do 5-8 sets of 3 repetitions during which you are moving the weight as fast as you can. When you first do this, you are definitely going to say “wow, this is so light, I can bench a lot more than this”. I beg and I plead with you to please keep the weight at the aforementioned level. The goal is not to feel fatigue from this exercise, it is to condition your muscles to quickly transfer power when going from bringing the weight down to pressing it up. For example, I can bench 335 lbs, but I use 115-135 lbs when I am speed benching. Do people look at me like I’m crazy? Do they scoff and say, “A measly 115 lbs?” I have no clue and I honestly do not care. The speed bench has powered me through (pun intended) at least three bench plateaus. Adding speed to your training regimen, especially if you are interested in powerlifting, will pay huge dividends. For more information from the true master of the speed bench, check out this Louie Simmons video which explains the lift and also demonstrates how it should look!
