Most people don't take the time to really analyze their bench or study the body enough to learn the physiology of the muscles involved.

There are actually many more muscles involved but I will touch on the main ones.

Triceps: Probably the most important part of the bench is the lockout and where most people fail.

Upper Back: There are many muscles involved but I will summarize by saying if you are not using your lats when you explode out of the bottom you are missing something. I have yet to see a big bencher that didn't have a thick set of lats.

Rotator Cuff Muscles: These muscles stabilize the shoulder.

Pec Major/Minor: Important in horizontal adduction of the humerus. Mostly comes into play during early push off of chest just until triceps take over from front delts; important during initial push off the chest.

How To Improve

Your job is to figure out where you are slowing down and what muscle group is primarily responsible for that part of the action. People that have trained "touch and go" or stop short of the chest are going to need to do accessory exercises to help strengthen the push off of the chest.

My suggestion would be flat dumbells ALL the way until touching the chest. Also decline presses help strengthen more pec, shoulder, and 'front' lat.

Of course, nothing works better than lowering the bar slowly to the chest and using a long pause.

You will find you are weak if you have never done this before but add the other exercises and this portion will strengthen quickly. Also, many bodybuilders bench with their elbows back towards their head and the bar high on the chest. This is not condusive to a big bench.

You want to draw as many big muscles into action as possible. Try lowering your elbows and using more tricep. When I bench, the bar touches under my breast line on my xyphoid process so that I can take advantage of the power of my triceps.

Grip width is another subject matter that is very important. This varies from person to person depending on the length of the arm.

In my opinion, you have the most power when your forearm is perpendicular to the floor when the bar is sitting on your chest. You have more leverage if your forearm is directly under the bar and not at an angle.This should be your grip width.

If you are sticking during the transition phase or the middle part of the movement you need to work on explosion off of the chest with as much force as possible.

Milo and I used to bench in the rack on occasion and set the pins so that we were locked into the center part of the lift and we would pause on the bottom peg and explode until the bar was jammed against the top peg(a few inches short of lockout) and we would hold it for 5-10 seconds, repeating this for several reps. This always seemed to help pick that phase up for me.

If you are sticking about 4-6 inches short of lockout you have weak triceps. You can add chains for resistance, try power bands or, if you don't have access to these tools, try doing lockouts in the power rack.

We set the pegs at the height of the intitial lockout phase and press from that point to full extension. This does wonders for tri strength. Also floor presses (with dumbell or bb) pressing from the point elbows touch the floor to lockout. Also close grip bench on a thick chest pad works too.

Let's not forget wrist strength. Of course, you can always use wrist wraps but if you want stability you really should have strong enough wrists to securely hold the weight in position. It would sure suck to have the weight roll right out of our hands in mid-air onto your chest as I witnessed before.

There are MANY more things I could mention here but this is just the basics to get you all thinking and hopefully on your way to a bigger bench! If you have any questions feel free to leave a message!

- Jill