ME Bench Exercises for Raw Benchers

[diesel6304]

Hey everyone. I switched over to Westside-style training back in early October and I've been absolutely thrilled with the progress I have made. My lifts were really stagnant for a while and the DE stuff has really helped me regain my explosive strength and the high emphasis on the most powerful muscle groups has really helped in all my core lifts.

However, I'm starting to feel a lack in my lower portion of the bench press. Formerly, I was weak through the mid-range and lockout due to a low emphasis I was putting on the triceps. Now I've been hitting the triceps so hard, and most of my ME work is doing a tricep based exercise like rack lockouts, board press, or narrow grip press. However, most of that type of work is geared towards shirt benchers.

I don't bench with a shirt and I don't plan to in the meet I am entering in March. This will be my first real powerlifting competition, and the first time I've lifted competitively since high school with our school's power team. I really want to get my starting strength as great as possible and make sure that I don't miss off the bottom. Today for instance I was doing narrow grip ME and on my heaviest 1RM, I struggled off the bottom, but then powered through the midpoint and lockout indicating that I need some work in my initial burst of power.

I've been alternating catch press with regular speed bench on my speed days, but I was wondering if anyone has added Wide-Grips, or Bottom-Position bench (where you start with the weight dead on the bottom of the rack and push it up to another set of racks at the midpoint of your range)? What suggestions do you guys have for a non-shirted bencher who wants to keep the heavy tricep focus, but make sure I don't neglect those initial muscles involved in the press?

[dbcb314]

This is one of the problems running WSB as they write it is that it is mostly designed for shirted benching. That means a ton of tricep work and most of the ME work focuses on the triceps. This is because the shirt gives them a boost out of the bottom and the chest is basically taken out of the lift.

BUT, for raw this obviously does not occur so you need to take less emphasis off the triceps on more on the chest.

You can do this with ME and assistance exercises. For assistance stuff, try using DB flat and incline presses. Make sure to pause them at the bottom to make sure the chest does a lot fo the work.

ME exercise wise... you can do paused bench presses. You can try illegal wides, but they are known to kill your RC's. You can put the bar in a rack and do concentric bench press right off the chest. Maybe cambered bar bench press, but once again your are getting into RC issues.

[W8isGR8]

Raaaaaaaaawwwwww!!!!!

[John Prophet]

paused bench

illegal wides but dont do a 1rm...just use it as an assistance exercises maybe a 5rm

db press with low emphasis (bring em down deep, pause, bring em back up about 5", back down, then press up)

functional isometrics...which is bring the bar down, press it up about 1-2", lol..hold it for 4-6 secs....then press it up (probably dont hold your breath the whole time)....do about 5 reps....dont start with a max of any sort, lol.....or press it up 1-2", hold it, back down..up again and hold etc (use spotter, lol)

lots of lat work, front delt work

[powerlifter70]

Dont forget about camber bar (sp?) bench press too. (you know, bench with that bent up bar)

[DiamondDelts]

ooooooh baby I like it raw.

[W8isGR8]

ooooooh baby I like it raw.

yeah baby I like it raaaaaaaaaaaw!


The best thing I could think of is pin presses from chest height, but dbcb already said that

[DiamondDelts]

This is one of the problems running WSB as they write it is that it is mostly designed for shirted benching. That means a ton of tricep work and most of the ME work focuses on the triceps. This is because the shirt gives them a boost out of the bottom and the chest is basically taken out of the lift.

BUT, for raw this obviously does not occur so you need to take less emphasis off the triceps on more on the chest.

You can do this with ME and assistance exercises. For assistance stuff, try using DB flat and incline presses. Make sure to pause them at the bottom to make sure the chest does a lot fo the work.

ME exercise wise... you can do paused bench presses. You can try illegal wides, but they are known to kill your RC's. You can put the bar in a rack and do concentric bench press right off the chest. Maybe cambered bar bench press, but once again your are getting into RC issues.

Yep. I own a cambered bar and I can tell you that going all the way down past the chest is HELL on the rc's. Pin presses inside the power rack are good stuff though.

[powerlifter70]

Yep. I own a cambered bar and I can tell you that going all the way down past the chest is HELL on the rc's. Pin presses inside the power rack are good stuff though.

He should be using this as an assistance movement and not as heavy. Either way, warm up them rc's!

[John Prophet]

we have this wide olympic ez curl bar in our gym....I thought about using it for a cambered bar

problem being it is a tiny diameter, lol....and it has obviously been broken in 2-4 places and rewelded etc.....so it is sort of shady

some dude has been close grip benching with it though and it bends but hasnt broke yet......so who knows, maybe ill try it for cambered presses

[dbcb314]

BTW...

whoever said strengthen your back (I don't remember who did)..

That is a great idea. I really focused on rows this summer, got my row strength up and the power at the bottom of my bench press increased a ton...

[DeGermaan]

Yep. I own a cambered bar and I can tell you that going all the way down past the chest is HELL on the rc's. Pin presses inside the power rack are good stuff though.

Is a cambered bar a barbell that allows you to go a lot depper when doing bench presses? If so we have those in my gym also, and I too find them very hard on my right rc. I don't think they will do much good to a person with good rc's, with that I mean they will mess them up.

[DeGermaan]

BTW...

whoever said strengthen your back (I don't remember who did)..

That is a great idea. I really focused on rows this summer, got my row strength up and the power at the bottom of my bench press increased a ton...

This reminds me of the deadlifts will stretch your biceps out, and increasing your deadlift a lot will decrease your bench a bit post. Maybe the OP should also try to pump up hs biceps before bench pressing, and see if it helps.

[dbcb314]

Is a cambered bar a barbell that allows you to go a lot depper when doing bench presses? If so we have those in my gym also, and I too find them very hard on my right rc. I don't think they will do much good to a person with good rc's, with that I mean they will mess them up.

yes that is a cambered bar...

[diesel6304]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I think I am going to start incorporating more assistance work, probably a lot on my DE effort days since ME effort days are usually pretty strenuous as is and I want to get the most of the chest-direct work I'll be doing.

I have liked ultra-wides in the past, but I do need to be careful with my rotator cuffs. I used to get a lot of nagging pain in the shoulders, but I've revamped my style of shoulder training. Instead of using heavier weights with partial ROMs, I've lowered down on my overhead pressing weights but started doing full range of motion all the way to the chest with a barbell or all the way to where the dumbells touch my delts and even though it fatigues me much more quickly, it has seemed to tighten up my entire shoulder girdle.

I total forgot about doing the low-emphasis dumbell presses where you go down, come up partially come back down and complete the rep. I'm going to start doing those in there too.

That even sounds like a good idea to incorporate for squatting.