what gymnastic exercises to help bench

[Cody Clark]

Hi,

I have just started lifting at my school and I was wondering what gymnastic exercises will help the bench press. I gotta say its not the strongest that id like it to be so what gymnastic exercises would help a little.

[Neal Winkler]

What muscles does the bench press work and what gymnastics exercises work the same muscles?

[Cody Clark]

No im trying to say what type of gymnastic exercises will increase your bench press. Like would doing clapping pushups help increase my bench by 5 or more pounds or something what exercises will help increase the bench press.

[Joshua Naterman]

XR PPP would be the closest thing to benching, but you're asking a question that doesn't have a clear answer.

Benching and gymnastics are fundamentally different. One is moving an external load and one is moving your body through space. Triangle was, I think, trying to point out that your best bet is to use gymnastic exercises that work the same muscles benching works. If you're benching correctly, it works the upper back, triceps, chest, lats, abs, quads, anterior tibialis, spinal erectors, forearms and shoulders. That's a lot of things, but that's what bench depends on the most. There are a lot of factors that play into having a big bench.

To get that bench up, the first thing you need to do is not get hurt. Trying to focus on pressing movements will lead to shoulder problems. It happens to almost everyone eventually, because almost everyone makes the same mistake.

The second thing you need to do is follow the WODs to the best of your ability. You will get more strength there than any other gymnastic sequence you try to come up with.

The last thing, and this is important because this is where you are going to specifically transfer these skills to the bench press itself, is to bench and dip.

Here's how to do this without wearing yourself out. Step 1: find your 3RM on full ROM bench press and dips with perfect form. I don't care what you can do while you're wiggling, that is NOT OK!

Once you've got that number, knock 25-40 lbs off of it and do one set of 3-5 reps of each exercise every WOD day, so 4 days a week. Use the same weight each time. Add 2-5 lbs every 2-4 weeks. You should never, ever feel like this is a challenge. EVER. You will keep getting stronger and it will keep being easy. This will ALSO give you better strength gains with your gymnastics work, so both your gymnastics AND your bench will benefit.

Now, this is important, don't forget it: You need to do one set of rows and one set of shrugs every day too, to balance out the dips and the bench press. Otherwise you'll end up with shoulder problems. Use the same method to find the weight you should be using. Don't be afraid to add weight just once a month on the rows if you want to, they will never be quite as high as your bench, but make sure you are just as consistent with them as you are with the other three lifts. Remember, that's just 4 sets a day, 4 days a week. You can try 5 days a week if you want to, you're young and your body should be fine with that for a long time.

You will not be disappointed with the results. The worst thing you can do is worry about what anyone else is doing. That's going to be hard to accept and get used to, but it will lead to greater success not just in the gym but also in the rest of your life. That is something that took me a while to get through my head, but when I did everything went much better.

[AlexX]

How to increase bench? practice benching. Unless you are asking because you can't bench (don't have access or something), if your interest is on increasing your bench you need to actually bench. Just include it into your routine instead of a pressing movement (not all of them just once a week or something). If you decide on benching often you would be wise to listen to slizzardman's advice on balancing out the shoulder girdle.

[Kyle Courville]

Now, this is important, don't forget it: You need to do one set of rows and one set of shrugs every day too, to balance out the dips and the bench press. Otherwise you'll end up with shoulder problems. Use the same method to find the weight you should be using. Don't be afraid to add weight just once a month on the rows if you want to, they will never be quite as high as your bench, but make sure you are just as consistent with them as you are with the other three lifts. Remember, that's just 4 sets a day, 4 days a week. You can try 5 days a week if you want to, you're young and your body should be fine with that for a long time.

For the dips, would inverted chin-ups (page 103 in BTGB) be a better supplementry exercise than shugs?

[Joshua Naterman]

Kyle, it depends on how strong you are with your dips and how good your form is with the inverted chins quite honestly. If you have a tight fitting weight vest that will stay on when you are inverted then you should absolutely be ok for quite some time that way as long as you are doing the shrug in the inverted chin ups.

When you start doing some dips with weight, it is important to try and keep your inverted chin at the same weight added when you are doing this as a specific strength balancer. One of the reasons why shrugs will eventually become more useful is that you can end up shrugging 1000 lbs, seriously, and I really doubt anyone could get into position for an inverted chin with that much extra weight. Even 100 lbs, which isn't all that outrageous, may be too much, I don't know. At that point you'd really just be doing a shrug while inverted on the rings, which is perfectly fine. The shrugging is what is important here, and I think that is where your focus should be. The curling of the arm could end up having a negative effect on pulling WODs since you really need to balance the dips set for set on a weekly basis and this could end up being hard to work in without making you a little worn out for the pulling work. That's something you can certainly try, and let me know if it bothers you or not. I really don't know. As for the shrugging, it doesn't have to be done in the same workout, but definitely some time in that week whether it is before or after the dips.

As for form, It's important that your shrug moves your shoulders from down and forward slightly to up and back slightly, which is the exact same path they follow during properly executed dips. That way you work the scapular elevators and retractors together, which is the only way to balance out the dips. Whether you do this with a barbell or inverted chins is really just going to be preference for a long time! Eventually, if you develop your strength enough, shrugs will probably end up being more convenient, but I don't actually know that for sure.

[Tarun Suri]

Once you've got that number, knock 25-40 lbs off of it and do one set of 3-5 reps of each exercise every WOD day, so 4 days a week. Use the same weight each time. Add 2-5 lbs every 2-4 weeks. You should never, ever feel like this is a challenge. EVER. You will keep getting stronger and it will keep being easy. This will ALSO give you better strength gains with your gymnastics work, so both your gymnastics AND your bench will benefit.

Slizz, would these be done westside barbell style with maximum explosiveness, like you're pushing your 1rm through every rep?

[Joshua Naterman]

That's a good question, and one that has two answers. When being used for strength balancing, no. They should be done with a slower tempo at first, until the movement is ingrained permanently and correctly. At that point, a 111 tempo is plenty. At first it may not be possible to get correct movement that quickly, so it's really up to you.

I DO think that once you have the movement ingrained and have built some decent strength with the 111 tempo work that having a day a week where you really get explosive with the concentric contraction would be very good. I would gradually build up to that from session to session so that you don't get a cramp, straina muscle or accidentally pull a vertebra out of place, but eventually I think this will be really important to higher level development. Again, because that is explosive it should be put into the same category as the explosive and plyo work: Build up to it slowly, don't do it at all until you have proper movements ingrained in your nervous system and don't do it TOO often. I think that eventually doing that twice a week and doing the 111 twice a week will be fine, but that's kind of the goal, and not where I would want you to start off unless you have already been making progress here on your own.

I would also like to point out that you can get the muscle balancing effect by performing 1 set a day instead of trying to do a whole bunch of sets in one day. Then if there are some left over you can have one "strength" day where you do multiple sets to round it all out at the end of the week, but not more than that. It won't be necessary and will just detract from performance.

[Cody Clark]

Sorry forgot to ask this but, how well does planche carryover to the Bench Press? Coach has said that Gymnasts that could do Planche Pushups and could do double bodyweight Bench sounds like that might be possible after form has been in check. Im not expecting to anything like that but do you think my Bench could sky rocket when I get up to Planche Pushups? So far im at Tuck planche for the hold and PPP on the rings for just 3 reps.

[Tarun Suri]

If you dedicate your all to gymnastics, I still don't see someone getting the planche under two years assuming they have little experience with gymnastics training or they are a genetic freak. But yes, you're bench press would sky rocket compared to your current level.

[Joshua Naterman]

A year or two in the future, when you're at least doing clean advanced tuck planche push ups and able to hold a good 30s+ advanced tuck you will be benching quite well. If you stick to the program and get to where you can do full lay planche push ups and the static hold, you will absolutely have a fairly impressive bench. You'll be able to throw your bodyweight around with ease. It will seem funny to you that other people can't do that easily.

I know everyone in high school cares about bench press. I did, and all my friends in sports did. There's no way to predict where your strength will go besides a general "way up!" I mean, my first day in the gym benching I was 170 lbs and I couldn't hardly do 135 lbs for reps, and by the end of the year I had a very, very ugly 205 lb MAX bench press and weighed 182 or so. I shouldn't have even been trying that weight. That's when I was a senior dude! I wasn't super strong under the bench, but I could shove people around on a mat or the field and I could punch harder than pretty much anyone I knew of. What I could bench would never have been able to predict what I could actually do at the time.

It's like Havoc says, there's no way to know where you will be, that's why you should stick with the program and find out!