Ok I got a little bored and decided to share some of my own knowledge about increasing the bench press. It's a little technique I picked up on a few months ago and after years of being stuck on my bench press I tried it and it helped tremendously.
I'm sure many of you have heard or read about this in BB magazines and whatnot, it may even be in these forums I just didn't feel like searching for it lol.
I call them "Rack Presses"
Step 1: Grab a "mobile" flat bench and take it to a squat rack and position the bench centered in the rack.
Step 2: Set the straight support/safety bars as close to your chest as possible..perhaps about an inch above chest level..or something close to it; then set the barbell on the support bars.
Step 3: Select a weight you can do about 10-12 reps as a warmup...this may take some experimenting.
Step 4: Lie down on the bench and grip the bar as you normally would. Again the bar should be within 1-2 inches off your chest.
Step 5: Press the bar up as you would a normal bench press, to lockout, and proceed to lower the bar back to the safety bars. (Hint: Lower the bar slowly as you get within 2-3 inches of the safety pins...DON'T DROP THE BAR!)
Step 6: Rest the bar back on the safety bars and allow for a true 2 second pause, then proceed to the next rep.
That's it! Do about 4 working sets, lowering your rep # by 2 reps or so, or until you can't do a weight more than 2 reps. This is harder than a normal bench press, since you don't have the downward momentum as you normally would.
You obviously won't be able to come close to your max bench press, so don't let it frustrate you; give this about a month-two months max, then return to normal bench press. You might feel weak at first because your body will have gotten used to doing rack presses. Within a few weeks you will return to normal strength and hopefully with an additional 10-25lbs added to your bench!
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