Improve your bench press and plateau breaking

Most people reach a sticking point on the bench press. No mater how hard you try, you just cant get another kilo on that bar without that weight just stalling during the lift, coming to a complete stop half way up, and then come crashing back down on your chest.

Well for lots of advanced athletes or power lifters, they’ve faced and conquered this problem a hundred times in their training careers, often with advanced periodisation programs or lifting strategies that demand more time, equipment, and knowledge than most of us have access to.

For the rest of us, there is a relatively simple strategy that has worked for hundreds of weight trainers. Its called power rack partials and the good news is that its simple to perform, most gyms have the equipment, and you can perform them without a personal trainer or even a spotter.

What you need

All you need is a lot of weight, a power rack with safety bars and a flat bench

What you Do

Place your flat bench in the power rack. Make sure its centralised.

Set the safety bars about 4-6 inches below the level of your full extension (lockout)

Performa few warm up sets, typically with 50%, 75% and 100% of your normal bench press weight for your normal 6-10 rep range.

Now load the bar to 110-120% of this weight and perform your normal number of reps (6-10)

Each rep should be performed by slowly lowering the bar to the safety racks. Do not rest the weight on the racks. As soon as the weight touches the racks, explode the weight back to full extension.

Perform 3-4 sets.

At each successive workout, lower the safety bars by 1-2 inches

Incorporating this into your workout

Perform the power rack partials as the first movement in your chest routine, when your strength is at its maximum. This replaces any flat barbell press work in your routine. Complete the rest of your chest routine. Ensure your routine includes some full range dumbbell or barbell presses.

Aim to train chest twice a week

Summary

Over an 8 workout period (4 weeks) you will lower the safety bars to almost chest height, and be completing the movement with considerably more weight. You should now revert to full range of movement reps increasing the weight by a kilo at each workout.