Looking for something new to try? Looking for something to help bring up your weak points? How about just something different? This is what this and future posts will be all about. You will be able to find these and other posts in my BLOG.
This will be the first of many Try This SH*T posts. Here are a few things for you to try out.
Key Press
The key press is a great movement for multiple reasons. Hannah explains in the video why she likes the movement, and how she implements it into her program.
The reason I'm putting it in this post is because this is an excellent exercise to put as a warm-up before your bench press. You're going to want to keep the weight light with twenty pounds or less. If you're really strong, five hundred plus raw bench presser, then you can go up to maybe thirty, thirty-five pounds.
You also want to use a reverse grip as demonstrated because what that's going to do is it's going to bring blood into the bicep and pec tendon region. It's going to stretch the pecs out and going to stretch the shoulder joint making it more mobile.
It's going to essentially warm-up the most vulnerable areas you have when it comes to the bench press. I haven't found in my years anything that works better than this as a warm-up exercise, or a warm-up movement to do before you bench press.
Chain Fly
The chain fly. This is a great exercise because it takes all the stress and the tension off of the shoulders in the bottom position because, as you see, the chains would be unloaded onto the floor. As you're bringing the arms back up into a top position, you want to contract the pecs as hard as you can. You're going to see that's when the chains come back into the movement, and that's when the weight comes back into the movement. Where the strength curve is generally lighter, it's actually becoming harder to do at the top end of the motion.
The other cool thing that the chains do here, is the chains are trying to rip your hands apart the whole time that you're bringing them up. When your pecs are being pulled apart, it will activate the pecs more than normal. The chains are pulling your pecs apart really the most at the top of the movement, and with the dumbbells at the top of the movements, that's really where the dumbbells become stabilized and lock down into the shoulders and upperback taking some of the stress off your pecs. This allows for a greater contraction, and actually for a lot of people, it's going to allow for a better stretch, and a better range of motion, because the shoulder's going to be under less stress at the bottom allowing you may be able to get a greater stretch in the pecs than you would get otherwise.
Triple Set Extensions
The triple tricep extension. If you've been following my log, you're going to see that I do this exercise quite often. What I do differently now than when I had the video made was I like to use kettlebells more, because I can get a greater range of motion because the bell drops down behind my ear. On this exercise, you want to try to keep your elbow in a stationary position so it's not moving please more stress on the triceps. Switch back and forth between arms, going to either one or two reps shy of failure with every set, or to failure with every set.
This is great for building strength endurance, building muscle and can help with your lockout. It's not a super lockout builder for your bench press, but it does make a difference if you have to strain a little longer to be able to complete the bench.
This is also really good if you're in a time crunch, and you have to try to get your arm training done quick, because it doesn't take a whole lot. It only takes about two rounds or two sets before your triceps are just toast with these things.