You can't bench…but the world hasn’t ended!
Imagine that you go to the gym tomorrow for chest day, and you find out that you can no longer bench press. Your warm-up goes okay, but your left shoulder starts to feel like the rotator cuff is being ground to powder very fast. You narrow your grip, and it helps temporarily, but then it starts up again. You try to go heavier, but then your shoulder starts clicking in the socket, and you feel this uncomfortable snapback sensation right in the front of your shoulder—like a guitar string being overly plucked. This isn’t working. Let's try dumbbells. Those are a more natural range of motion right?
You try out the same exercise with dumbbells, but it's not better. You can't even get full lockout with your shoulder without it clicking. By the time you're done, you feel that breaking your AC joint would be the only thing that could relieve the inflammation and tension that’s now building up in the joint. You roll your shoulder backwards to loosen it up, and it sounds like gravel. Your left trap is all wound up from trying to forcefully keep your shoulder down as well. Your chest day at the gym ends with you clutching your shoulder and feeling dejected as hell.
This goes on for a few months, during which time your bench press doesn't go up, your chest doesn’t get any bigger, and you are finally forced to admit it...
The bench press doesn’t work. You CAN'T bench press.
And what kind of man are you if can't bench press? Did your psyche just cry out in primal fear?
This can't be happening. This can't be happening. I'm gonna turn into a skinny bastard...women are never going to sleep with me...my bros are going to abandon me. I'm gonna, I'm gonna…I'm gonna look like a runner!
………….........................
Is that the sound of your soul being torn apart? Probably. But then, that’s to be expected.
The above situation describes my experience trying to bench press when I was in high school. I spent years trying—and failing—to find some variation of heavy barbell pressing that I could do. While I could bench press my body weight, anything beyond that quickly became painful and progress came to a halt. Eventually, when I got out of high school, I found a very good orthopedic surgeon who was able to diagnose me.
It turned out that I had a combination of a beaked acromion process plus a congenital coracoid impingement. I’ve planned on finally having it surgically repaired in 2013, and my honest hope is that I will finally be able to bench press and military press without pain after I am healed.
Since I've had to contend with my screwed up shoulder my entire lifting life, I've spent years finding every pressing permutation imaginable so as to be able to still build my chest and shoulders. Rather then give up or do something stupid and injure myself, I've gotten creative and gotten used to doing unconventional but highly effective movements. While I know I’ll likely never have a chest like Arnold or shoulders like Jay Cutler, I've still been able to build a respectable degree of size and a very high level of functional strength at the same time.
The following are the 14 pressing movements that I have utilized in my pressing training for the past two years. Many of these movements work very well as accessory or supplemental movement to the big lifts. Since the majority are body weight exercises, they can also be trained at a very high frequency. Hopefully they will serve you well in your own training.
Here are my go-to chest movements and an explanation of each:
1. Dips
Dips done properly on parallel bars put the humerus in an internally rotated, posteriorly adducted position. While this can be hell for many people’s shoulders, for my myself this actually feels amazing—it actually creates space in the anterior aspect of my shoulder capsule which is where the impingement occurs. I don’t consider dips a bad exercise, but I feel that they are poorly used. Without getting too much into a training diatribe, dips train retraction and depression of the scapula and engagement of the lats while pressing. In turn, by simply varying the grip width, one can emphasize either the triceps or chest and shoulders. Being able to perform dips is akin to being able to fully squat. If your shoulders can’t handle it, there are problems present. The bottom of the lateral edge of your pec should be about level with your thumbs. I would use a “soft lockout” and a fast 2/2-rep cadence.
2. Weighted Dips
Do not attempt these until you can do multiple 20+ rep sets of dips. Even then, I would recommend no more than 10 to 25 pounds in weight when starting out. Work up to a weighted 20-rep set, then progress to a heavier weight. This may sound like a lot of reps, but dip strength can improve quite rapidly, and weight usually can be added every four to six weeks. Most can work up to 45 to 60 pounds within a year or less. Use a slower 4/4-rep cadence, all the way up to lockout. Trying to go fast is asking for a triceps tear.
3. Accommodating Overload Dips
This is my personal favorite for triceps mass. Strap on a dip belt and attach the chains to it so that they overload in the top portion of the lockout. Set up correctly, you can go from 20 pounds to 60 pounds and get a monster chest and triceps pump. Experiment with all manner of drop sets on these.
4. Elevated Pushups on Dumbbells
I know some powerlifters utilize these as a basic assistance exercise for their bench press technique. However, I actually favor these over regular pushups due to the increased range of motion from the dumbbells. These provide a “stretching” movement for the pecs, and I will often start a session with some variation of this movement.
5. Incline Dumbbell Pushups with Feet Elevated
You take the feet all the way up to 90 degrees or higher as you become stronger. This is an excellent movement for emphasizing the upper chest, and it's solid core work as well. Wear a weighted vest to make these more difficult.
6. JM Incline Pushup
These can be tricky. Arrange the DBs at exactly chest width. Flare your elbows out with a neutral grip on the DBs and maintain triceps tension as you descend. Lock out the triceps as you come up. Go slow and maintain tension, these get sloppy if done for fast reps.
7. Hands Elevated Pushups with Chains
These are killer. The chains deload at the bottom and the accommodating resistance builds triceps and lockout strength. You can do these heavy, and it’s a fantastic way to transform the pushup into a secondary heavy movement. Be warned, these can be humbling. I’ve seen 400-pound raw bench pressers struggle for 20 reps with just 30 pounds of chains. Anything more than 20 reps doesn’t seem to be of much benefit, and anything less than 10 isn’t enough. Progress these similar to the weighted dips. My personal favorite is to start as heavy as you can and just strip off chains one at a time. By the fifth or sixth set your chest will be made of fire.
8. Suspended Pushups with Blast Straps or Rings
Both of these are awesome. I do mine with a neutral grip and my elbows tucked in right next to my body. Depending on how far you position your torso forward, you hit your anterior delts or triceps very effectively. Going a little bit wider hits the chest better than any free weight fly movement I’ve ever tried.
9. Suspended Incline Pushups + Weight
Wear a weighted vest and/or elevate the feet. Experiment with hand position and depth. I dare anyone who fancies himself a heavy presser to try to get 20 reps doing an elevated blast strap pushup with a 50-pound weighted vest. Add in chains and you have a brutally difficult, but highly effective, movement.
10. Ring Incline Chest Fly
An incredible “upper chest” movement. Do these slow and controlled, with the range of motion. Also, aim for time under tension, not reps.
11. Waterbury Dumbbell Floor Press
I picked this up from Chad Waterbury over a year ago, so I’m naming it after him. This is done almost as a decline chest movement, with the glute and hamstring engaged and the corresponding side's hip bridged. The press is done with a natural “punch” rotation, and you use the Glute Bridge to aid in the press. The movement is highly similar to the start of a get up, and there is direct carry over for both. These can be done fairly heavy for as low as five reps and have enormous carryover for any athlete that grapples or practices a fighting discipline.
12. Side to Side 1 1/2 Arm Pushup
I'm sure these have probably been used by some exotic martial art for centuries, but I rarely see them used. Arrange the hands in a moderate width stance, then shift all the way over to the right until the elbow is flush with the body. Lower down, press up, then shift left. Increase the difficulty by adding chains, a weighted vest, or by elevating the feet. This is a very easy way to increase the load for each pectoral muscle and can also be used to bring up a size or strength imbalance as well.
13. Stability Ball Pushup
These are probably harder than any of the above variations. I've seen many an athlete completely humbled when trying to do these. I feel these are excellent at teaching dynamic pure adduction due to the continuous tension required to maintain the stability and grip. They also can give you an insane pec pump. Select any size of stability ball you want, and make sure it is fully inflated. Using a shoulder-wide grip, palms facing each other, grasp the stability ball, lower your chest down to touch, and press up with no momentum. This will work rotator cuff stability like nothing else. Don’t be surprised if 10 clean reps is damn near impossible the first time. I've been laughed at more times than I can count while doing these, only to see the bro try them and start shaking like a leaf after five reps. When you can do a complete set of 20, I’ll be highly impressed.
14. Plyo Pushup
Plyo pushups get abused and misused constantly. Here is my bro-science definition: A traditional plyo pushup is like a vertical jump for the chest. The goal is maximal height and rapidity, not doing them until your chest humping the damn floor. Plyo pushups are like speed benching. You move the bar/your body as fast as possible. Now that that’s been said, there are different kinds of plyo pushups—more than I could possibly list and each with their particular emphasis. For the sake of brevity, we will use the traditional “push off as high and as fast as you can” variation for our training.
To give you an example of how these movements would be put together into a “Chest day,” I've included two sample programs below:
Workout A
| 1. Stability Ball Pushup supersetted with Facepulls | 3-4 Sets X 10-20 reps, This gets all the stabilizers firing and gets the rear delts flush with blood |
| 2. DB Waterbury Floor Press | 4x6-8, pyramiding up each set |
| 3. Incline Ring Fly | 3x8-12, Aim for 45 under tension for each set |
| 4. Overload Dips | 3XAMAP, Do these with a wide grip, legs behind the body. As your chest fatigues, fire the glutes and lats HARD |
| 5. JM DB pushups | 3x10-20, Control the descent and contract the triceps hard at the top |
Workout B
| 1. Elevated reverse grip DB Pushups + Inverted Row | 3x20, Basic superset that gets the joint thoroughly warm. Get a deep stretch on the bottom of the pushups |
| 2. Dips (narrow grip), Weighted | 3x10/12/AMAP, I don’t believe in doing these for anything less than 8 reps, it's just way too much strain on the shoulder and elbow. Pyramid the weight each set and finish with an all-out rest pause set |
| 3. Chains Pushups-Wide Grip +4 Clap Pushups | 3xAMAP, Terminate each set when your reps begin to slow down. Rest for a minute, then perform 3-5 clap pushups. The goal is MAXIMUM height, do not go to failure |
| 5. Wide Grip Ring Fly | 3x45-second sets, just maximize the tension across the whole chest |
Anyone could make significant strength and size gains on either of these workouts. Variations in rep, tempo, and angle can make an enormous difference, and with the addition of chains and a weighted vest, there is no reason why the body weight variations above can't become a staple movement for pressing. With so many ways to increase difficulty, a plateau is easily avoided.
As to strength standards, I consider the dips, weighted pushups, and ring pushups to be the best markers of strength progression. I have derived the following standards from looking at what different levels of gymnasts, bodybuilders, and strength athletes were capable of:
Intermediate strength
- Dips for max reps: 30 reps
- Dips with ¼ body weight: 10 reps
- Pushups + 50 pounds: 20 Reps
- Incline Ring Pushup: 15 Reps
If you can do the above, you’ll probably have a decent level of upper body development with plenty of progress available.
Advanced Level
- Dips BW+100 pounds: 10 reps
- Pushups BW+75 pounds: 20 reps
- Dips: 60 reps
- Incline Ring Pushups: 30 reps
If you can do the above, your chest and shoulders should be pretty yoked. Flat out.
If you learn anything from this, realize that barring catastrophic injury, there is always a WAY to train. Whether you are young or old, injured or in perfect health, don’t become dogmatic with your movements and engrained into a single system of training. If your entire reality falls apart because someone takes away a movement, your reality was on shaky ground to begin with. Not being able to bench press taught me more than just some cool pressing variations. It made me realize that my training mindset must always be looking for adaptation and not to have self-limiting beliefs about what I can and cannot accomplish.
And as to next Monday on Bench press day, prepare yourself for a hell of workout.