The Barnyard

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austingamecock said...

A few other things I thought of for this issue:

- Some gyms have a barbell that has a U-shape in the middle of it. You could bench with that and that would allow you to drop your hands a little lower than with a normal bar to get used to working a larger ROM.

- Work on pause bench. Pause the bar on your chest until it is motionless, then drive it up. That is actually how bench is done in a PL competition, so be ready to take a pretty good % of weight off the bar if you're going to do this. Once you build up that drive, it should be easier to just touch the bar to your chest and drive up.

- Try doing an extended pause bench with DBs. Same concept as above, but if you don't have a spotter, there's no chance of you getting pinned under the bar and you can drop the DBs if you get in a dicey situation. Plus, DBs allow a larger ROM so that may be a bonus.

- If you have a spotter you trust, put heavier weight than you're comfortable with on the bar, and do a slow negative and have him assist you on the lift. This will condition your mind and CNS to handling heavier weights so it's not a huge shock when you try to bench them for real.

- Don't forget to train your lats heavy and with the same volume that you do your presses. You're supposed to transfer all the energy to the lats at the bottom of the lift and imagine trying to shear the bar in half, so if you could improve lat strength, you may be able to work through the sticking point at the bottom.

Sometimes, in the course of human events, people get lit on fire.