A bench press workout is a highly effective strength exercise for upper body muscles. The purpose is to improve the amount of weight you can push; hence you can develop shoulder, arm, and thorax strength. While it isn’t the only method to develop upper body strength, it is one of the favorites. Ultimately, doing bench press ups has rapid and visible results on the pecs, both major and minor. For men, it’s the guarantee of a strong and solid chest. We’ve all been dreaming of looking like one of Marvel’s superheroes, and pecs are right up the list. The press-up movement will also help shred that muscle that wraps around your ribcage, the serratus anterior. That’s the muscle that keeps your back and torso defined, so you’ll be struggling with unappealing looseness unless you train the serratus. There’s only one problem. Bench press-ups can be challenging. So, if you’re going to make this specific workout work for you, you need to tackle your challenges first.
You don’t give yourself enough recovery time
Bench press-ups are a tough exercise that creates micro-tears in your muscles. While it’s part of the process to build up strength and grow your muscle mass, it can play against you if you don’t allow for sufficient recovery time. As a rule of thumb, you shouldn’t aim to do more than two bench workouts per week. Count a minimum of 2 days to recover before you can train your upper body muscles again.
You don’t have a plan
Ultimately, if you’ve never done bench press workouts in the past, chances are you’re going to find them challenging and tough. However, that’s precisely why it’s important to have a plan of which sets you need to do and how many repeats. However, as you build up your strength, you’ll soon notice that the exercises you first picked are not suitable anymore. The reason why not many people stick with bench workouts in the long term is the lack of a plan of action that follows your progress and development. It’s not a matter of starting slow and building up, but keeping monitored and measurable goals at each stage.
You have underlying back issues
Bench presses focus on the chest area, but they also include a variety of muscles to stabilize your efforts, such as your shoulder, triceps, and back muscles. As a result, back weaknesses can dramatically impact your workout. Individuals who develop adult scoliosis https://scoliosisinstitute.com/scoliosis/adult-scoliosis/, for instance, need to compensate for their curved spine. Ultimately, a curved spine will affect your posture, creating uneven structure across the shoulder and the waist. In other words, your back condition will make it hard to push weights from your shoulders.
Your form is incorrect
It’s in the nature of the workout to put weight pressure on the shoulders, triceps, and chest muscles. If you’re going to build muscular benefits from it, you need the correct posture. Otherwise, you could injure yourself dramatically. Posture mistakes, such as https://www.verywellfit.com/how-to-do-the-bench-press-exercise-3498278, not only affect your results but also force you to compensate. Locking your elbows may seem like good safety practice, but it puts too much sudden pressure on the elbows, which can cause pain. Using your head, such as pushing it into the bench to assist, is counterproductive, as you could cause neck strain without building up chest strength.
Your core is not strong enough
Most people don’t realize that your core needs to be engaged in all types of workouts. Your core improves your posture, whether you are doing bench press-ups or planking. A weak core will make bench workouts harder and less manageable, as it helps to lock the body into the right position. You have to understand that your abdominals also include the obliques, lower and middle back muscles, which spring into action to support the pushing motion. Building up your core strengths through elbow planks and dynamic planking can greatly improve your bench workouts, making it easier to manage the weight pressure.
You don’t know how to control your breathing
You’re not sure how to breathe through the exercise. We tend to associate a bright red face with the amount of strength and effort we put into each push. In truth, you don’t need to turn red to make your bench press effective. Turning red happens when you are not sure how to control your breathing. Knowing how to engage your abs as you inhale and exhale at the right point through the motion will increase your strength and power.
Are bench press-ups too challenging? More often than not, we unknowingly incorporate mistakes and weaknesses in our workouts that make things unnecessarily harder for ourselves. Understanding how to correct errors can transform your experience of bench press-ups. Bench press-ups can be challenging, but contrary to common belief, bench workouts are accessible to everyone as long as you have the right posture and appropriate weight for your fitness level.