There’s no doubt about it… the bench press is one of the bread and butter exercises for bodybuilders, powerlifters, and anybody who wants to build a barrel chest and show off in the gym!

There’s nothing more satisfying than bench pressing a ton of weight – you literally feel like 10 men after a good set, and the surge of endorphins/adrenalin afterwords feels incredible. You walk around feeling like the Incredible Hulk! 

In this post i’m going to teach you…

How To Add 20kg To Your Bench In The Next 8 Weeks

#1 Train your chest 2-3x per week

If you want to get a muscle stronger then one of the best ways to do this is to increase your training frequency i.e train it multiple times per week. 

WARNING: When you increase your frequency you’ve got to be careful how much volume you do, otherwise you could risk over training. Far too many guys train their chest with too much volume, you know like what they tell you to do in the magazines…

6 sets of bench press, 6 sets of dips, 6 sets of fly’s and then 100 cable cross overs! I’m sorry but for most guys (99% of men) this is far too much volume and will not lead to a bigger chest, instead it leads to rounded shoulders, shoulder injury, and muscular/joint pain…not good!

Instead I would recommend training your chest 2-3x per week, but only doing 2-3 intense sets per workout, for example…

• Chest workout 1 – 3 sets x 4-6 reps flat bench press
• Chest workout 2 – 3 sets x 6-8 reps incline DB press
• Chest workout 3 – 3 sets x 8-15 reps parallel dips 

Make-sure that you give yourself at least 48hrs rest in between each workout i.e 

• Chest workout 1 – Monday 
• Chest workout 2 – Wednesday 
• Chest workout 3 – Friday 

#2 Foam roll

By increasing your training frequency it’s also important to add in styles of training to help you recover in between each workout. I would recommend foam rolling, especially the front shoulder, pecs, and triceps – the muscles which are predominantly used during the bench press. Spend 5-10 mins at the start of the session warming up on a foam roller. Here are some good exercises that I recommend…

#3 Increase your protein intake 

If you want to get stronger and slap on some serious weight to your bench press then increasing your protein is absolutely key. Aim to consume 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight each day, lets say you weigh 200lbs that means you’d aim for 300g of protein per day. Yes, i know that’s a lot, but if you can manage it for the next few months or so you will see a big difference to your strength, not only on the bench, but also other exercises like squats, deadlifts, shoulder presses, pull ups, etc. 

#4 Mix up you chest exercises

Doing the same exercise every session i.e. bench press is not a good idea, you could easily overtrain and damage joints with repetitive movement patterns. Instead, and like i mentioned in tip 1, change your exercises each session, and over a 2 week period. For example say you train your chest 3x per week, you could do the following…

Week 1: 

• Chest workout 1 – 3 sets x 4-6 reps flat bench press
• Chest workout 2 – 3 sets x 6-8 reps incline DB press
• Chest workout 3 – 3 sets x 8-15 reps parallel dips 

Week 2:

• Chest workout 4 – 3 sets x 4-6 reps incline bench press
• Chest workout 5 – 3 sets x 6-8 reps flat DB press
• Chest workout 6 – 3 sets x 8-15 reps DB fly’s  

Then go back to week 1 chest exercises and repeat the 2 week cycle.

This way you still hit your chest 3x per week, but from multiple angles. If you are training hard and getting stronger your bench press will go up, even though you’re only practicing the actual ‘bench press’ movement once every two weeks.