can you guys give me some tips on speed benching form?
i looked up some vids on Youtube but i see a lot of different things.
some guys just power thru, with a fast eccentric and fast concentric and no pause at the top. other guys have a slow eccentric but then explode once they hit the chest.
what do you guys recommend? and should i be pausing at the top?
thanks.
Not 100% sure since I have not experimented with them, but generally I think bands and chains help tremendously with speed. You could check out westide for example-they train heavily with bands and chains-, they really focus on speed in all the lifts. As a result they are some of the fastest bencher’s squatters ext.
i’m doing speed bench without any chains or bands, shoulda added that.
The general principle is that a max effort single at 100% plus takes approximately 3.5 seconds to perform. So as a general rule the 3 reps in a dynamic effort bench would take about that long at around 45-55% of max load. Speed is the key regardless of whether you are using straight weight or bands or chains. Warming up is extremely important as the ballistic nature can take its toll on a cold muscle especially at the pec-delt tie ins.
I vary my hand spacing through out the sets and alternate between a close, medium and wide grip and I perform 9 sets with 45 seconds to a minute between. There should be at least 72 hours between your DE day and your ME day and it should never in any way detract from your performance on ME day. There’s a lot of ways to play around with it but the bottom line is always speed.
I hope that helps.