Wanna Increase Your Bench?

Try doing some plyometric push ups. How can a body weight exercise possibly increase your bench? Employing the use of plyometrics requires the muscles to rapidly recruit muscle fibers to create a maximal contraction. By increasing the rate at which the muscles fire and maximizing the number of muscle fibers recruited, you actually get the most work out of the muscle you possibly can with each repetition. Causing a muscle to do more work always yields positive results. This sounds like a pretty solid reason plyo push ups can help you increase your bench right? Truth be told, this is only the half of it!

Some of the plyometric push up's greatest strength gains come from the deceleration portion of the movement, or when you catch yourself on the way down from the plyometric part of the exercise. The eccentric load that is placed on the upper body during this exercise is actually quite substantial. It is simple physics: the heavier something is and the further it falls from the sky toward the ground, the more force it is going to hit the ground with. When you forcefully push yourself up into the air and you fall back down, your upper body must work eccentrically to slow down the mass of your body to keep it from just slamming on the ground. In strength training, it is a pretty well known fact muscles can greatly benefit from eccentric overload due to the amount of muscle fibers that are activated. In the case of the plyo push up, you work both maximal concentric contraction and place significant eccentric load on your upper body.

The combination of powerful concentric work and eccentric overload makes the plyo push up not only a killer exercise, but a great way to increase your bench and overall upper body strength. Give this exercise a shot and watch your bench numbers go up. For beginners, just try to get your finger tips off the ground. As you progress, try to push into the air and clap, touch your chest, your ears and finally the hardest progression, touch your hips. Start with 2-3 sets of 10 and eventually progress to 4 sets of 10. The coolest part about progressing through this exercise is the relative intensity always stays constant as you get stronger you go higher, therefore your eccentric load stays high.