How Much Do You Bench?  How often do you get that question?  Well in this article we're going to cover what some refer to as the "King of Chest Exercises" the barbell bench press.  The important thing that I want to cover in this article is that it's now how much you bench but it' show you lift it. 

To do the barbell bench press the correct way you'll start off by laying down on the flat weight bench.  A couple of the keys right off the bat are to first inch your feet back a little bit and then arch that lower back out and off of the flat weight bench.  In addition to arching the lower back out it's critical to open the chest up and try to push your shoulder blades low and close together. 

The feet, the buns, the arched back and the shoulder blades are all essential parts to a successful barbell flat weight bench set.  As you go through the entire motion of the lift focus on keeping all of those parts stationary. 

As you lower the weight breathe in through the nose as you count to two on the decent.  Once you reach the bottom you'll pause for one second while lightly touching the weight to your chest and breathing out and then repeat the rep breathing in through your nose as you go down and out through your mouth as you go up each time. 

As with every lift you do, focus is essential to having a great flat weight bench press set.  Always focus on having a tight grip and at the bottom of each rep imagine that your sqeezing your hands towards eachother just like you would in a dumbbell press.  Even though your hands will stay stationary on the barbell the main benefit of this is the visualization that you gain from mentally squeezing your fists together and you'll definitely feel it on your chest.  In fact the focus you'll feel on your chest is 100 times better than if you're just trying to get as much weight as possible up and down as quickly as possible. 

To get the maximum benefit of your flat weight bench press you'll want to do three to four sets, progressively going up in weight each set and your working towards absolute failure in the ten to fourteen rep range.  On your first set you'll shoot for fourteen, on your second set it'll be more like ten to twelve and then between eight and nine the third set.