How To Speed Bench Correctly

I'm going to answer one of the most frequent questions that I've had asked about dynamic speed work or speed bench work... that question is—

1. how much weight (Have a respectable bench press)
2. what percentage should I use for dynamic bench

How fast should speed bench be?

Depending on how you ask, the speed bench should be between 0.8-1 m/s at 30-60% of your 1RM.

If you are a geared or advanced/near elite lifter, your percentages will be lower than that of an intermediate.

The person stated that the westside barbell book method says to use this percent. Somebody else says to use this percent that they've read articles where I've said use a different percent.

So there's a lot of confusion over what percentage to use, just figure it out for yourself.

And what I'm gonna do in this article is I'm gonna show you exactly how to do that.

1. Figure out your own percentage method
2. Fixed percentage, 30-40% of your max

1. Figure out your own percentage method

What percentage works best for one person, it may not work for another person.

For instance, an advanced lifter will need a lower percentage than an intermediate or a beginner lifter.

And a lot of that's just based upon their skill of being able to do the bench press or how tuned their central nervous system.

You start off with warm up sets until it gets to a range that feels like, "Now I can apply maximum force or compensatory acceleration."

Just push as hard as I possibly can.

And when I push as hard as I possibly can, I'm still gonna be able to maintain technique. (This is the key point.)

It's not gonna be too light. It's going to have enough force.

So if you wanna know what the force is, if like 0.8 meters per second, but this is a weight that I can move with really good force, it's not heavy.

The force is solid. I have to stay tight.

(Make your upper back sore after staying tight on the bench press!)

Waves and grip width questions

It's gonna be a three week wave.

(This is a sample schedule.)

So the first week is gonna start out at about 135lbs with chains. (Replace with bands if you like).

And then the next weight or the next week is gonna be in addition to 20 more pounds

Then the next week is gonna be 20 more.

 

For each of the speed bench sessions, I will use three different grips.

• Week 1: I use a close grip
• Week 2: I'll use a medium grip
• Week 3: then I'll use the wide grip

But when trying to determine what the speed work's gonna be, you won't use that in-between grip.

It's not based upon the strongest nor the weakest.

I'm gonna use chains for this wave. 

That's the variable that stays constant while grip varies.

2. Fixed percentage, 30-40% of your max

The first thing is our major goal is to try to hit one meter per second of speed on that bar.

One meter per second of speed is insanely fast.

You wanna know what one meter per second's supposed to look like.

The trick is, is that 1.0 meters per second is insanely fast, almost punching speed fast.

And that's what you're gonna need to do to make sure that acceleration is your key for speed benching.

What does that entail?

Usually for most people, moderately to heavy trained, 30 to 40% of 1 rep maxis gonna be what you can probably do for 1.0 meters per second in speed.

So, whatever you have, let's say you bench 300.

You're probably only gonna be able to use about a 100-130 pounds on the bar to maintain a 1.0 meters per second bar speed.

Now, this also includes band tension as well.

But in general, most people to maintain a 1.0 meters per second, the bar speed is gonna fall between 30 and 40% of their one RM.

Injuries for using too heavy percentages

Matt Wenning sheds some insight on having a 600+lbs raw bench.

He has the weight set at about 185 to 205 pounds. That's usually what he uses for speed.

Keep in mind that usually in a given year and part of that year, he is everywhere between 570lbs and 615lbs on the bench press.

And he is only using 185 pounds.

Okay.

Let that soak in for a second, 185 pounds.

He can do more for speed work if I wanted to, but the big trick is it's not sustainable.

If he goes heavier than about 200 pounds for an extended period of time, he starts to get a lot of overuse problems.

1. Pecs get too tender
2. Wrists start giving him problems
3. Elbows start to hurt

(Avoiding elbow pops is key for longevity!)

And what he has found is that if I keep the speed work around 185 to 200 and don't go much above that very often, then when it tends to happen is that he gets a little bit more explosive and a little bit stronger and a little bit faster all year round.

So remember, it's not what you can do... sometimes it's what you can sustain for long periods of time.

What type of bar to use for speed work?

The big thing with speed work is that most times you're gonna use a straight bar.

You can use a football bar, you can use a fat bar.

You can even use Cambridge bars occasionally, but most of the time you're gonna use a straight bar.

(QUESTION) But there's a way to make a straight bar different constantly to keep your body not only guessing, but keep overuse problems down to a minimum and keep you progressing.

(ANSWER) And what that is, is changing the grip around. 

• 1st grip - thumbnail where the knurling starts
• 2nd grip - thumb meets the knurling
• 3rd grip - pinky on the ring

You can also make this close grip variation—

1. 4 fingers on smooth
2. 3 fingers on smooth
3. 2 fingers on smooth
4. 1 finger on smooth
5. index finger meets knurling

5 different grips to hit your speed close grip bench 5 different ways.

Best Grip For The Bench Press

There is no one perfect grip. It depends on your sport.

For powerlifters, it is important not to get overuse injuries from overusing one grip all year round.

For strength sports, football, rugby, basketball, and all these sports that require a lot of upper body power, you will need to have strength in different areas and angles constantly.

So if somebody can be strong with multiple grips, narrow and wide, that means that my strength is possibly more transferable to the field.

So if you're training athletes, then make sure that you don't use just one grip all the time.

And that's a big, big component to making sure that speed work stays moving in a positive direction year-round.

(This should not be the reason for a sudden loss in strength though.)

What does speed bench help with?

1. Acceleration off the chest
2. Technique work
3. Acquiring volume in a systematic way

The main focus of speed bench workouts is to work on your acceleration off the chest.

If the barbell is not moving fast, you will rely more on grinding power and/or miss the lift entirely because you have a deficit in being powerful off the chest.

Recap

So when getting stronger, most people start to neglect actually getting faster.

And that's one big mistake that a lot of people make with training.

Paying attention to physics

Now in bench pressing, most people ask, how much can you bench, how many reps can you do with 225?

But what you don't see, a lot of people asking is how fast can you move a certain weight?

Let us get straight into it:

F=ma

So as you can see in this basic physics equation, we have force equals mass times acceleration.

I know what you are thinking... what does physics have to do with my max bench press?

Stay with me.

Mass is actually a component of how much can I lift? Right?

So if somebody asked me how much I can bench one RM, this would be an indicator of one RM... how much mass?

But I didn't ask you how fast you could move it.

I asked you how much you could move, but when we trained speed benching, what we have to realize is that speed benching has everything to do with acceleration.

And that's why the percentages have to be right.

So, force was our major objective when it comes down to a max bench press.

And now that we've kind of figured out that acceleration is one of those key components.  

Is it better to bench fast or slow?

For the concentric portion (off the chest), you always want to bench as fast as you can. 

For the eccentric portion (lowering the weight to your chest), you have options:

• Lowering down by counting seconds for more time under tension
• Lowering down controlled but not counting
• Lowering down faster but more focus is on the concentric portion of the lift

(Learning these small differences could make a big change to getting close to a rare 405lbs bench.)

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