Bench improvement...

Six months ago I started lifting. Was only able to do 135x6-8. Today I did 185x8. No, this is by no means a ton of weight, or necessarily anything to brag about, but it made me happy. My goal is to be able to rep 225lbs by Christmas. Coming along slowly, but I'm getting there.

If you can do 185 8 times you can do 225 once. Give it a try in a couple days.

I might give it a try. What I've been doing is having my 3rd set be a weight I can do 6-8 times. Once I get over that throw on some more. To be honest I had no clue what today would bring as I had been doing 175lbs for a month or so. I was surprised.

don't forget to do butterfly's

uh. Why? these are pretty doubtful to improve a bench press.

I've seen a number of replies over the last few days that make me think we have BB.COM's rejects showing up.

yeah...

"Chest flys! They give me a f'n hoodge pump man!..."

Floor press, JM press, Dips... now THEY will actually build slabs o' muscle and your bench...

What I had been doing was bench, incline dumbbell press and then switch between incline bench and flat dumbbell presses each workout. And then I would do flys. HOWEVER, I've given up on the flys, and right now I'm doing bench, incline bench, dumbbell press and incline dumbbell presses for my chest workout.

Can't do dips, they kill my left shoulder. I've got to be careful doing certain exercises or it's VERY uncomfortable. Behind the neck presses hurt also. However military presses don't really bother me. Doing side raises or dumbbell shoulder presses if I go up so high, or down to a certain point I hear/feel two distinct pops. Doesn't hurt, but something in my shoulder is screwed up.

You should give the floor press a try. I have what was diagnosed as bursitis in both of my shoulders. The days following benching, my shoulders kill me. Floor presses, however, cause me absolutely no shoulder pain. The decreased ROM seems to help a lot. Perhaps it will help your shoulders out, too.

Try doing a motion like that, you can use both arms, go from stomach to 180 degrees out to your side.

I've had the same problems and I've spent mucho time researching proper form for each exercise I perform, as well as rotator cuff rehad exercises. The results comes slow and I'm still not 100%, but I'm doing exercises today that used to put me in a world of hurt.

http://www.t-nation.com/strength-training-topics/bench-press

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&src_vid=vUcjOIZc80c&annotation_id=annotation_643952&v=A0ONHZmsFec

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_35758&feature=iv&src_vid=A0ONHZmsFec&v=xCp-YynBEvE

The best way to go heavier on your bench, is to get a spot a go heavy. Period.

Also, be sure to work your shoulder out well. All that weight is being held up by them.

My shoulder workout consists of dumbbell presses, military press, reverse flys, front and side raises and some other press. Then I do about 6 sets of shrugs to hit my traps

Not hitting the muscles that you will hit with the exercise I posted.

All of those add strenght.

The exercise I posted works the muscles that stabilizes the joint.

It helped me a lot when I started getting shoulder pain.

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