Everyone is looking for ways to increase their bench press and pressing power, and it is normally the hardest thing to increase even though there are many different exercises out there for this.
Most people can do with stronger triceps and there are lots of
triceps heavy exercises and isolation exercises that can be done, some
which work and some don't.
One exercise that I have found to pack on triceps size and power, and
has a good carry over to benching and all pressing in general is the
close grip floor press (CGFP).
The CGFP is a relatively easy movement to do and is safer than
benching if you have no spotters or power rack, because unless you are
pretty big you can drop the bar onto the floor and will be able to get
out from under it.
The Setup
You technically don't need a rack at all, but trying to get the bar
straight off the floor can be hard and I don't recommend it. The best
setup is either a power rack or squat rack in which you can lay down in,
where your eye level is looking up at the bar. The bar wants to be high
enough so you don't need to unrack it far, but you want to make sure
you can unrack and rerack with enough clearance from the pins.
You may have heard of floor press, but the people I see performing it
do so incorrectly in my opinion do not get full effect and benefits. I
recommend your legs to be completely flat on the floor, this takes any
leg drive out of the movement and makes it a pure pressing power move.
Do not arch your back as there is no need to decrease the rom (range of
motion). Make sure to use a close grip, which for me is so my index
finger starts on the knurling. If you do it in this way it should be
very similar rom to your full bench when you have an arch and a wider
grip.
The Movement
Push your lats and shoulder blades into the floor before you unrack
the bar and proceed to unrack the bar, keeping it at lockout till you
feel stable enough, then start descending the bar, make sure that this
descent is under control, so when your arms touch the floor you don't
lose tightness or cause a shock to move the bar out of the line. I
believe the best way to increase effectiveness of the CGFP is to pause
the rep when your arms are at the floor, this is because it takes out
the flex action in your muscles. The pause does not have to be long, but
you want to do it long enough so that you lose any flex energy and so
you don't end up bouncing off the floor. Make sure that you keep
everything tight while your paused.
When your ready to press make sure to press as fast as you can out
the bottom, as most of the power will be coming from your triceps. You
may find they tire out quite quickly. Proceed to repeat for X number of
reps.
The Usage
The floor press should be used as a replacement for your heavy bench
for at least 4 weeks. I normally do sets of 3. I would not recommend any
reps above 5 especially if you plan on doing any other triceps
movements in that session.
If your weakness is off the chest in the bench press it may not help
much, but if the weakness is when your triceps start kicking in then
close grip floor press should help increase your bench, especially if
your an equip lifter. Not only like this but it will add good size on
your triceps.
Try out the close grip floor press and comment what you think to it and how it goes for you.
