Bench Press Negatives

Bench press negative training. For years now strength trainers have used bench press negatives to help athletes beat bench press plateaus, increase their bench press and gain strength in the chest, shoulder and tricep muscles. In this article I am going to explain what a bench press negative is, why bench press negatives are good for building strength and how you can incorporate bench press negatives into your bench press routine.


Before we get started, a word of warning about bench press negatives. Bench press negatives put a huge amount of strain on your chest muscles. Bench press negatives are not for everyone, and you must have at least 2-3 spotters on hand to help you. With that being said, let's take a closer look at bench press negatives.

What are bench press negatives

The negative part of the bench press movement is the lowering phase. You'll agree that most of us can lower much more weight than we can push back up. Bench press negatives take advantage of this. You load the bar up with huge weights (up to 40-60lbs more than your 1 rep max!) and lower the weight to your chest, then the spotters pull the weight back up, and you lower again.

Negative bench press with smith machine (pics courtesy of houstontexans.com)

How bench press negatives build strength

It's a well known fact that the heavier weights your lift, the stronger you get. That's why professional bodybuilders and bench pressers keep the reps down and the weight up! The bench press negative works on this principal, loading up massively heavy weights to shock your muscles into growth. Now don't go to gym and start hitting out negatives yet, you need tu use them in conjunction with your current bench press routine.

Points to consider...

Before we get into incorporating bench press negatives into your bench routine let's look at some good negative techniques. First, you need to do each bench press negative slowly - as slow as possible. Personally, I use a 5-8 count. Obviously, make sure you are properly warmed up and ready for negatives, this is a huge exercise. I like to pre exhaust the chest muscles with a isolation exercise (bench press, dumbell flies) folowed immediately by a set of 4-8 bench press negatives. This will hit your chest hard!

Time for bench press negatives in your routine!

Because of the heavy weight involved with bench press negatives, you will need 3 people to spot you on a standard bench press and 2 if you use a smith machine. It helps of your spotters are up for doing some negatives as well, then you can rotate. Bench press negatives are extremely exhausting exercises so don't do them until the middle to end of your routine.

The number of reps you do is up to you. For the most strenth gains I would recommend 6-8, taking 5-8 seconds to lower the back to your chest. Of course you could do pyramid sets starting at 8 reps, working up to 1-2 reps and back to 8. Some lifters like do as many sets as they can handle at the end of their bench press routine. And finally, like I mentioned previously, you can do a superset starting with a chest isolation exercise then bench press negatives immediately after.

The results people see from bench press negatives varies. We are focusing on strength gains here, not building muscle mass. Through trial and error you will learn how to incorporate bench press negatives into your bench press routine. Remember, don't overdo it, bench press negatives are probably some of the most hardcore exercises you'll do! Good luck!