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Anyway some people are just gifted in certain lifts and it sounds like he's gifted in bench.

check out some of the tips at www.criticalbench.com

Bench Press 600 Pounds
A 12 Step Program
by Dave Tate

Obviously, not everyone has the genetic raw material to bench press 600 pounds.
However, if anyone can teach you to increase your bench, it's Dave Tate. Dave's been
assisting and training under Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell fame for over 10 years.
He's also the co-owner of Elite Fitness Systems and has consulted thousands of athletes
throughout the world. When an athlete wants to get stronger and gain an edge in the
world of elite, world class competition, the name Dave Tate is often on the short list of
strength coaches who can get the job done. As you'll see, Dave "walks the walk" as well
as "talks the talk" when it comes to getting bigger and stronger. We're proud to welcome
him as a Testosterone contributor.

I spend most of my weekends in transit these days. In fact, I'm writing this article on a
plane headed to yet another seminar I'm conducting. This travel time gives me the
chance to think, relax, and reflect on many issues dealing with training and life. I also
use the time to prepare for my upcoming seminar or consulting session. I normally sit
here going over what topics I'll be presenting and how I can better relate them to my
audience. But today there's a problem. No there's not a creature on the wing throwing
monkey wrenches into the plane's engines, but it's almost that bad. The problem is all I
can think about is my bench press!

You see, I train at Westside Barbell, which is renowned for producing world-caliber
strength athletes. I've been a part of this group since 1990. Before that, I had spent five
years stuck at a 1955 pound total in powerlifting. Then I tore my right pectoralis major
tendon while trying to bench 500 at a bench press competition. I figured that was the
end of competition days and thought about retiring from the sport. Then I thought to
myself, retire from what? I haven't done anything yet!

I knew I had two options: I could keep training the way I always had and totally fall
apart, or I could move to Columbus to train under the watchful eye of Louie Simmons. It
wasn't that difficult of a decision. After the surgery I packed the car and moved to
Columbus. That was over 10 years ago. Since then, my lifts have increased to a
935-pound squat, 585-pound bench and a 740-pound deadlift. This was after my surgeon
told me I'd never bench over 400 again!

Although my bench press has increased 85 pounds, it's still a far cry from where it should
be. At Westside we have 34 guys benching over 500 pounds and eight benching over
600. (In fact, six of those eight guys press over 650!) My bench pretty much sucks when
compared to the others in the gym. When people ask me for bench advice, I cringe
because I'm still chasing 600. I've missed that mark five times in competition at the time
of this writing.

I kept telling myself that once I push up 600 pounds I'd write a definitive article on
benching. Well, I haven't hit that mark yet, but I do have the biggest bench out of
everyone on my flight, so I'm feeling like an authority on benching at the moment. Who
knows, maybe writing this article I'll teach myself something, or remember something I've
forgotten? I also feel the need to write this because of the vast amount of
misinformation out there on this subject. I feel there're 12 components to a great bench
press. If we apply these 12 steps, then perhaps you and I both will reach our bench
press goals.

12 Steps to a Bigger Bench

1 - Train the Triceps

Years ago, if you had asked Larry Pacifico how to get a big bench, he'd have told you to
train the triceps. This same advice applies today. This doesn't mean doing set after set
of pushdowns, kickbacks, and other so-called "shaping" exercises. Training your triceps
for a big bench has to involve heavy extensions and close-grip pressing movements such
as close-grip flat and incline bench presses, close-grip board presses, and JM presses.

Various barbell and dumbbell extensions should also be staples of your training program.
Don't let anyone try to tell you the bench press is about pec strength. These people
don't know the correct way to bench and are setting you up for a short pressing career
with sub-par weights. I just read an article in one of the major muscle magazines by one
of these authors on how to increase your bench press. The advice given was to train
your pecs with crossovers and flies and your bench will go up! This, along with many
other points, made me wonder how this article ever got published or better yet, how
much the author himself could bench.

I believe articles should go under a peer review board before they get printed. I'd like
many of my peers to review these authors in the gym or better yet on the bench to see
how much they really know. Bottom line: Train the triceps!

2 - Keep your shoulder blades pulled together and tight.

This is a very important and often overlooked aspect of great bench pressing. While
pressing you have to create the most stable environment possible. This can't be done if
most of your shoulder blades are off the bench. The bench is only so wide and we can't
change this, but we can change how we position ourselves on the bench.

When you pull your shoulder blades together you're creating a tighter, more stable
surface from which to press. This is because more of your body is in contact with the
bench. The tightness of your upper back also contributes. These techniques also change
the distance the bar will have to travel. The key to pressing big weight is to press the
shortest distance possible.

3 - Keep the pressure on your upper back and traps.

This is another misunderstood aspect of pressing. You want the pressure around the
supporting muscles. This is accomplished by driving your feet into the floor, thereby
driving your body into the bench. Try this: Lie on the bench and line up so your eyes are
four inches in front of the bar (toward your feet). Now using your legs, drive yourself into
the bench to put pressure on the upper back and traps. Your eyes should now be even
with the bar. This is the same pressure that needs to be applied while pushing the
barbell.

4 - Push the bar in a straight line.

Try to push the bar toward your feet. The shortest distance between two points is a
straight line, right? Then why in the world would some coaches advocate pressing in a "J"
line toward the rack? If I were to bench the way most trainers are advocating (with my
elbows out, bringing the bar down to the chest and pressing toward the rack) my barbell
travel distance would be 16 inches. Now, if I pull my shoulder blades together, tuck my
chin and elbows, and bring the bar to my upper abdominals or lower chest, then my
pressing distance is only 6.5 inches. Now which would you prefer? If you want to push up
a bar-bending load of plates, you'd choose the shorter distance.

Here's another important aspect of pressing in this style. By keeping your shoulder blades
together and your chin and elbows tucked, you'll have less shoulder rotation when
compared to the J-line method of pressing. This is easy to see by watching how low the
elbows drop in the bottom part of the press when the barbell is on the chest. With the
elbows out, most everyone's elbows are far lower than the bench. This creates a
tremendous amount of shoulder rotation and strain.

Now try the same thing with the elbows tucked and shoulder blades together while
bringing the barbell to your upper abdominals. For most people, the elbows are usually no
lower than the bench. Less shoulder rotation equals less strain on the shoulder joint. This
means pressing bigger weights for many more years. I've always been amazed at trainers
that suggest only doing the top half of the bench press, i.e. stopping when the upper
arms are parallel to the floor. This is done to avoid the excess shoulder rotation. All they
have to do is teach their clients the proper way to bench in the first place!

5 - Keep the elbows tucked and the bar directly over the wrists and elbows.

This is probably the most important aspect of great pressing technique. The elbows must
remain tucked to keep the bar in a straight line as explained above. Keeping the elbows
tucked will also allow lifters to use their lats to drive the bar off the chest. Football
players are taught to drive their opponents with their elbows tucked, then explode
through. This is the same for bench pressing. Bench pressing is all about generating
force. You can generate far more force with your elbows in a tucked position compared
to an "elbows out" position.

The most important aspect of this is to keep the barbell in a direct line with the elbow. If
the barbell is behind the elbow toward the head, then the arm position becomes similar to
an extension, not a press.

6 - Bring the bar low on your chest or upper abdominals.

This is the only way you can maintain the "barbell to elbow" position as described above.
You may have heard the advice, "Bring it low" at almost every powerlifting competition.
This is the reason why. Once again, the barbell must travel in a straight line.

7 - Fill your belly with air and hold it.

For maximum attempts and sets under three reps, you must try to hold your air.
Everyone must learn to breathe from their bellies and not their chests. If you stand in
front of the mirror and take a deep breath, your shoulders shouldn't rise. If they do
you're breathing the air into your chest, not your belly. Greater stability can be achieved
in all the lifts when you learn how to pull air into the belly. Try to expand and fill the belly
with as much air as possible and hold it. If you breathe out during a maximum attempt,
the body structure will change slightly, thus changing the groove in which the barbell is
traveling.

8 - Train with compensatory acceleration.

Push the bar with maximal force. Whatever weight you're trying to push, be it 40% or
100% of your max, you must learn to apply 100% of the force to the barbell. If you can
bench 500 pounds and are training with 300 pounds, you must then apply 500 pounds of
force to the 300-pound barbell. This is known as compensatory acceleration and it can
help you break through sticking points.

These sticking points are known as your "mini maxes," or the points at which you miss
the lift or the barbell begins to slip out of the groove. Many times I'm asked what to do if
the barbell gets stuck four to five inches off the chest. Everybody wants to know what
exercise will help them strengthen this area or what body part is holding them back.
Many times it isn't what you do to strengthen the area where it sticks, but what you can
do to build more acceleration in the area before the mini max. If you can get the bar
moving with more force then there won't be a sticking point. Instead, you'll blast right
through it. Compensatory acceleration will help you do this.

9 - Squeeze the barbell and try to pull the bar apart!

Regardless of the lift, you have to keep your body as tight as Monica Brant's behind.
You'll never lift big weights if you're in a relaxed physical state while under the barbell.
The best way to get the body tight is by squeezing the bar. We've also found that if you
try to pull the bar apart or "break the bar," the triceps seem to become more activated.

10 - Devote one day per week to dynamic-effort training.

According to Vladimir Zatsiorsinsky in his text Science and Practice of Strength Training,
there are three ways to increase muscle tension. These three methods include the
dynamic-effort method, the maximal-effort method, and the repetition method. Most
training programs being practiced in the US today only utilize one or two of these
methods. It's important, however, to use all three.

The bench press should be trained using the dynamic-effort method. This method is best
defined as training with sub-maximal weights (45 to 60%) at maximal velocities. The key
to this method is bar speed. Percentage training can be very deceiving. The reason for
this is because lifters at higher levels have better motor control and recruit more muscle
than a less experienced lifter.

For example, the maximal amount of muscle you could possibility recruit is 100%. Now,
the advanced lifter after years of teaching his nervous system to be efficient may be
able to recruit 70 to 80% of muscle fibers, while the intermediate might be able to recruit
only 50%. Thus, the advanced lifter would need less percent weight than the
intermediate. This is one of the reasons why an advanced lifter squatting 80% of his max
for 10 reps would kill himself while a beginner could do it all day long.

If you base the training on bar speed, then the percentages are no longer an issue, only
a guideline. So how do you know where to start? If you're an intermediate lifter, I
suggest you start at 50% of maximal and see how fast you can make it move for three
reps. If you can move 20 more pounds with the same speed then use the heavier weight.

Based on years of experience and Primlin's charts for optimal percent training, we've
found the best range to be eight sets of three reps. Based on Primlin's research, the
optimal range for 70% and less is 12 to 24 repetitions.

We've also found it very beneficial to train the bench using three different grips, all of
which are performed within the rings. This may break down into two sets with the pinky
fingers on the rings, three sets with three fingers from the smooth area of the bar and
three sets with one finger from the smooth area.

11 - Devote one day per week to maximal-effort training.

For the second bench day of the week (72 hours after the dynamic day) you should
concentrate on the maximal-effort method. This is best defined as lifting maximal weights
(90% to 100%) for one to three reps. This is one of the best methods to develop
maximal strength. The key here is to strain. The downfall is you can't train above 90%
for longer than three weeks without having adverse effects.

Try performing a max bench press every week for four or five weeks. You'll see you may
progress for the first two, maybe three weeks, then your progress will halt and begin to
work its way backward. We've combated this by switching up the maximal-effort
exercises. We rotate maximal-effort movements such as the close-grip incline press,
board press, floor press, and close-grip flat press. These exercises are all specific to
bench pressing and all have a very high carryover value.

12 - Train the lats on the same plane as the bench.