Bench Press Assistance Work

Hugh Cassidy’s Rule for Assistance Work

“The best assistance exercise is the one that most closely resembles the exercise itself.”
Hugh Cassidy

Jim Williams was the greatest bench presser in the world. His official 675-pound raw bench press in 1972 and his reputed 700-plus-pound gym work put him wildly ahead of the rest of the world. Never had a bench presser been farther ahead of his competition. Williams loved to bench press and would often bench four times a week — super heavy, low reps. He was a monstrous man, 6-3 and roughly 370 pounds. He benched strict: no tricks or gimmicks, all pec-shoulder-triceps. Note the lack of leg tension as he blasts a huge bench to arm’s length.

How the Bench Press Replaced the Overhead Press

Up until the mid-1960s, the overhead press was the benchmark for upper-body strength. The bench press supplanted the clean and overhead press starting in the late sixties. Hard as it is to believe, weight benches with upright supports were rare before 1970. The bench with uprights began appearing regularly in the early 1970s.

The rise of bodybuilding was critical to bench press popularity. With all its umpteen variations, the bench press became the most practiced and celebrated of all bodybuilding exercises. Chest and arms have always been the most coveted and trained of bodybuilding body parts. No one wanted to look like an American Olympic weightlifter; they wanted to look like Arnold hitting his ungodly side-chest pose.

The overhead press was the strength benchmark for fifty years. It was finally and irrevocably dethroned by the bench press for several justifiable reasons: cleaning a weight from the floor to the shoulders proved problematic. The requisite clean made the overhead press a two-part exercise. Many a good presser was limited by how much they could clean. Strength that could have been used for pressing was sapped and zapped by a heavy, tough clean. A clean “pre-fatigued” pressing power.

The final nail in the overhead press coffin came in 1972 when the press was dropped as one of the three Olympic lifts. The clean and overhead press became passé. Pressing out of the power racks, seated pressing, dumbbell pressing, pressing behind the neck, and other shoulder exercises survived, but overhead pressing took a back seat to bench pressing as the premier upper-body exercise.

Flat bench pressing, and chest work, became preeminent — the favorite exercise was used to work the favorite body part. The bench press quickly became the single most popular progressive resistance exercise in the world. Improving the bench press became a small cottage industry. Experts inform us as to how best to improve bench press performance, thereby increasing the muscle size of upper and lower pectorals, front and side deltoids, triceps, and even lats, to a lesser degree, stimulated with the braking action triggered by the controlled lowering of the barbell.

The rise in popularity of Arnold Schwarzenegger, in both bodybuilding and film, created a chest-training craze. Arnold’s pec development was as freaky good as his famous peaked biceps. Arnold built the giant chunk of muscle early on through strength work, power eating and heavy basic barbell and dumbbell training. Over time, he whittled down into the hard, fat-free Farnese Hercules of bodybuilding and film fame. All of which he built with barbells and dumbbells.

Why Free-Weight Bench Pressing Still Matters

Resistance machines came into widespread use in the late 1970s. Many mimicked the bench press. A modern resistance bench press machine can be useful for certain lifters, for certain goals, and for certain phases of training. But if the goal is to raise the free-weight bench press, the free-weight bench press and its close relatives still rule the roost.

Over time, resistance machines have become increasingly sophisticated and complex. Machines took the awkwardness and instability out of resistance training. Resistance machines enable the bencher to sit upright on a plush seat, pushing handles along a ball-bearing smooth pathway. A bench press machine makes benching comfortable, easy, and fun.

However, comfort, ease, and fun are not automatically the goal in resistance training. The goal should not be to make resistance training easier; the goal is to apply the right kind of stress to the right muscles in the right pattern. When it comes to stimulating muscle fiber and building the free-weight bench, awkwardness and instability force muscle stabilizers to fire.

Machine pathways are frozen and allow some stabilizers to lie dormant. This is less than optimal if the goal is maximum free-weight bench transfer. The crudeness of wrestling with a barbell, or a pair of dumbbells, makes them uniquely valuable compared to the ball-bearing smooth plushness of pushing a modern resistance-training chest press device.

How Best to Improve the Bench Press

Develop a More Efficient Technique

Bodybuilders bench press to stimulate muscle tissue, whereas powerlifters develop efficient bench techniques to push up more poundage. Classically, bodybuilders purposefully flare their elbows to “isolate the pecs.” Powerlifters will tuck their elbows in as they lower and push. In order to push more weight, the elbows are tucked; this technique allows the lats, front delts, and triceps to aid the effort.

While isolating pec muscles is admirable, flared benching compromises poundage-handling ability to an unacceptable degree. Want a bigger bench? Want bigger chest, triceps, and shoulder muscles? Bench press more poundage. Better 250 for 5 reps, tucked-elbow style, than 185 for 5 sets of 10 reps, flared-elbow style.

Reduce Frequency and Volume

Most serious bodybuilders will bench press 2 to 3 times per week. Many elite powerlifters bench press one time per week. At his peak, Schwarzenegger worked his chest three times a week, hitting five different chest exercises, 5 to 6 sets each, a total of roughly 75 sets per week for chest alone. By comparison, a world-record bench presser might perform fewer than 20 sets of benching per week.

A strong case could be made that to build a bigger bench press, bench press less. To bench bigger, cut back on the frequency and volume, slash the reps, increase the poundage, and attack the top sets with intent.

Expand the Flat Bench Repertoire

According to strength grand maestro Hugh Cassidy, the best assistance exercise is the one that most closely resembles the lift itself. Therefore, the best flat bench assistance work is more flat benching using different grip widths.

If the bench presser’s strongest grip width is 26 inches between the forefingers, benching with a slightly wider and a slightly narrower grip is the surest way to bump up the bench press. There are no better bench press assistance exercises than wide-grip paused benches and narrow-grip touch-and-go bench presses. These core bench assistance exercises are usually done after competition-grip touch-and-go or competition-grip paused-rep sets are completed.

Next Best: Incline Benching

A long list of uber-elite bench pressers swear that the incline bench press is the very best bench press assistance exercise. Kirk Karwoski would bench press heavy and hit a heavy incline bench press session a few days later. Karwoski worked up to 445 x 5 without really psyching or getting excited.

Monster bencher and master technician Ken Fantano favored heavy incline pressing with dumbbells 2 to 3 days after bench pressing on Sunday. Ken considered the bench press a “technique lift.” Two 200-pound dumbbells pushed for six reps in the paused dumbbell incline press, he said, “give me the contraction I am looking for.” Bench god Pat Casey loved dumbbell inclines; he also handled 200-pound dumbbells for reps.

Shoulder Pressing

An army of elite benchers eschew the 45-degree incline press in favor of overhead pressing: barbell or dumbbells, seated or standing. Among elite benchers, the seated press-behind-the-neck has historically been popular. This exercise is done on a special bench that allows the spotter to step up and provide both a lift-off and spot to the seated athlete.

Joe Ladnier is listed with a 600-pound raw bench press, and Ed Coan’s official and gym pressing feats are the stuff of powerlifting legend. Both men valued serious shoulder strength. The premise is that by pushing up the seated or standing overhead press, using barbell or dumbbells, or by pushing up the press behind the neck, the bench press can move upward as well.

The press-behind-the-neck is not mandatory and is not for every shoulder. If it causes pain or requires ugly positioning, use front presses, dumbbell presses, incline presses, or another shoulder variation that the lifter can own.

Triceps Work

Increasing triceps strength pushes up bench press performance. Classically, historically, triceps are trained after bench pressing. In a classic power-training routine, after blasting the bench press and all the bench grip-width variants, the lifter segues right into triceps.

The favored triceps exercises for building a bigger bench press include narrow-grip touch-and-go bench presses, weighted dips, narrow-grip “nose-breakers,” and single-dumbbell overhead triceps extensions. The big benchers don’t spend too much time on triceps kickbacks or reverse-grip pushdowns.

Gain Bodyweight When Appropriate

One inconvenient truth is that one surefire way to increase the bench press is to latch onto an Old School bench press training routine and couple it with a determined effort to add bodyweight, when that fits the lifter’s health, sport, weight class, and goals.

As Zen lifting master Cassidy advised, “Eat your way through sticking points.” If you have been stuck bench pressing 300 pounds weighing 200, pushing bodyweight upward may improve leverage and fuel progress. The bench press is a leverage lift: the thicker and fuller a man is, the better his bench press leverages tend to become.

The quality of the bodyweight added is dependent on the quality of the food-fuel: low-grade fuel, low-grade results. Add useful muscle and fuel, not just sloppy scale weight.

Equipment Notes for Bench Press Assistance Work

Bench press assistance work does not require exotic equipment. It requires a reliable bench, a trustworthy bar, plates that can be loaded precisely, and a rack or cage setup that allows heavy pressing to be performed with competent spotters or safeties.

For the core setup, lifters and facilities can compare weight benches, Olympic weightlifting bars, weight plates, and power cages and platform racks.

A bench-focused setup might include the Body-Solid SOFB250 flat Olympic bench press, a bar such as the IRON COMPANY Iron Cowboy Powerlifting Bar, and loading such as IRON COMPANY premium rubber bumper plates, when those tools match the lifter, room, spotter plan, loading, and intended use.

The equipment does not create the big bench. The template, technique, food, recovery, pain-free assistance work, and long war with the bar create the big bench.

Safety Note for Heavy Bench Press Assistance Work

This article preserves Marty Gallagher’s RAW bench press assistance perspective and strength-history examples. It is not individualized medical, rehabilitation, nutrition, or programming advice.

Heavy bench pressing, wide-grip paused benching, narrow-grip benching, incline pressing, press-behind-the-neck, weighted dips, nose-breakers, and heavy triceps work can stress the shoulders, elbows, wrists, pec tendons, and spine when the lifter outruns technique or recovery.

Use competent spotters, properly set safeties, secure collars, conservative warm-up jumps and honest stop rules. Stop or scale back for sharp pain, pec strain, shoulder pain, numbness, dizziness, unstable bar path, repeated technical breakdown, or any symptom that feels different from normal training effort.

Bodyweight gain should match the person’s sport, health status, blood pressure, body-composition goal, and medical context. Bigger leverages can help a bench press, but reckless weight gain is not strength wisdom.

Related Bench Press Reading

For more Marty Gallagher bench press context, read Bench Press Mistakes and Fixes and Bench Press Strength Masters.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast.

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of multiple books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.