Improving the bottom of my bench press

[Ron_Hendrix]

I keep stalling at the bottom of my BP...obviously my chest and delts are weak...how do you target these areas with assitance exercises short or just benching more?

[Paul Sousa]

Before you look to assistance lifts how is your technique? Do you get solid heel drive? I found once I fixed some things technique wise I became much stronger off the chest.

[hatmanii]

I found that fixing my technique and waves of benching with a good 3 second pause to really help with power off the chest. You won't be able to use your current numbers but it works wonders.

-Hat

[Oldster]

Upping my volume drastically increased my bench around 100lbs. My weakness was exactly as you describe.

[Ron_Hendrix]

I'll try to get more heel drive...but I don't think it'll help much since it's steadily been going down for awhile now. I've been pause benching but I don't think I've been doing it long enough now to make a difference.

[Ron_Hendrix]

Hat, when you rest at the bottom, are you tight or do you completely relax?

[Dan H]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ys7I788McI&NR=1

Patty cake bench press should help.

[hatmanii]

Hat, when you rest at the bottom, are you tight or do you completely relax?

Stay tight.

[Les Hahn]

I've been doing lots of heavy barbell and dumbbell rows to help off the bottom. I think some dynamic effort work helps too. Like others have said, paused presses and using leg drive will help as well.

[MikeC1]

Bench in the rack off the pins from the bottom position. Do the full motion one day. On a different day, put on more weight than you can bench, and do a 'bench start', holding the bar above your chest for a few seconds. Sets of 3, probably. Once you've added about 20+ lbs to the weights you start with for these, it should transfer to your normal bench.