Prep Like a Pro: The Bench Press
August 24, 2018
At his Plex facility in Houston, Danny Arnold has trained numerous NFL All-Pros, Hall of Famers, and First-Round Draft Picks, including Charles Woodson, Julius Peppers, Casey Hampton, Wes Welker, and Jadeveon Clowney. Widely recognized as the world's leading expert in NFL Combine preparation, Danny has generously agreed to share his training tips for The D10's Combine-style events with our community. Come see the room where it happens. Plex hosts Houston's first 2018 D5 on Saturday, August 25th. Sign up here.
Even though Plex gets more attention for the 40 Yard Dash, the Bench Press is the easiest one for me. Easiest to train, easiest to help athletes make improvements.
Faster Is Better
Contrary to what has been done before, I try to teach athletes to withstand more blood in their chest, more lactic acid.
You have to be legal in terms of full extension, but short of that, you want to eliminate pausing. Pausing in between reps makes you more tired. The goal should be to hit a legal total you *aren’t* strong enough to generate with pauses in between.
You can’t just say it. You have to train that way.
We do high-rep days, high-speed days. We never go higher than 225 on the bar, even if it’s a lineman. The goal is to use lighter weights and then go faster.
Don't Overinflate
With the Bench Press, you’re training for a fast, very explosive nonstop movement, as opposed to a one-rep max. This notion that you have to be top-heavy with a gigantic chest doesn’t make sense. It’s like studying English all week long, and Saturday you’re taking a math exam.
A 100 meter sprinter doesn’t train like an 800 meter runner, and this is the same thing.
Guys who expand their chests aren’t helping themselves on the Bench, and they’re hurting themselves on the running events at the same time.
Triceps, Not Glutes
The other thing we focus on is enormous amounts of tricep exercises. When you think about the motion of the Bench Press, the tricep plays a big role, but it’s often neglected.
There shouldn’t be as much focus on the glutes. They’d play a much bigger role in a one-rep max, but here, the objective is a lot of up and down movement in the arms.
More important than lower body muscle is just having a good proper stance, hips and feet. There’s no room for slippage.
Progression
We stay pretty intense with it all the way up through the event. A mistake people make is they start winding down, but you get muscle atrophy in less than 24 hours in some cases.
Why would you wanna rest too much when you could have an opportunity to keep those fast twitch muscles fired?
I'm not tearing guys down like I do during the offseason, because we don't want to tear down muscle two days before the event.
But when you’re training for speed and explosiveness, you’re not putting heavy stress on elbows and shoulder joints, so you don't need that so-called rest time.
Previous entries by Danny Arnold
Prep Like a Pro: Broad Jump
Prep Like a Pro: 20 Yard Shuttle
Prep Like a Pro: Vertical Jump
Prep Like a Pro: 40 Yard Dash