Whenever I bench, I find that my chest gets sore but my tris don’t. In fact, my triceps almost never get sore (I’m a swimmer, they’re used to taking a beating). Specifically on the bench, I feel like my chest is the limiting factor, and when I fail it’s generally close to my chest.
I feel like my triceps aren’t really getting much of an excersise, and I’m thinking about adding chains. My understanding is this would give the latter part of the movement more resistance, thus more tri work.
So, if my chest is limiting my bench, would it be stupid for me add chains to work my triceps harder and lead to even more tricep dominance? Would chains limit future chest growth, or just give me stronger triceps…
You could try a more powerlifter style form. Also adding in more heavy dumbell work would help build up the bottom so long as you are lowering them as much as possible.
I dont see a problem with adding chains, they should help strengthen the bottom because it will teach you to outrun them, and explode off the chest.
Read up this at westside-barbell.com, louie has some good articles to help with the amount of chain to add, and what they do.
I am the same, for me I didnt even know my chest helped at all with bench and doing band presses makes my chest sore as hell.
direct tricep hits, close grip, ext, etc, or rak lockouts (close grip) and yes dumbell work, partials in the bottom stroke if you so please, WESTSIDEBARBELL.COM always good idea to look at
You could also get some jumpstretch bands, they are not too expensive, reasonably durable(I have heard, I havn’t put mine to the test yet, but have seen videos where the paint is wore off and the bands are still good) and seem to be pretty effective. The accelorated eccentrics from the bands are supposed to increase hypertrophy.
I love doing wide, like extreme wide grip bench press bringing the bar down to more of the top of my chest to try and involve more chest than tri’s. I like doing this when my tri’s have tired and I want to get another set out for the sake of my chest. For me personally, it gets the job done especially since my chest never tires before my tri’s, lol.