I can think of no prouder symbol of personal training than the bench press. It’s simplicity itself: just a bar, a trainer and a durable, comfortable pad. For this, and many other reasons, some consider the bench press the true test of upper body strength. There are lots of ways you can train to increase your strength for a better bench, but today I want to focus on what NOT to do, the little mistakes people make to sabotage their progress.
First of all, if one of your friends brags how much he can bench, don’t take this as a invitation to a contest. Competitive lifting has its place, but only for people who really know what they are doing. For an amateur, always trying to best other weight trainers doesn’t do anything for you development, and it might even cause injury. If you want to be able to brag one day how much you can bench, train to the beat of your own drum, and not someone else’s.
Warming up is important, but if you warm up the wrong way, you might actually hinder your development. By "warming up the wrong way" I mean doing things like expending too much energy on the warm up, so you don't have much for the actual bench lift. It's sometimes hard to tell if you are doing this or not, so run your warm up routine by your personal trainer to see what he or she thinks of it.
This last one is a classic error. If you feel you have to arch your back, squirm around, and push up on your toes to get the bar up, you are lifting too much weight. Your back should be flat on pad, with your feet flat on the ground. Believe in steady progress. Educate yourself in the proper technique, and do it, and you'll surprise yourself with how far you go.