Welcome to how to bench press without a spotter. The bottom line of this article is to give you a few different options on how to maximize your chest workouts without the fear and anxiety of swallowing your teeth because the barbell has smashed into your face or you’re being choked to death because you can’t get it off of your throat. So let’s get this started. If you are new to the workout arena, this article will help immensely.

When we talk about chest or pectoral major and minor etc., that’s me trying to be fancy with my fitness lingo. The bottom line is when we think about the chest, we think bench press.

How To Bench Press Without A Spotter

I will suggest that because of the safety concerns involved with what traditionally happens when men and women start to bench press. Too much weight too fast, and before you know it, BOOM! You’re panicking and now underneath a bar freaking out like how the H E double hockey sticks are you going to get it off your chest or worse throat. Now it doesn’t matter if you work out at home or if you work out at a commercial gym.

I think you’ll like the solutions this article offers. A safe and effective way to increase your bench press and strength is to do the time test, a traditional five-by-five’s. This means that you will do five sets of five reps at a weight that you can barely complete five clean reps. So let’s hypothetically say you can bench press 100 pounds for five reps. The next time you do your chest workout, you will do 105 or 110 pounds for five sets at five reps. If at the end of that five sets of five reps you did the weight easily, next bench workout, you will do 110 or 115 pounds and go up from there progressively and safely.

Chest Out

The pre-exhaust technique is one of the best ways to work on your chest in such a fashion that it will not have you swallowing the bar or choking on it. It was created by the eccentric genius Arthur Jones. ( (November 22, 1926 – August 28, 2007) was the founder of Nautilus, Inc. and MedX, Inc. and the inventor of the Nautilus exercise machines. Thank you, Wikipedia. The Pre-exhaust technique is a safe and effective way to add growth( size) and strength to your chest without compromising your safety. Pick a chest exercise and do it before your bench. It tires out the muscles forcing you to have to use a lighter weight (there’s some excellent science behind this, I recommend you Google that shit). The bottom line is that you will be using a reasonable weight to handle when your body shuts down.

If you haven’t read my previous articles here, they are.

Homework

To get effective chest growth and strength, you will need other exercises. For example, you have dips ( a scalable exercise I highly recommend), push-ups obviously work exceptionally ( adding a weight vest is a great and highly effective way to improve strength ( https://www.511tactical.com/tactec-trainer-weight-vest.html) another fantastic option is the tried and true dumbbells. I’m a big fan of dumbells mainly because of a greater range of motion, variety of angles, and most importantly, if I hit a wall and my body stays nope, no more quieter case I can dump them on the ground ( please refrain from doing this unless it’s absolutely necessary, it’s douchebag move)

While bench pressing on a flat bench press is great, I’d also like to bring to your attention the importance of incline and decline bench presses. Your chest muscles have upper, middle, and lower sections, and all of those sections should be worked on.

No Rest For You

I’d also like to shine some light on a couple of excellent training options that will add to the intensity of your workouts while keeping your safety in check. Supersets and Tri Sets are exceptional training options.

Supersets are doing two exercises back to back with no rest. For example, you could do a chest exercise like benchpress and immediately do a tricep exercise like dips. The beauty of this is that whatever you want to work on can be amplified, and because of the no-rest heavyweight (safety concerns)is difficult to use.

Tri sets are when you do three exercises back to back with no rest at all. For example, you could do dumbbell flies, incline bench presses, and bench dips back to back to exhaust tire and stimulate your chest muscles fully. When you’re doing three exercises in a row like this, heavyweight is impossible. 

The Cool Down

As you can see in this entire article, I’m trying to get you to think less about heavy weight when you don’t have a spotter to save your butt, yet still trying to stimulate growth and strength in your chest area.

Everything I have suggested in this article you can Google, YouTube, or go to a library and read a book, yes, I’m that old. I’m trying to convey that you have various options to attain your fitness and strength-related goals regarding your chest muscles.

I wish you bon chance (fancy for good luck) in your future endeavors. Don’t get discouraged, and keep up the excellent work.