Can You Bench Press Daily?
Table of Contents
Introduction
Many new lifters do exactly this or something similar and I will be discussing whether the idea is sensible and the best way to go about it if you intend to try this.
Can You Bench Press Daily?
As an example, it is a very bad idea to bench press at over 95% of your 1RM every single day. You also have to ensure that you incorporate rowing movements in equal frequency to avoid inbalances.
I believe that more advanced trainees who have lots of experience should consider trying this with the right approach. People who are new to lifting should avoid this practice as they don’t have enough experience and are more likely to get injured.
How Could Daily Benching Work?
To see an example of how daily benching could work it is worth exploring the Norwegian high frequency model of training.
There has been research done on highly trained Norwegian powerlifters that have adopted a high frequency style of training.
The Norwegian school of sports science did a study to determine whether high frequency training worked better than a 3 day a week training regiment. The experiment group consistent of 16 powerlifters – 13 were male.
All lifters were put on the same 15 week program with the same exercises, volume and intensity. The results showed that the group doing 6 smaller training sessions a week increased their bench by an extra 5% compared to the group training 3 times a week.
The average intensity used in the experiment was 72%-74% of 1RM for the bench press. The study shows that the shorter more frequent training works better.
This is also what Hartman et al. [1] found – training more frequently results in better neuromuscular activation.
Breaking Muscle also subscribe to bench pressing more frequently to develop skill in the movement and gain strength. You can read their article here.
Avoid Heavy Benching Every Day
When you are bench pressing super heavy above 90% of your 1RM regularly you will fry your central nervous system. In addition, you are more likely to injure yourself. The body needs time to recover from very heavy benching.
The shoulders in particular are more susceptible to overuse injuries if you go down that path. You are also more likely to strain or tear a pec.
The last thing you want is a torn pec as bad as Scot Mendelson in the picture below!
Case Study
Now I am going to delve deep into a real world case study from Reddit user DadliftsnRuns. This man did an experiment where he bench pressed over 345lbs every day for 50 days and increased his paused bench from 405lb to 465lb!
The system that he followed for benching every day was as follows:
Bench 4 reps at 85% every day.
Bench 1 rep at 95% once a week.
Bench 40/30/20/10+ reps every other day.
No grinding on daily reps.
This means in his case with a 405lb max paused bench at the start, one day could be benching two sets of two reps with 345lbs for four total reps. It could also mean doing 5 sets of 8 with 195lbs for incline bench for a total of 40 reps.
These are very impressive results and demonstrate that you can make very good gains by bench pressing every day. Notice how he aimed to bench four “total” reps at 85% every day. This could even be 4 sets of 1 rep on a day when you are not feeling as strong.
By using this approach he achieved the right balance between benching heavy enough but not so heavy for so often that he would run the risk of serious injuries.
As I say, this type of approach is designed specifically for more advanced trainees who have been training for many years and are more mature. I would never recommend a newbie or someone with only two or three years experience to replicate this method.
Variation Is Important
In doing so you will minimise risks of overuse injuries as well as getting stronger in different ranges of motion and making things more fun.
Randy Bretzerr who is a man I have followed for many years on Youtube is also a big proponent of incorporating variation into the bench press. He subscribes to a similar method as the Norwegians of high frequency short training sessions.
In the video below he is performing some reverse band bench presses.
Final Thoughts
To conclude, in this article I have answered the question “can you bench press daily?”. The answer is yes and it can be very beneficial to your bench press strength to do so.
The key is to structure things correctly to ensure progress and minimise injury. It is only recommended for advanced trainees to do this.
Intermediate and beginner lifters should avoid bench pressing every day and instead keep their benching to two or three sessions a week.
If you have any questions about anything in this article please leave a comment below.
As always, stay safe and enjoy your training.
>> RELATED: Will Bench Press Alone Build Chest?
