Board Press Champions

There is no doubt the board press has become a great tool to use in training when trying to build the strength of the arms for a bigger bench press. Using different boards ranging from 1-5 boards to build the press was made famous by Louie Simmons and his gym, Westside Barbell.

When used properly, it can be a great asset helping create power to drive through sticking points and in some cases use an overload compared to just going off the chest every session. Many people, like most lifters, will think because of the shorter range of motion, it’s automatically an easier exercise to use more weight. For many lifters, they will discover a certain board will have a lower max than going to their chest on the bench press.

It’s important to remember shorter motion means you’re also recruiting fewer muscle groups to help with the exercise. Fewer muscle groups used during a movement means the muscle groups being utilized are being worked harder than normal. This is how they adapt and then get stronger. As time has gone on, though, something has gone wrong.

Lifters, especially equipped lifters, are driving their board press on different board heights and hitting PRs in the gym, but failing to have it translate on the platform, which is where everything matters. One day during training, I was talking with Lou about the bench press when he brought up board pressing. Laughing, he told me “Everyone forgets, for every board you have on your chest, you lose an inch going down and an inch pressing back up.”

Josh Gutridge helped with my bench press from 300lbs to 700lbs and one of the biggest things he drove into me was you can’t just add weight to run away from your problem of not knowing how to bench with a full range of motion. You now see many equipped lifters struggling to stay in a meet, trying just to get a single attempt in, let alone worrying about a PR or building a total at the meet. Let’s look at some of the issues and some of the fixes to using boards for constant progress and avoid becoming a board press champion.

First Tip - Lou taught me each board should give you about 20- 30lbs from your best competition bench. Let’s say you have benched 500lbs in a competition, your board presses should look something like this:

1 Board- 520-530lbs

2 Board- 540-560lbs

3 Board- 560-590lbs

At 4 Boards, you might not have much carryover due to the boards being so high, you’re recruiting minimal muscles. This is a lot of tricep and front delts, minimal back and chest.

Following these guidelines of where your competition max and board press max are will be helpful to know if you’re becoming better at board pressing or bench pressing. If you’re getting 50-100lbs of overload per board, it might be time to ditch the boards or at least add in some training to the chest before or after board work depending on the day.

Touching the chest prior to board work is a great way to further stress the arms in a workout because they will be overloaded after doing the full range of motion movement. Doing board work prior to touching the chest is also good because you're getting the higher weights while your arms are fresh and then challenge the upper back and chest to work harder in a fatigued state.

Second Tip - At any bigger equipped meet, you'll hear lifters say, “I need more weight to touch.” Yes, while in some cases, more weight will help you touch, you have to also be able to press the weight back up. This is why you see many people open with PRs or near PRs, because they “can’t touch.” It’s not that you can’t touch, it’s that you haven't trained your body to maintain good positioning while under tension as the shirt locks up and the weight feels heavier.

When I asked Bruce Mason for help with my bench press, he began making me touch 80lbs under my best bench press for 1-3 reps after doing sets off of boards. While this was awful, it taught my body to keep position with lighter weights while fatigued. This helped me go from opening with 10lbs under a PR and struggling to get an opener to opening 50lbs under and touching comfortably and being able to take and be successful with three attempts.

Third Tip - The other area people run into with pressing off boards a lot will be their touch point once you remove the boards. Videoing from the side can help you with this. The bar should touch the board in the same spot directly above where it would hit on your chest. Lifters will run into issues because they can touch higher than normal with boards and then once boards are removed, they will go back to that spot because it’s what feels normal. This is why you will see some people floating above their chest forever during a meet instead of pulling the bar straight down. They’re having trouble finding the spot where they usually touch when the boards are on their chest.

Board Presses are an excellent training tool, but remember to drive the numbers up on the platform and not in training off boards. It does little good to bench 800lbs off boards and 600lbs in competition.

If you’re having trouble touching, film your sets from different angles to see if there is an issue with your set up, bar path, or elbow and hand positioning. All of these things can make touching a lot harder if not done correctly, and once fixed it might be easier to touch than expected. Sometimes, it might be a strength issue such as upper back, not being strong enough to keep a good position, or loading the bar into where it needs to be.

This is sometimes why you'll see people loading higher into their shoulders, which is eventually going to result in a really bad bench press.

Lastly, just practice - a lot. Get the reps in with the goal being better reps every set, every workout, and build that over time. If a set looks bad, repeat it instead of going up until it’s done correctly.

They have yet to send out invitations to board press nationals, so until then, build the entire bench press.

Nick Showman

Showtime Strength & Performance

www.showtimestrength.com