How can I increase my pitiful bench (without gaining weight)?

My bench is an embarrassment.

Deadlifts and squats I can get some progress in but bench just doesn’t change. Can barely manage 35kg for 1 rep - even when I was 6kg heavier than I do now it’s never seen higher than that.

Are some people just cursed with a pathetic upper body?

Not overly keen on gaining weight (not a significant amount anyway). Is it possible to increase strength other than gaining mass?

I feel you Upper body strength is a huge challenge for me too. I think it's a fairly common experience for women.

What training programme are you following?

Technique is my fist thought. Bench has more technique to it than squat or deadlift imo.

Is your set up solid? Do you arch? Are your shoulder back? Do you bend the bar? Do you stay tight all the way down? Do you touch your chest further down (towards your feet) than where you start? Do you use leg drive? Is your bar path always consistent?

Set up variable depending on where I’m doing it - depends if I can get a flat bench or am stuck with one that dips. Do always try and get a flat bench when I can.

I have a bit of an arch, feet planted, try and use leg drive.

What do you mean by “bend the bar”?

I try and bring the bar down to my chest, I suppose this may be further down than where I start - what would you recommend.

I think I should film myself to check if my bar path is straight.

My bench is an embarrassment.

Deadlifts and squats I can get some progress in but bench just doesn’t change. Can barely manage 35kg for 1 rep - even when I was 6kg heavier than I am now it’s never seen higher than that.

Are some people just cursed with a pathetic upper body?

Not overly keen on gaining weight (not a significant amount anyway). Is it possible to increase strength other than gaining mass?

5/3/1 - but potentially starting a different powerlifting programme soon.

When my bench was lagging behind, I did Smolov Jr. It means benching 4x a week and putting everything else on maintenance pretty much, but as people say and I agree with, if you want to get good at benching, do a lot of benching. My 1RM increased by 15% in 4 weeks, from benching 2.5 plates to benching 3 plates

5/3/1 - but potentially starting a different powerlifting programme soon.

Wow, thats pretty insane! Considering 120kg is a reasonable bench to begin with.

Did you gain much weight/maintain that increase in strength on the bench when you went back to your regular training routine?

I've found my bench typically improves after a period of rest after high volume for a while. Similar for squats and deadlifts to be honest.
If you're starting a new programme, check out the GZCL method as it's pretty customisable to whatever you want to focus on. You could therefore set out a programme with a greater focus on stuff for bench such as bench variations and upper body accessories.

Also, it probably helps to remember that it is much more difficult to make progress for bench, especially as a girl, and you have to be quite patient hahaha. I've been lifting 'kinda' seriously for almost a year and a half now and over the past half year, I would say I have probably only added 5kg to my bench (from 57.5kg ---> 62.5kg, maybe 65kg without the pause required for powerlifting competitions).

Thanks for the info - I’ll check out GZCL. I’m also starting at a new gym soon which specialises in power and Olympic lifting so hopefully can get some more guidance too.

I just need to work on upper body strength full stop. My OHP has never progressed and I still can’t do 1 strict pull up. I’m a bit worried it’s just genetics and I’ll never see anything over 40kg for bench which is depressing as my deadlift and squat have the potential to be pretty decent if I start training properly.

Your bench is strong! Do you compete/plan to compete?

Yeah, definitely a fan of very high frequency routines for improving lifts now. Squats are next!

I only ate about 500 above maintenance. Back to benching 531 once a week for now and improvements are still being made

You just have to keep chipping away at it to be honest. It's really frustrating at times but if you keep track, it's really encouraging to look back on progress over time and realise, wow, I have come a long way. And I've found whenever I slack off bench (which is easy for me to do since I usually don't enjoy it that much... although that's changed a bit recently, hahaha) I actually lose progress (although it comes back quite quickly) so maintaining strength can still be an achievement.

If pull-ups are something you want to get as well, possibly start with attempting to get chin-ups and then move up to pull-ups. I can do a few chin-ups in a row but only 1 pull-up, hahaha.

I've done a few 'mock' meets organised by my uni's powerlifting club and I may compete in the British Unis comp at the beginning of April but I'm feeling a bit discouraged at the moment since I haven't been able to make any progress in my deadlift since January and last week, I couldn't pull 130kg which used to be a not too difficult triple hahaha. My friend said it was the fact I got about 2 hours of sleep but still... really really discouraging.

How about you?

Yeah I'm hearing from a lot of people now that high frequency is one of the best ways to improve lifts - particularly the upper body pressing ones as lighter weight lifted on them (relative to squats and deadlifts) means that recovery isn't so much of an issue.

When you moved to higher frequency, what was your recovery like?