What are bench press negatives?

When you are focusing mainly on the descent of the movement getting help on the ascend or not performing the eccentric movement of the lift at all we are talking about a negative. This article goes into more detail on how to perform a negative and how you can use it in different scenarios. This is a technique most suited for intermediate to elite lifters.

Introduction to negatives

In the world of bench pressing a lot of different lingo is used to describe training. Drop sets, pyramid sets, isometric exercises, explosiveness, shirted presses, incline bench presses, decline bench presses and various adaptations and innovations depending on the current trend in training. A term that is not used that often and is usually not described in general overview books are negatives.

So what does negative actually mean in the context of powerlifting? Decreasing the load on each set? Somehow performing the bench press backward? Doing a headstand between each set to see the bench the other way around? Could be one of these options, but all of them are not what a negative is. The first time I came across negatives was in the Smolov squat program which I did in 2016. There you used a negative on a high load. A negative is a repetition where you mainly, if not only, focus on the descent of the weight.

Ways of using negatives in your training

There are two main reasons from my perspective to incorporate negative into your training.

Focusing on the muscles active in the descend for high repetition work
Focusing on the muscles active in the descend for low repetition work
Provide bigger muscle confusion in your training

For high rep work you are aiming to get a better pump into your muscles to stimulate more muscle growth. This would be an approach for bodybuilders and anyone who is unhappy with their physique. Here you would work with repetition ranges between 8 - 12 repetitions per set. A workout template can be German Volume training while adapting it to negatives. Especially if you do not see the same results from the high rep work you are used to you might want to alter the stimulus you get out of the work you do by throwing in some negatives in. If you start using negatives maybe go down 10kg/20pounds from what you would usually use and get accustomed to the new movement pattern and increase from there.

For low repetition work you can use negatives to learn how to handle bigger loads. Once you start, bench pressing more than 120kg you are working with three or more plates on the bench press. Depending on your own weight and physique you might be moving more than two times your bodyweight on the bar. Negatives can be a tool to learn how to control these weights better on the descend to avoid injury and to break through plateaus. For this, you can load 110% of your one repetition maximum on the bar and descend it to your chest or pins. Always know how to properly set this up or work with a spotter who knows you and your style so that he/she can help you when you struggle. Avoid to walk up to a random stranger to spot yu on a lift where you go beyond your 1RM. That is usually a very bad idea.

Negatives con also be used to provide greater muscle confusion. Muscle confusion is a whole topic on its own which and is mainly perceived as a tool which is useful in bodybuilding. The main principle is to confuse the muscle to the greatest degree to provoke adaptation within the muscle to the new stress. For this, you vary the way in which you put the muscle under stress as much as possible. Negatives can be a further bullet in your arsenal to achieve this goal.

Negatives are useful when you have depleted most of the other options you could bring to the table to increase your bench press or add inches to your chest and triceps. I would personally recommend them for more advanced lifters who have mastered the basic bench press who are now looking into variations of the exercise to get better muscle definition or need more variations on the conjugated method for their bench press.

Conclusion

Bench press negatives are repetitions in which you mainly focus on the descent/concentric part of the range of motion to put more emphasis on the muscles and ranges in your body which are activated in this phase of the movement. They can be applied to high repetition or low repetition work depending on your goals. Always make sure to have a proper safety setup when doing negatives and approach them after you have mastered the basic movement.