When I bench press I don't feel a burn

Don’t’ worry if you experience this you are not a freak, you might just have to think about training a bit differently and adjust execution. This article will outline for what kind of training goal a burn is most beneficial and how you can achieve it by adjusting your training as of today. The easy fix is to increase time under tension while changing nothing else. I personally claim a 150kg bench press one maximum repetition at a bodyweight of 85kg to 90kg depending on the day and season. Not world record-breaking, but still better than average. In the picture you see CT Fletcher, who in my opinion is a lot of fun and knows what he is talking about even though he is crazy.

The search for the burn

You have been training like a mad man, but you do not feel a burn when you are doing your exercises. You have read about bodybuilders and how they work up to a burn to get bigger muscles and get stronger and now you are asking yourself how to achieve the same. Still, somehow you do not seem to manage to get that feeling that seems to be so highly desirable amongst the pumped up and ready community.

You have tried different rep schemes, talked to your coach and read up about the topic, or have you not? What is it that causes the burn? How to stimulate it? How does your skeletal muscle actually work? But you also do not want to major in medicine to work things out.

Possible explanations

Is it the number of repetitions? Is it the load you put on the bar? Maybe you need to work on your execution of the lift or grip a bit wider? In the end, the deciding factor might be something you have not even considered yet.

Load you put on the bar might have the least effect on getting to a burn. The more you bench the faster you want to execute the movement and the lesser repetitions you can actually do. I personally get a burn very seldom and I still get consistently stronger on the bench press. If you work with a high load in the 1 - 5 repetition per set range, chances are big that you will feel a burn in the muscle only once in a blue moon. This based on that this type of training is more geared towards strength rather than muscle gains.

Grip width usually has less influence on getting to a burn, but more on how much of a stretch you give the chest during the exercise. This can be beneficial for more gains. I like to think about variations of grip width as a good tool to attack the muscles from as many angles as possible. Be careful when you start to widen your grip and introduce it gradually. Otherwise, you will get stretch marks like me which you will keep for life and they are not pretty.

The number of repetitions and sets has a higher influence on getting to a burn. If you want to work up to have some fire in your muscle you want to aim for the 8 - 12 repetition per set range for 5 - 8 sets. Whatever load gets you to perform this amount of volume is welcome. This will usually be in the range of 50 - 60% of your one repetition maximum. Less is more for working up to a burn and we will come to that in the next point.

Time under tension is from my perspective the single most important factor to work up to a burn in any given set. This is why experienced bodybuilders know how to get more out of a 20kg dumbbell than a 50kg dumbbell and smirk at the young guys competing to lift the biggest weight to gain muscle. You want to stay in full control of the movement at all times, execute it with a full range of motion and without "swinging around" only activating the muscle you want to target during the exercise. If you don't feel a burn, go to the gym, do as many repetitions per set as you used to, but do them very slowly. You will most certainly feel the burn when you are done.

Conclusion

A burn comes from working the slow twitching muscle fiber instead of the fast twitching muscle fiber. The more time under tension you spent more likely it will become that force is being produced from the deeper areas of your muscle. Therefore, if you want to experience burn for more muscle growth the easiest way to achieve this from my perspective is to execute your sets and repetitions slower and more controlled. To achieve this you most likely have to decrease weight first before you progress further.