My best lifts in the bench press are 300kg (661lbs) equipped and 210kg (460 lbs) raw, all done in competition. I have competed for nearly 10 years all over the world, but now spend more time coaching other lifters. Therefore I want to share my experience of how to improve your bench press.
In this post I will try go through proper bench press technique. If you like it, I will also go over how to setup and program your training, comming mistakes and troubleshooting your lift.
In powerlifting, a term often used is ROM ("Range of motion"). This refers to the distance the bar travels to complete the lift. Normally a shorter ROM equals a bigger bench, with some exceptions. You have probably seen videos on social media of powerlifters in the lower weight classes that have a ridiculously short ROM. Love it or hate it, one thing is for certain - to improve your bench press, you need to shorten your ROM.
The first and most important part of decreasing the ROM, is proper shoulder position. Not only is this important to increase your benchpress, but also to avoid shoulder injuries.
Imagine you are trying to hold something between your shoulder blades by pinching them together. Do this while pushing your shoulders downwards, not up towards your ears. What will happen is your chest will come forward. Now hold your arms straight out in front of you, and do it all again; shoulderblades pinched and shoulders down. This is the position you need to keep before and during the entire lift.
Try laying down on the bench, and doing the same as above, but dont grab the bar just yet - Can you even reach the bar in this position? If you have not done this before, you probably can't - because the bar is too far away from your hands, and you would have to let go of your shoulder blades to reach it. You have just effectively decreased your ROM, and you probably need to lower the bar height in the rack in order to grab the bar. The rack/bar height is important and often overlooked. The goal is to have the rack height as low as possible, without bending your arms too much when lifting the bar out of the rack. When holding the bar in the rack your arms should have a slight bend, just shy of locking your elbows out entirely. If you have the feeling of needing to "stretch" and potentially having to lose your shoulder blade pinch in order to grab the bar, its too far away from you.
The second part of increasing your bench press by decreasing you ROM, is arching your back. This is done with your legs. Your legs and feet should never be in a relaxed position throughout the lift, they need to be tightly secured in a position that allows your stomach to raise as high as possible towards the ceiling.
While laying on the bench, with your feet flat on the floor, try slowly sliding your feet back towards the rack. When you feel like you cannot go no further without lifting your heels, then do just that - move your feet inch or two further and let your heels come of the floor a bit. In this new position, try forcing your heels down to the floor again without moving your toes. You want to end up with your feet in a position where your heels just about touch the floor, but only if you use full force and push them downwards. If done correctly, your legs, ankles and buttocks will be fully flexed - It's not comfortable, nor should it be.
Now, let's start lifting! Grab the bar with your index fingers on the rings (the rings should be 81cm apart, if not, adjust your grip accordingly) and lift it out of the rack by trying to slide it over the hooks and forward, not by pushing it up first and then out. When holding the bar at lockout, start lowering it towards your body. Try placing the bar on the area of your torso where your ribs meet / upper stomach area. This will vary slightly depending on the length of your arms. Longer arms = lower bar placement towards your stomach, shorter arms = higher bar placement towards your chest. You want to strive for your upper arms being in a 45 degree angle from your torso when the bar is at the bottom position touching your body. This means the bar path is not straight up and down, but instead the bar moves in a slight angle (There is also a more advanced bar path moving the bar in an arch - I might go over it in another post).
Imagine a leg press. In a leg press, the weights do not move straight up and down, they move in an angle. This is why you can lift more weight in a legpress than in a barbell squat where the weight moves straight up and down. The same logic should be used for the bench press.
This is how to setup and execute a lift. This is just how to get started in improving your bench press, there are many more aspects to it. If you have any questions just ask. I hope to write more about the next steps of how to improve.