Bench Press.

Towel Bench for Variations

Towel Benches are a BFS Core Lift for three reasons. • First, an athlete gets used to a heavier weight. Normally, ten to twenty more pounds can be used on the Towel Bench. This builds more confidence for new levels on the regular bench.

Variations of the Bench Press

The Bench Press Variation for Success

BFS highly recommends Towel Benches for three reasons. First, an athlete gets used to a heavier weight. Normally, ten to twenty more pounds can be used on the Towel Bench. This builds more confidence for new levels on the regular bench. Second, it brings variety into the routine. Variety is important as this helps an athlete overcome plateaus. We guarantee that every athlete will break at least 8 personal records per week, if our BFS Set-Rep System is used. Variety is the main reason we can make that guarantee. Third, and most important, Towel Benches will go a long way in preventing what is call “Bench Press Shoulder”, a mild to severe pain in the shoulder joints.

Bench Press Breakthrough!

The bench press is a BFS core lift that is unparalleled for developing strength in the triceps, chest, and shoulders. It has become such an important part of any athlete’s training that the most common question asked to those who lift weights is, “How much can you bench?” The right tools can accelerate your gains on this valuable lift! Lifting Bands provide the most resistance at the end range of the lift, such that the athlete can apply more force during this portion of the lift.

3 Keys to Variety in the Bench Press

Performing a Bench Variation once a week can alleviate shoulder stresses. When training larger groups and teams the Towel Bench has one disadvantage which is that the towel or block takes time to get in position in a consistent manner. BFS has the solution - The BFS Bench Block. This sturdy foam block secures to the bar - not the lifter - so moving from athlete to athlete in the rotation is smooth and efficient.

SPOTTING THE BENCH PRESS

BFS at Home and Coach BFS returns to Bob's Basement to demonstrate how to properly spot the bench press. Safety is paramount with the bench press and a team of spotters should be used every time.

Free February Magazine Live and BFS Set Rep App Explained!

With the advancement of technology and the push for integrated PE program, BFS set about developing an app for the BFS Set/Rep Log Book. Because the app is based on the web, BFS offers this software across any device or operating system with a web browser.

The Basics Help Timpview Win! “The BFS core lifts are the most important exercises for football: power cleans, squats, deadlifts, and bench presses,” Cary Whittingham

Fred Whittingham was a coach for the Los Angeles Rams from 1982-1991, his son Kyle is the head football coach for the University of Utah Utes, and Kyle’s younger brother Cary is the head coach for the Timpview High School Thunderbirds in Provo, Utah. This is Ca

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In this remarkable sequence of photos taken by Pam Tabone, Myles McKinney demonstrates tremendous jumping power. McKinney is the starting tailback and leading receiver at Churchville-Chili, a high school near Rochester, New York, which was featured in our September/October 2007 i

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When we first interviewed Mike Carter Jr. for our September/October 2013 issue, he had just graduated from Bloomfield High School in Bloomfield, New Jersey. He finished his baseball career with a .450 batting average and became the all-time school leader in hits with 152, exceedi

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A Message from BFS Editor Kim Goss, MS vide free, downloadable PDF files of every article exactly as they appeared in the magazine. We’ve heard from countless coaches who make many of these articles “bulletin board” material, along with health science instructors who use BFS arti

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The Safe Way to Get America's Youth in Shape

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Dollar by Dollar: Weightroom Upgrades

What’s the most satisfying aspect of coaching at the high school level? If you’re a coach, you know it’s not winning or even seeing your athletes move on to college and then the professional ranks. All that is exciting, but there is much more to coaching. Ultimately, the best par

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2014 BFS High School Female Athlete of the Year

Female Athlete of the Year Abby Lealaimatafao is the winner of our most prestigious award With athletic benchmarks being established every day in our high schools, it’s extremely difficult for students to excel at the state level in any single sport. It’s even more exceptional to

Running Faster: The Tools You Need

than if they eing able had tested to run fast their vertical is a key jump before athletic quality that squat that virtually all workout. athletes want to Here’s how it develop, especially works. those who play Let’s say field sports such as an athlete is football and soclifting

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Weightroom How to design weightrooms that look good and do good ou only pay for quality once!” is an essential motto for anyone who is designing a weightroom. After all, if you purchase poor-quality equipment, it will require more maintenance and will need to be replaced sooner.

2014 BFS High School Male Athlete of the Year

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Protein Powder Gets an Upgrade

If you’re serious about playing on the gridiron, you need high-quality protein – and lots of it! A new protein powder that helps athletes achieve physical superiority ince BFS was founded in 1976 our focus has been on strength, conditioning and character education. It still is, b

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Make It Work!” is the catch phrase of a popular TV fashion show called Project Runway. Due to the popularity of weight training in the US, coaches must find safe, efficient ways to work with a lot of athletes while having limited space. One piece of vertical equipment that can ma

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TRAINING & EQUIPMENT 3KRWRVE\%UXFH.OHPHQV Muscle size is not necessarily an indicator of muscle function. Indonesia’s Erwin Abdullah and Bulgaria’s Yoto Yotov both competed in the lightweight (about 150 pounds) bodyweight division. Abdullah snatched 314 pounds and clean and j

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3KRWRE\&KULVWLQD:DOO&KULVWLQD:DOO3KRWRJUDSK\ZZZFKULVWLQDZDOOFRP Athlete of the Year Selena Haas is the recipient of our most prestigious award oung people face many distractions today, and sometimes their academics and sports take a back seat. Selena Haas is one amazin

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TRAINING & EQUIPMENT %UXFH.OHPHQVSKRWR John Kuc was a three-time IPF world powerlifting champion (1974, 79, 80) in the 242-pound bodyweight class. He was the first man to deadlift 850 pounds and had a best of 870 pounds. Training for Athletes For a powerful core, bring the ere

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BFS Goes to the Arnold

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Here is Coach Shepard spotting a heavy squat when he was a strength coach at BYU. note: Although this article week developing their bench press by The BFS on the(Editor’s origins of Coach Shepard’s training doing many exercises and sets because Difference It has never been easier

Three-Peat State Champions Ithaca High School

Ithaca High School Insight into a great football program that went 42-0! uild it and they will come,” that memorable line from the film Field of Dreams, brings to mind what happened at Ithaca High School in Michigan. In 2012 the school finished a $1 million renovation on their fo

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The Quest for Physical Superiority

Physical Superiority How Paul Gagné uses the OptoJump to guide his athletes to winning ways Paul Gagné is a strength coach and posturologist who uses the OptoJump in his practice. He is shown here testing the effects of a compression suit on his balance. aul Gagné is a Canadian s

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Aformer strength coach at Miami University of Ohio, Ryan Faehnle was struggling with his power clean form and decided to try something different. So in October he switched from a conventional starting stance to a frog stance. With the frog stance, an athlete begins with the heels

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Strength Curves The evolution of variable resistance training Kristel Ngariem shows how to vary resistance in squats by using lifting chains. Ngariem represented Canada in the 2012 Junior World Championships, where she placed 12th with an 83-kilo snatch and 104-kilo clean and jer

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n weightlifting and powerlifting it’s natural to assume that the athletes who lift the most weight have the best training program. At the last two Olympics in weightlifting, the Chinese lifters dominated both men’s and women’s lifting, so obviously they know what they are doing.

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The Look of a Champion

Team BFS athlete Chloe Van Tussenbroek, ready to train in customized athletic wear. ne thing is obvious from watching the Olympics – it’s not only important to perform well, you’ve got to look good while you’re doing it. With the eyes of the world watching, Olympians from every c

Power Balance Drills Revisited

Overhead lifting is often avoided by many athletes due to shoulder injuries. Nikki Gnozzio was a Division I college field hockey player at Ohio University and is now a full-time weightlifter for Team BFS. Correct round shoulders with variations of these powerful exercises BY KIM G

A few Words with David Lawrence

David Lawrence A look at this young strength coach’s rapid rise to success Lawrence working with Nick Bellore, a linebacker for the New York Jets. At the Jets’ camp this year Bellore, who has deadlifted 605 pounds for 6 reps, received his team’s “Defensive Lifting Award” for his

Records fall at Power Clean Championships

Las Vegas has earned another nickname: Power Clean City! On May 12th, strong male and female high school athletes from across the country came to Bonanza High School in Las Vegas to compete in the 10th Annual National High School Power Clean Championships. As happens every year t

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The Right Track

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Girls Lacrosse Steps Up at VVS High School

wo years ago Duey Weimer took over the girls lacrosse program at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School in central New York. This area of the country is considered a hotbed of lacrosse, and unfortunately the school’s first season three years ago ended with zero wins. But with a posit

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3KRWR 1DWH-RQHV:HOOLQJWRQ'DLO\1HZV n 1999 BFS published an article about the success of the football program at Conway Springs High School in Conway, Kansas. It was an amazing turnaround story, because when Mark Bliss stepped in as head coach, he inherited a program that ha

2012 BFS High School Female Athlete of the Year

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A Closer Look at Overhead Lifting

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2012 Power Clean Championships Set for Vegas

FROM THE EDITOR A Message from BFS Editor in Chief Kim Goss, MS Confirm As Friend? section – it will be devoted to content of particular interest finally broke down and started a Facebook page. No, I to young women athletes, their parents and coaches. won’t use it to tell the wor

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lthough strength coaches are always looking for the next big thing to give their athletes an edge, they must consider that some pieces of equipment will never go out of style. One such item is the power rack. Sure, there are many accessories Athat can be added to a power rack, su

Redefining Strength with Rob Adell

Rob Adell A look at one of America’s best hopes for iron game gold ne of the greatest venues for recruiting talent for the sport of weightlifting is the National High School Power Clean Championships in Las Vegas. Now in its eighth year, this meet has put several outstanding weig

What's Your Goal?

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FROM THE EDITOR A Message from BFS Editor in Chief Kim Goss, MS Game, Interrupted I would say that if Rabinoff were to compile a top 10 list he scandal at Penn State has been the focus of every of what Paterno should have done when he first heard major sports network and the gene

Getting Back to Chin-Ups

TRAINING & EQUIPMENT 0DU\3LHU*DXGHWSKRWRE\.DULP*KRQHP The fast track to developing upper body pulling power n July 16, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the President’s Council on Youth Fitness, a governmental organization that was created after a study foun

How Women Athletes Should Eat

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FROM THE EDITOR A Message from BFS Editor in Chief Kim Goss, MS That’s Why They Play the Game! Every summer I head to the local bookstore and pick day this magazine reaches your mailbox, those predictions up several of the college football preview magazines might not hold up. One

Rediscover the Overhead Press

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How Good is Good?

BFS PROGRAM (Editor’s note: Having been involved with BFS for nearly a quarter of a century, I find it interesting that a lot of coaches I’ve talked to have kept every issue of BFS magazine. The reason is that much of the information, particularly the training physiology and idea

What's Happening

FROM THE EDITOR A Message from BFS Editor in Chief Kim Goss, MS The Voice of Reason the standard by which you are measured professionally – it’s ne of the best things about being the editor of BFS your behavior in your profession. Let me put it another way: magazine is chatting w

A New Slant on Back Training

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Bench Pressing for Athletes

here are barriers in sports that, when broken, establish the athlete’s name in history. In 1954 Roger Bannister of the United Kingdom was the first man to run a sub-four-minute mile, and Tin 1968 Jim Hines became the first man to break the 10-second barrier in the 100 meters. In

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Building Champions at Brodhead High

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Barbell Basics: The Power Rack

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BFS High School Female Athlete of the Year

3KRWRE\'DYLG-HQQLQJVRI-HQQLQJV3KRWRJUDSK\ZZZMHQQLQJVURGHRSKRWRJUDSK\FRP Athlete of the Year Multi-talented cowgirl Megan White wins our most prestigious award hen we receive nominations for our male and female high school athletes of the year, coming down to a single w

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FROM THE EDITOR A Message from BFS Editor in Chief Kim Goss, MS The Public’s Right to Know f you’ve ever watched TMZ or visited their website, you players who had to be hospitalized after a workout. Because of this latter incident, Chris Doyle, the may wonder how these people can

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Breathing Easy at Sibley East High School

BY CHUCK HARTMAN, HEAD VARSITY FOOTBALL COACH When you want to win as badly as you need to take that next breath, you will win.” That was the moral of the story I told the Sibley East Wolverines football team on the first day of practice in August. But in truth, it was back in Ja

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Eagles Soaring High

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The Mountain View Bruins have won over 83 state championships in a wide variety of sports. This Utah high school has the right plan for athletic superiority ince it opened its doors three decades ago, Mountain View High School has made a powerful impact on the Utah sports scene.

Top 11 Ways to Build a Championship Program

or over three decades at BFS we’ve seen an amazing number of successful athletic programs, and among them we’ve noted underlying themes. Some of these ideas can be implemented immediately, and others may take a few seasons to fully establish. But if you’ve been reading all the hi

Rethinking the Deadlift

BY KIM GOSS, MS s with the squat and the bench press, the deadlift has been a staple in the workouts of serious athletes for many years. Football players, weightlifters and even bodybuilders frequently include this total body movement in their workouts. In fact, three decades ago

Irish Football Goes Green

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WHAT’S HAPPENING

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Muscle Building for Athletes

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2010 BFS High School Male Athlete of the Year

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FROM THE EDITOR A Message from BFS Editor in Chief Kim Goss The Power of Hope Reeve-Irvine Research Center at UC Irvine. When I first his story has special importance to me because I’ve wrote about Roman in our September/October 2006 issue, known Don Reed for 34 years and he was

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or many schools and military and service organizations such as police and fire departments, there are two major problems Fthat must be addressed when selecting fitness equipment. First is the issue of space, as often these facilities were originally built without a space designed

What's Happening

FROM THE EDITOR A Message from BFS Editor in Chief Kim Goss The Age of Ego have been in previous decades. In one major study of college ’ve had the opportunity to interview many coaches and students, one out of four students tested as having narcisphysical education instructors w

Enter the Octagon!

n the ’70s some of the most popular types of equipment were called “jungle gyms,” multistation units that looked like…well, a jungle. A typical unit might combine a leg press with a military press with a bench press with a chin-up bar and dip handles. For its time, the jungle gym

Lifting Chains Revisited

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Structural Balance and Auxiliary Exercises

TRAINING & EQUIPMENT 3KRWRFRXUWHV\8QLYHUVLW\RI/RXLVYLOOH6SRUWV,QIRUPDWLRQ Structural balance training is required in sports such as field hockey, which requires exceptional levels of lateral quickness to reach the highest levels. Demonstrating her skills is Janelle Avila, w

BFS Position Paper - Straight-Leg Dead Lift

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2010 BFS High School Female Athlete of the Year

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A New Look at Flexibility Training

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A Primer on Ground-Based Training

Ground-Based Training BFS UNILATERAL POWER PRESS How to select the power press to fit your goals and budget n strength and conditioning, there are often two camps: those that prefer free weights and those that prefer machines. Generally, for liability reasons, health clubs prefer

The BFS Weightroom Makeover

A great way to make over a weightroom is with new bars, bumpers, platforms, vertical bar holders and horizontal bumper plate racks. Weightroom Makeover How to make big improvements in your weightroom on a small budget ne of the popular themes in reality television is the makeover

A Tradition of Excellence at Cary-Grove High School

#8 Tyler Krebs #36 Steve Hapanovich #25 Eric Chandler #34 Alex Hembrey #53 Rich Kersten #43 Cole Connington #55 Matt Leinbforth #65 Hayden Baker #67 Ben Luedtke #7 Chad McCarron #24 Trent Sorenson #6 Alex Lyons This Illinois high school knows how to stay on top he athletes at Car

2010 BFS High School of the Year

High School of the Year Alexander High School excels in athleticism and physical fitness hen Coach Sean Arno transferred to Alexander High School five years ago, he had what can best be described as a rude awakening. The football team had not seen a winning season since the 1990s

A Closer Look at the Half Rack

The Half Rack with Platform is a basic piece of equipment for any strength and conditioning program. Half Rack How to pick the half rack that is perfect for you ower racks and lifting platforms are the heart of any weightroom. You can always tell if an athletic program is serious

Pro Football Training with Mike Bystol

t’s always been a bit of a mystery what pro football players actually do to strength train. An occasional demo from a strength coach showing some unique exercise that he or she used in training a pro doesn’t provide much evidence. Is the current training of these athletes simply

Mortimer Jordan HS: Softball Powerhouse

3KRWRV 'HQQLV9LFWRU\.'36SRUWVSKRWRVFRP 100-6 t’s not often you see a win-loss record such as this, but that’s exactly what Mortimer Jordan High School accomplished in winning their past two state 5A championships in softball and being ranked in the top ten in the country by U

The BFS Difference

BY BEAU JOHNSON ead football coach David Bell knew something was missing at Southwest Georgia Academy in Damascus, Georgia. This private high school has a wonderful football tradition; they’ve won six state championships, with the last coming in 1998. But then the Warriors starte

What's Happening

Broz Knows! Another Weightlifting Phenom on the Horizon In our March/April 2009 issue we reported how John Broz of Las Vegas has been working with two-time National High School Power Clean Champion Pat Mendes. Still a teenager, Mendes has made some amazing lifts in training, incl

The Education of a Strength Coach: Charles Ploiquin

Charles Poliquin A frank discussion with one of the world’s most accomplished strength coaches BY KIM GOSS, MS n outlier is someone who not only masters a certain skill or field of study but also makes us think in a different way about what they do. Examples of outliers in busine

How to Organize Plyometrics and Speed Workouts

Plyometrics and Speed Workouts Fine-tuning the Tuesday and Thursday off-season BFS workouts t’s been said that “All things being equal, the strongest athlete will always win.” True, and that’s why coaches place so much emphasis on the BFS Set-Rep weight training program, not just

BFS Position Paper: Bench Press and Variations

Bench Press and Variations The BFS perspective on these important upper body exercises nquestionably, the bench press has become the most popular weight training exercise ever. Sure, the squat is rightfully called the king of lifts and will do more for athletic performance than a

What's Happening

On the Road Again: BFS Clinics Across America Tour Top left: Coach Chuck Hartman, Sibley East High School, MN. Top right: Coach Brad Dix, Sacred Heart High School, KS. Middle: Athletic Director Rob White and Coach Mike Glennie, Saline High School, MI. Bottom: The Sacred Heart Kni

Secrets to Developing Rotational Strength

BY KIM GOSS Over the past decade there has been a trend in the strength coaching profession to distract athletes from getting stronger. I’m not talking about training that is augmented with complicated periodization programs that require a slide rule or at least a basic knowledge