A simple power-lifting exercise, the Bench Press, is excellent for improving chest muscle. However, CrossFit appears to prefer overhead rather than bench pressing, most likely due to the transition of overhead work to Olympic Lifting, but perhaps also due to the risk for having weak balance and rigid shoulders to perform too much bench work. Given the high degree of versatility needed in CrossFit skills such as Olympic Lifting and gymnastics, this may be counter-productive. But just make sure you combine some Bench work with a lot of back chain work.
Chest Pressures with bar:
- Handle slightly wider than shoulder width.
- Start with the arms at full length and the bar above the chest
- The shoulders remain in constant contact with the bench
- The elbows move closer to the hips than to the shoulders
- The bar moves to the bottom of the chest
- The arms remain upright
- Complete the movement with full arm extension.