The 225 Bench Test Blueprint: Build Strength, Boost Reps, Break Records
by Josh Bryant and Joe Giandonato
Bench Press More with Josh’s Program
In part one, we put the 225 bench test under the microscope and called it like it is—where it proves something, where it’s smoke and mirrors, and how it stacks up when you strip it down to validity, reliability, and objectivity.
Coaches and keyboard warriors have picked the 225 bench apart for years, but like it or not, it’s still one of the go-to litmus tests for what strength a football player actually puts on the field.
Plus, legions of recreational lifters — including the delusional few who proudly wear their varsity jackets from decades ago and spend their Friday nights reliving their glory days from the bleachers as they cheer on their former high school team and heckle officials — view the 225-lb Bench Press test as a measure of manliness and physical prowess.
The 225 bench is cemented in football testing and carved into gym-culture legend—a rite of passage, a bragging right, and the measuring stick separating the strong from the storytellers.
Whether you’re a high school or college prospect trying to wow coaches, a serious lifter out to test your mettle, or a washed-up meathead chasing your old FBS glory in a 37U semi-pro league—we’re here to help you stack more reps on your 225 bench. No judgment, just love.
Same rules apply if you’re a high schooler repping 185 at a combine, chasing police, fire, military—or aiming for the Marine Corps Body Bearers who move serious weight with parade-ground precision.
1.Perform a Needs Analysis
Before you start gunning for a bigger 225 bench test, run a needs analysis.
First, see if you need more limit strength—the engine that drives endurance and everything else. Most people can’t bench 225 at all. Outside hardcore, rusted pig-iron sanctums, it’s rare: about 3% of lifters can do it, and only 0.4% of the US population.
Second, check your cardiorespiratory fitness—your fuel tank. Bigger tank, longer work. This improves recovery between sets and boosts overall work capacity when combined with limit strength.
Third, lock in the setup and technique that fits your build. Grip width, shoulder health, and mobility all matter.
Finally, see how the test fits your bigger picture. If you’re a football prospect or academy recruit, you might need to go all-in on benching for a while. If you’ve got other priorities, remember—you can’t serve two masters.
2.Increase Limit Strength
The fastest way to boost your 225 reps? Get stronger. If you bench 450, 225 is 50% of your max—light weight no matter your conditioning or technique. A bigger max raises your endurance ceiling, same way getting faster raises your endurance in a run.
If you can run 20 mph, 6 mph is only 30% of max speed. But if your top speed is 10 mph, 6 mph is 60%—way more taxing no matter your VO₂ max or mechanics. Strength works the same way.
Quick story—when Josh moved into his house, the movers struggled hauling 100-lb plates and bars, stopping for water breaks. Josh, even with little cardio training at the time, knocked it out nonstop. Why? The weight was a small fraction of his limit strength, so the “endurance” cost was minimal.
At the NFL Combine, players have roughly 45 seconds to crank out their 225 reps. If your max bench is 300, that’s 75% of your top strength—brutal to sustain for 45 seconds. But if your max is 450, it’s just 50%, and you’ll pile on way more reps in that same window.
To top it off, Josh has seen plenty of 600-lb benchers hit 50 reps on 225 without even training for it—purely because of massive limit strength.
Takeaway: Worrying about anything before you get stronger is like showing up to an amateur night strip contest with a sixty-inch waist and thinking the judges care that you forgot to shave your back.
3. Increase Training Density
In physics, density is mass divided by volume—how much matter is crammed into a given space. Two baseball-sized objects can take up the same space, but a stainless-steel sphere will weigh a lot more than a regulation baseball filled with cork, rubber, and cowhide. Same size, more mass, higher density.
In training, density is the amount of work done in a set time. If Josh and Joe both train for 30 minutes, but Josh knocks out 10 work sets and Joe only hits 8, Josh’s session is denser—more work in the same window.
You can boost training density by cutting rest periods, doing more sets in the same time, or setting a target like 25 reps in five minutes. You can also go EMOM style—five reps every minute on the minute. This method requires sufficient limit strength and recovery.
And as Kaz says—“Bust out the stopwatch!”
4. High Repetition Board Presses, Dumbbell Bench Presses, Drop Sets, and Push-ups
Local muscular endurance can be built with the right tools and some tolerance for pain.
In 2011, grainy YouTube footage showed three young NFL pass rushers hammering board presses during the lockout, some as mechanical drop sets. Once seen as an equipped-lifter tool, board presses are gold for raw lifters chasing more 225 reps. They shorten range of motion for cranky shoulders while still building pressing strength. The bench demands shoulder extension, internal rotation, and abduction—bad news for unstable joints or tight pecs and delts.
They also crush sticking points—mid-range and lockout—where fatigue buries you. Josh runs these as the Triceps Death Mechanical Advantage Drop Set, a finisher he got from Joe DeFranco, who calls it “the fastest way to turn your arms into cement blocks.” Start from the chest, then one- and two-board heights, gaining leverage each step. By the end, your triceps are cooked, your lockout’s bulletproof, and 225 feels like a toy. Flip it with dumbbells—start upright, drop through inclines, flat, even decline. Perfect for full-body days or when time’s tight. (Here’s Josh running one with IFBB Pro Cory Mathews: )
Louie Simmons swore by high-rep dumbbell presses for endurance, hypertrophy, and shoulder stability. Most gyms top out at 100-pound dumbbells, but they still work. High reps boost mitochondrial and capillary density, clear lactate, and pump in oxygen faster. Time under tension can mean more size—if you’re eating enough protein. They also hit stabilizers and rotator cuff muscles for a more stable, efficient bench. Push to failure and you’ll recruit high-threshold motor units. Bonus: dumping dumbbells is safer than getting stapled under a bar.
Push-ups bring similar benefits—endurance, hypertrophy, and shoulder health. As a closed-chain movement (hands fixed), they let the scapulae glide along the ribcage, improving scapulohumeral rhythm. Healthy shoulders mean better benching. High-rep push-ups to failure, weighted or not, are a simple, brutal way to build local muscular endurance.
5. Bolster Your Upper Back
The old adage “you can’t fire a cannon out of a canoe” applies here. A big, strong upper back and thick lats give you a rock-solid platform to launch pig iron from your chest. A yoked back lets you dig the bench pad into your traps, lock in your shoulder position on the descent, and keep your torso wedged in place.
A strong upper back also spares your shoulders and gives you control when it matters most—lowering the bar to your chest and driving through the midpoint on the way up.
Follow two rules of thumb for back training:
- Row heavy and row often—one to two rowing movements every session, on non-consecutive days.
- Row more than you press—at least a 2:1 ratio of horizontal rows to horizontal presses. If you press 10 sets a week, you row 20.
For high volume, favor chest-supported rows like T-bar, incline dumbbell/barbell, or plate-loaded machines to spare the lower back. Barbell rows are great, but they demand core strength and hamstring flexibility—two areas already beat up from jumps, sprints, and other work common for football players prepping for the 225 bench test.
And remember—high-volume rows hammer your lower back recovery way harder than your upper back. Keep them chest-supported, especially before days that tax your lower back—Olympic lifts, strongman events, deadlifts, heavy good mornings, you name it. We’ve seen plenty of smart lifters wreck a big lift because they hammered bent-over rows the day before—NSCA textbook or not. Your upper back can take a licking and keep on ticking, so you can train it really hard.
6.Bonus Section – The Time-Set Dumbbell Press
This one’s a newer trick in Josh’s playbook—something Josh has only been using the last couple years, but it’s been so effective it had to make the cut. Not part of the first draft, but it’s earned its spot.
We’ve already talked high-rep dumbbell work, but time sets add a twist. You’re not counting reps—you’re fighting the clock. Go 30 to 60 seconds, with 45 seconds being the sweet spot since that’s about how long you’ll have to crank out your reps at the combine.
Cade, who you saw in last week’s photo, made huge gains running 45-second time sets. You get all the perks of the dumbbell bench—hypertrophy, stability, shoulder-friendly pressing—without beating yourself into the ground. It’s also a way to keep pressing work fresh instead of doing the same barbell grind every session.
Think of it like a hard, fast chore—you’re loading feed bags, stacking hay, or hauling something heavy until the timer says you’re done. Short, brutal, and effective.
Final Thoughts: You’ve got the tools—now build the engine and let’s add some reps to your total. Nothing beats getting stronger. All the other stuff we covered? That’s like three cans of Coors Light. Getting stronger is Popcorn Sutton’s moonshine.