i've been liftin with my lil bro for about 3 weeks now he's 17, about 180 and all natural...he's a pretty strong kid; squats about 335 power cleans about 185 but his weakpoint is bench, the kid looks like he can bench a ton, huge chest and broad shoulders but his bench flat out sucks...i've been trying to help him out with everything i know for getting a stronger bench (form, grip, and liftin heavy) but its just not working out for him, we were at the gym the other day and he could only rep 185* 5 ...he says its hard as shit cuz he has long arms, any bros know any tips that can help him out or know any routines that for sure increases bench?

i have the same issues, i can bench 140kg but squat 200kg and deadlift 230kg, i have long limbs, im 6ft4 not ideal for bodybuilding.....but reasonably strong i suppose...

he may benefit from switching to dumbells for a bit and benching floor press/close grip on the barbell to work on the weaker points, remember if you are powerlifting then look at your techinqiue and form when you bench, i find weighted push ups help my bench along, and not so harsh on the shoulders.....benching is a great feat of strength however i would say the squat is a much better test of strength....

I also have long arms and used to ahve trouble getting my bench up. Thsi may sound a litle weird btu it works for me.....

Try going up in weight and only doing 1/2 reps (go down only 1/2-2/3 of the way.)

After doing this I got more comfortable with the weight and was able to do full reps at a higher weight (not as much as the half reps but still made gains continuously)

Now I can bench 325lbs. which is getting better.

BUMP...working on the x-rep part of the contraction helps, builds up weak points, just like box squats might......

hmnnn, all great tips guys..i had him hittin dumb bells for about 2 wks but no improvement..gunna have him continue using dumbbells and try him with the 1/2 reps to see if theres any change..thanks ppls

also 6'4", dumbells did wonders for me, I read an article where you bench only 60% for 15 reps then immediately slide your body off the bench with the exception of your shoulders, then using some ligtweight dumbells go to failure all the while concentrating on squeezing the shoulder blades together. I come to find that I was a ( Front Delt Pusher ) benching only 165 x 5. Currently at 240 x 5.

This helped me.
High reps, low weights,stayed away from heavy weights for a quite a while. 2 mins of maybe 40kg non stop as fast as possible on flat bench. I got my 60kg upto 30 times as fast as I can. I pushed a heavier 1 rep max by 10kg after working this way for awhile. I went heavier but stayed well clear of my 1 rep max(75%). This was also done naturally.