Banish the Bench: Bill Starr’s No-Bench Upper Body Program

This page is an edited presentation of Bill Starr’s “Banish the Bench” program. It is not newly written material by Bill Starr.

First, the misunderstanding: Starr was never against the bench press — he included it in his athletes’ routines throughout his career. “Banish the Bench” was written for everyone else: lifters whose shoulders ache when they flat bench, who keep aggravating an old injury, or who simply want out of the flat-bench rut without losing their upper body. If you simply lack a bench, see our floor press guide for a direct substitute you can do on the ground.

The program replaces the flat bench with three primary lifts — incline bench presses, dips, and overhead lifting (military presses, push presses, or jerks) — plus a handful of auxiliary movements. It maps directly onto his heavy-light-medium week.

Start Low If You’re Hurt

Because most people arrive at this program through injury, Starr’s first instruction was caution: begin with dumbbell military presses and dumbbell inclines. If those feel fine, move to the bar. Do dips freehand — no weight at all. And if inclines still bother a shoulder, try a slightly different bench angle; quite often one position is pain-free while another is not. Anyone returning from a real injury should also read our summary of his rotator-cuff routine before loading up.

The Incline: Your New Primary Press

Starr called the incline his favorite upper-body exercise because it is a pure movement — nearly impossible to cheat, which keeps shoulders and elbows safe and forces better form than most lifters have ever used. He reminded readers that in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the top strength athletes treated the incline as their PRIMARY upper-body lift: shot putters and hammer throwers like Parry O’Brien, Dallas Long, Randy Matson, Al Oerter, and Harold Connolly handled well over 400 pounds on it, and Ken Patera used it to build an Olympic press that reached an American-record 507 pounds.

Treat the incline as your main press: ramped sets working toward honest top fives, cycled through heavier and lighter sessions just like any primary lift in the heavy-light-medium structure.

Dips: The Pure Strength Builder

Dips are the second pure movement — no cheating possible there either. Olympic lifters used them for pressing and jerking strength; bodybuilders used them for cannonball delts. You will need a dip belt and a plate-loading stand once the weights get serious (the dumbbell-between-the-knees trick works only up to about 100 pounds).

The entry ladder comes straight from Starr:

• Freehand first: four sets of maximum repetitions. When your four sets total around 200 reps, you are ready for weight.
• Add 25 pounds. When you can get eight clean reps with it, move up again.
• Always one set of 20 freehand dips as a warm-up before strapping on the belt.
• Mount smart: pull a bench up beside the bars, hang the weight between your knees (or lock it behind them), step off the bench into position — and step back onto it when the set ends instead of dropping to the floor.
• First rep is sacred: perfect form on rep one and the rest follow; wiggle on rep one and abandon the set.

Session	Main work	Back-off set
A	4 × 8	—
B	5 × 5	One high-rep set (~50 lb under top set)
C	3 × 5, then 2–3 × 3	One high-rep back-off set
D	3 × 5, then singles to limit	One high-rep back-off set

Rotate A through D across your dip sessions. The back-off set has no prescribed number — do as many reps as possible with roughly fifty pounds less than your final work set. Those back-offs build the workload and polish form under fatigue.

Overhead Work: The Third Pillar

If overhead lifting is new to you, start with the strict military press — our press guide covers his exact technique — then graduate to push presses and jerks if you enjoy them (see also his quick-lifts page). Rotate your sets and reps here the same way as the inclines and dips, minus the eights: fives, triples, doubles, and singles. On push presses and jerks, use fives for warm-ups only and stay at three reps or fewer once the bar is heavy.

The Weekly Layout

Day	Lift	HLM role
Heavy day	Incline bench press	Most absolute weight
Light day	Weighted dips	Least systemic stress — but light does NOT mean easy
Medium day	Overhead work	In between

Each exercise gets its own day, once per week — the classic heavy-light-medium principle applied by exercise rather than percentage — the same system that powers Starr’s original Big Three 5×5. Push the numbers up on every dip and every overhead session.

Auxiliaries

To round out the upper body, Starr added straight-arm pullovers, dumbbell inclines, lateral raises, and front raises in modest doses — the sculpting layer on top of the three primary lifts. For general dumbbell-only sessions built in the same spirit, see our fool-proof dumbbell training page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I really build a big upper body without flat benching?

That is the entire premise of the program: inclines, weighted dips, and overhead pressing hit the same pressing muscles from angles many lifters tolerate better, with cleaner mechanics per rep.

I have a shoulder injury. Is this safe for me?

The program was designed for exactly that situation — which is why it begins with dumbbells, freehand dips, and angle adjustments, and why the medical caveat stands: clear significant injuries with a professional first, then follow the cautious entry ladder above.

How long until weighted dips?

Whenever your freehand work totals roughly 200 reps across four sets. For most lifters that arrives within a few dedicated weeks.

Sources

Primary: Bill Starr, “Banish the Bench” (archived full text at billstarrarticles.wordpress.com); originally published in Iron Man (February 2009 issue listing: “Your aching shoulders tell you to banish bench presses for a while…”). Related Starr material: “The Quest for a Stronger Overhead Press” (Starting Strength).

Last updated: August 2026 · Edited presentation of Bill Starr’s published methodology — not newly written by Bill Starr.