Bench Press Form

[quote]replacement wrote:

I"ll post some new videos on Monday after ME day. For the ME lift, should I just do flat bench this time to work on form?

[/quote]

If you have no meet coming up it doesn’t hurt to do a regular bench session to reset your dynamic days every 8-10 weeks or so. If you do have a meet maybe just show your form on DE day where you can get away with a semi heavy 85-90% single after your DE is done.

Watch the So You Think You Can Bench series. It’s pretty much spot on with the good advice you get above, but seeing a video demonstration really helps for most people.

On another note, I think Westside training is great, but one area where it’s not so great is for perfecting form and technique with heavier weights. The dynamic days are great for practicing your form/technique and engraining proper motor patterns, but it requires another level of skill to maintain strong technique as the intensity gets very high. The variations are just that – variations that are a similar but different movement then the bench at the end of the day. I’d personally do a regular bench press on ME day once every 3-4 weeks. At the end of the day the BP is still different from your other variations, so you will still get a lot of the same benefits of rotating nothing but variations but also get the added bonus of training your form/technique at higher weights.

It’s hard to critique form on a 100% lift, or more in your case. Vid 2-3 reps at 80% so guys can see what your form looks like before it breaks down. I get noithing from this vid, other than you struggling under to heavy a load, at least you didn’t lift your ass off the bench. I wouldn’t tyouch 275 again for atleast 8 weeks, your playing with injury, and gaining nothing. Here’s som,e advice from what I can see, spend some time at 230-240 doing 6-10 tripples. Work opn your strength, and form there, possible send vid. Good luck.

Stop tucking your elbows, stop stuffing shit in your shirt, and start eatting !

[quote]Rock978 wrote:
Watch the So You Think You Can Bench series. It’s pretty much spot on with the good advice you get above, but seeing a video demonstration really helps for most people.

On another note, I think Westside training is great, but one area where it’s not so great is for perfecting form and technique with heavier weights. The dynamic days are great for practicing your form/technique and engraining proper motor patterns, but it requires another level of skill to maintain strong technique as the intensity gets very high. The variations are just that – variations that are a similar but different movement then the bench at the end of the day. I’d personally do a regular bench press on ME day once every 3-4 weeks. At the end of the day the BP is still different from your other variations, so you will still get a lot of the same benefits of rotating nothing but variations but also get the added bonus of training your form/technique at higher weights.[/quote]

For someone just starting and lifting raw, it would probably be best to go with 70-80% without any accommodating resistance. Your reps will still be solid and have a lot of snap, but it’s enough load to actually train your form with weight. If you want more true speed work, just do some plyos before that.

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]Rock978 wrote:
Watch the So You Think You Can Bench series. It’s pretty much spot on with the good advice you get above, but seeing a video demonstration really helps for most people.

On another note, I think Westside training is great, but one area where it’s not so great is for perfecting form and technique with heavier weights. The dynamic days are great for practicing your form/technique and engraining proper motor patterns, but it requires another level of skill to maintain strong technique as the intensity gets very high. The variations are just that – variations that are a similar but different movement then the bench at the end of the day. I’d personally do a regular bench press on ME day once every 3-4 weeks. At the end of the day the BP is still different from your other variations, so you will still get a lot of the same benefits of rotating nothing but variations but also get the added bonus of training your form/technique at higher weights.[/quote]

For someone just starting and lifting raw, it would probably be best to go with 70-80% without any accommodating resistance. Your reps will still be solid and have a lot of snap, but it’s enough load to actually train your form with weight. If you want more true speed work, just do some plyos before that. [/quote]

It’s my preferred way of doing it for lifting raw as well, for a change once in a while I might go 60-70% and add about 10% in chains, and I may drop a rep for 80% but keep the same set scheme. Seems to keep work well. I never gain much with accommodating resistance lifting raw. Once in a while I throw in a wide gap between bar weight and resistance (40-50%), but usually on an ME movement and very rarely.

[quote]BacktotheBar wrote:

[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:

[quote]Rock978 wrote:
Watch the So You Think You Can Bench series. It’s pretty much spot on with the good advice you get above, but seeing a video demonstration really helps for most people.

On another note, I think Westside training is great, but one area where it’s not so great is for perfecting form and technique with heavier weights. The dynamic days are great for practicing your form/technique and engraining proper motor patterns, but it requires another level of skill to maintain strong technique as the intensity gets very high. The variations are just that – variations that are a similar but different movement then the bench at the end of the day. I’d personally do a regular bench press on ME day once every 3-4 weeks. At the end of the day the BP is still different from your other variations, so you will still get a lot of the same benefits of rotating nothing but variations but also get the added bonus of training your form/technique at higher weights.[/quote]

For someone just starting and lifting raw, it would probably be best to go with 70-80% without any accommodating resistance. Your reps will still be solid and have a lot of snap, but it’s enough load to actually train your form with weight. If you want more true speed work, just do some plyos before that. [/quote]

It’s my preferred way of doing it for lifting raw as well, for a change once in a while I might go 60-70% and add about 10% in chains, and I may drop a rep for 80% but keep the same set scheme. Seems to keep work well. I never gain much with accommodating resistance lifting raw. Once in a while I throw in a wide gap between bar weight and resistance (40-50%), but usually on an ME movement and very rarely.[/quote]

Bands only served to screw up my bar path. I would also recommend against them.

[quote]replacement wrote:
Appreciate all the feedback. At this point, I am fairly convinced I have been going to extreme on the “tuck your elbows” cue, which has led to:

  1. Bar touching my chest too low.
  2. Hands way outside of my elbows at the bottom. Left Hand-Elbow-Body-Elbow-Hand-Right Hand forms a W.

BacktotheBar, I have been seeing improvements in other ME exercises. The biggest jump has been in close-grip bench. This makes sense though, as very tucked elbows are natural in this lift and the “W” doesn’t really occur since my hands are closer. I haven’t tried just plain old benching in awhile though.

Kgildner, thanks for explaining what I should feel when I “pull the bar apart.” Very different sensation than how I was doing it before, but it definitely helps keep the back tight without over-tucking the elbows.

Molikeye, I really like the “hands up” move for setting the upper back. Much easier to maintain a hard arch in my upper back.

Heavytriple, I agree that I the elbows were too tucked.

I"ll post some new videos on Monday after ME day. For the ME lift, should I just do flat bench this time to work on form?
[/quote]

I personally don’t think there should ever be a time you aren’t doing your normal grip with moderately heavy weights. It’s a skill, so I don’t see the value in doing other movements that aren’t actually improving your skill in the bench.

I can tell ya this.

  1. Perfecting a tight…very tight setup that you use every single set is where it starts. Pinching your shoulder blades together and get as tight w. Your arch as possible along with locking your legs in tightly for the most leg drive.

  2. Time spent using this setup will build a groove. An exact path the bar follows up and down eaCh and every rep. Just keep progressively working these two. You’ll eventually notice on rep out or max sets when you start to fall out of this groove while struggling. These sets make you recognize that a. Youve built a groove and now can feel the difference. B. Depending where you struggle and how ,can now start to work on that particular weakness.

  3. Now your more ready to move on to some pause benches, speedwork, closegrip benches ect…too many people try doing all these too early on instead of building a perfect setup and groove 1st.

Alright gentlemen. Here’s 225x3. Apologies for the snail’s pace setup, but it’s still an epic journey trying to end up with something approximating correct.

Main focus was on pulling the bar apart and not tucking my elbows so much.

For what it’s worth, I put up 265 full ROM (didn’t get 275 benching to a 3" pad last week in the video up top).

And I plan on doing 8 sets at 185 for DE day instead of the usual 150.

Do your worst…

decent form, now spend the next couple months getting that 225 up to 10 solid reps. Forget singles, and such, and build a base. Goodluck

Looks pretty solid, but the angle is hard to see certain things. Think you should see some better results upping you DE day percentage too. I would also stay away from doing any board press type movements, stick to more full ROM ME movements if you are lifting raw (close grip, reverse grip, 3-5 second pauses, inclines, can even just use varying grip widths somewhere in between your close and normal grip.) If your gym has a football bar that could work too.

Are you going to a 1RM every week? There should be phases were for a few weeks you are only working up to a 3-5 RM (accumulation,) then after that working up to a 1 RM (intensification.)

Yes, I have been going to 1 RM every week. This seemed like the standard Westside protocol, so I didn?t want to really tinker with it. Here was my workout yesterday:

45 x 3
95 x 3
135 x3
160x 3
185 x 3
205 x 3
225 x 3
235 x 1
250 x 1
265 x 1

I would guess 235 or 240 is my 3 RM.

I agree that upping my weight on DE days will be very helpful. For a beginner, it seems almost impossible to keep perfect form with such a big focus is on speed? These reps feel pretty loose to me still. I think the heavier weight will give me more practice on my technique.

As far as camera angle, what would be more helpful? A little higher?

[quote]replacement wrote:
Yes, I have been going to 1 RM every week. This seemed like the standard Westside protocol, so I didn?t want to really tinker with it. Here was my workout yesterday:

45 x 3
95 x 3
135 x3
160x 3
185 x 3
205 x 3
225 x 3
235 x 1
250 x 1
265 x 1

I would guess 235 or 240 is my 3 RM.

I agree that upping my weight on DE days will be very helpful. For a beginner, it seems almost impossible to keep perfect form with such a big focus is on speed? These reps feel pretty loose to me still. I think the heavier weight will give me more practice on my technique.

As far as camera angle, what would be more helpful? A little higher?
[/quote]

From the side would be better.

Common misconception about 1 RMing every week.

Read this:

http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding_strength/the_westside_method_thread

I get that there is nothing set in stone for westside conjugate training and it all needs to be adjusted to fit the lifter, his weaknesses etc., but Louie says repeatedly that his guys work up to a true max each and every week of the year.

I know that STB and others in that thread have far more knowledge than me, but this whole idea of hitting heavy triples or multiple singles in the 90-95% range for a 3-4 week wave every couple months seems to stand in contrast to what Louie has said in numerous books, articles, videos etc.

And personally, I saw better results just working up to a true 1RM week after week then I did when I broke it down to accumulation, intensification and transformation blocks. Granted for assistance work, dynamic efforts and other stuff I’ve found it helpful to have some blocks where I focus on hypertrophy and lactic tolerance and others where I focus on higher intensity assistance work or maybe strength-speed, but for the ME I’ve always had better results working up to a 1RM each week.

Further to the above, some direct quotes from Louie are copied below. There are countless other examples, but I don’t feel like digging up all of them.

From BP Manual, p. 38:

“Periodization for Max Effort Day. We don?t use periodization for a contest or at any other time of the year. We plan what we?re going to do at a breakfast one hour before training.”

From Squat and DL Manual, p. 27-32:

"At Westside, we max out every Monday and Wednesday. We squat and deadlift on Mondays, and we bench on Wednesdays. Like the Bulgarians, we max out regardless of our training ability.

. . .

"Our system is limited to total max singles regardless of what our level of preparedness is during the training year . . . The first lift is at around 90 percent and gives the lifter an estimate of how strong he is on that training day. The second lift should be at or near 100 percent (or slightly above). The third lift is for a new personal best and should be as much as the lifter can possibly get on that day.

. . .

"I believe our success comes from maxing out on maximum effort day even if we don?t have a meet scheduled. We do this all year long.

. . .

“You must train at the highest average of a one rep max as often as possible. I realize this is impossible for most lifters in every workout, which is why we use the dynamic effort method [the other two main sessions of the week].”

That being said, the westside method thread (both parts I and II) are treasure chests of information for anyone interested in conjugate training. Well worth the few hours it takes to read through them if you haven’t already.

Can’t say I disagree I used to 1 RM every ME day and made gains all the time while doing so. But if you search through everything online, Louie does speak of accumulation blocks albeit very vaguely. Not sure if he does them with the assistance work of if he advocates a 3 RM (i personally prefer a 3 RM to a 5RM.) If you are a less experienced than most of those at Westside looking to pack on some muscle mass as well as strength accumulation blocks certainly don’t hurt. Good points though Rock.

Just want to add a link, don’t see my previous post up.

http://www.westside-barbell.com/index.php/the-westside-barbell-university/articles-by-louie-simmons/articles-published-in-2010/415-programming-and-organization-of-training

[quote]BacktotheBar wrote:
Just want to add a link, don’t see my previous post up.

http://www.westside-barbell.com/index.php/the-westside-barbell-university/articles-by-louie-simmons/articles-published-in-2010/415-programming-and-organization-of-training[/quote]

For some inexplicable reason this site has a policy of taking down all external links.

Thanks for the link (others can google “Louie Simmons organization of training” if the link is taken down). Vaguely recall reading it awhile back and it definitely helps explain where the concept of accumulation blocks etc. comes from. I don’t see him saying anything about hitting a 3RM or heavy singles instead of a true 1RM on ME day during the accumulation block, but given STB and other very experienced lifters in that thread endorse this approach I’m 100% on board. Plus, as you mention, the singles around 95% or the 3RM may provide a better chance to really dial in that technique when working with heavier weights.

Apologies for the diversion.

[quote]Rock978 wrote:

[quote]BacktotheBar wrote:
Just want to add a link, don’t see my previous post up.

http://www.westside-barbell.com/index.php/the-westside-barbell-university/articles-by-louie-simmons/articles-published-in-2010/415-programming-and-organization-of-training[/quote]

For some inexplicable reason this site has a policy of taking down all external links.

Thanks for the link (others can google “Louie Simmons organization of training” if the link is taken down). Vaguely recall reading it awhile back and it definitely helps explain where the concept of accumulation blocks etc. comes from. I don’t see him saying anything about hitting a 3RM or heavy singles instead of a true 1RM on ME day during the accumulation block, but given STB and other very experienced lifters in that thread endorse this approach I’m 100% on board. Plus, as you mention, the singles around 95% or the 3RM may provide a better chance to really dial in that technique when working with heavier weights.

Apologies for the diversion.[/quote]

Didn’t realize outside links were a no no, oops.

No real diversion, trust me I read his articles over and over and over and thought he meant to 1 RM every week. Who knows? They may do that there, and increase their volume in other ways.

The main point of it is you need phases where you have increased volume and working up to a 3-5 RM is a way of doing so. When I go for a 3 RM, I almost treat it like I am going for a 1 RM in the sense that once I hit a certain percentage (say 75-80% of my 1 RM) I start making smaller weight jumps and try to get in at least 5 good tougher 3 rep sets and a PR in 3 rep, just as you would do for a 1 RM. This is the GPP (increase you work capacity and build muscle) phase.

Now once we hit Intensification we start going for more singles and lower the volume seeing as that is our goal as powerlifters, to hit a 1 RM. It is sport specific (SPP) to powerlifters (but other athletes would focus on other sport specific activities for their particular sport.)