So I’m trying to get my bench up my current max is 200 with my body weight being 155. Iv been thinking about trying things like pin presses and floor presses to work on my sticking points and I was wondering if I should do them before or after my full rom bench press. Also any other advice on getting my bench up will be appreciated.
I don’t think you really need to worry about all that right now, you don’t have a sticking point in reality its just lack of speed off the chest and technique. Those are good movements but you would benefit most of all from:
Gaining weight/muscle mass
refining bench form
training with higher frequency or volume
What does a week of benching look like for you? Like number of times you bench, reps x sets, what assistance work do you do?
EDIT: to answer your question though, yes you would do movements like that after you complete your bench working sets.
This may not be the answer you’re looking for, but I would just hop on a tried and true basic program. It could be 5/3/1, starting strength or one of its variants, westside for skinny bastards… just something that proven. You’ll learn a lot about programming and why things are programmed and you’ll learn you own body while on a program like one of these and then it will be a lot easier to determine your own programs or tweak others.
[quote]Xxspdxx95 wrote:
my body weight being 155.
Also any other advice on getting my bench up will be appreciated.[/quote]
Work on increasing that 155# and the other thing will prolly take care of itself. Learn what works for you for the bench movement and then ensure your form is spot on.
Right now I can only work chest once a week because I can only work out Monday-Thursday atm.
so I hit it really hard Monday it usually looks something like this
Monday- chest/bis
Bench press 5x2-5
Incline dumbbell press 4x6-12
Chest dips 3-failure
Incline flyes 2x8-15
Flat flyes 2x8-15
Tuesday- legs
Weds- back
Thursday- tris/shoulders
Try volume and frequency. I have been benching 3 times/week and just did really easy 4x4 with 90%.
My numbers are not yet that impressive, but they are going up really good now.
PS. If you would like to raise your bench (and overall strength) skip that split and do something where you hit 2-3 big movements at least twice a week. I would personally do something like this:
mon: squats + ab/low back work
tue: bench + bench variation + upper back
wen OFF
Thu: DL or cleans, bench volume work, squat volume work
I’ll throw out some ideas too. You could do chest/bis/tris/shoulders on Monday and Thursday. That way you can bench 2x a week. Split the volume across both days and add in slightly more since you should be able to handle slightly more volume with increased frequency.
I agree with the weight gain. Unless you’re naturally gifted enough to shoot for records at that body weight, you should add some mass and improve technique. Yesterday I saw a guy on youtube bench 410 at 154 lbs. Ridiculous.
I see no reason not to bench at least twice a week on your schedule. Bench works tris and shoulders so there is absolutely no need for a separate day for those, just do some overhead pressing after you bench if you want and you will be good to go. Also you could do more actual benching and drop all the flys and things like that, what you are doing looks more like a bodybuilding routine. If you are looking for a variation to throw in there you could do bench press with a 2-3 sec. pause, that will definitely help build strength off your chest.
Thanks everyone for the ideas. So I’m gona try something like this
Monday chest/tris/shoulders
Bench press
Incline dumbbell press
Bench press with 3 second pause at chest
Incline flyes
Overhead press
LAteral raise
Close grip bench
Skull crushers
Tuesday back/bis
Weds legs/abs
Thursday chest/tris/shoulders
Bench press with bands
Incline dumbbell press
Floor press
Incline flyes
Shoulder press
Lateral raise
Close grip bench
Skull crushers
First benching day will be heavy weights lower reps and second one will be higher reps lower weight. How does that look?
Also I’m not going for 100% powerlifting I want kind of a mix between powerlifting and bodybuilding so I look good and I’m still stong as fuck haha
Terrible, IMHO.
I don’t think that split is right for you considering your goals and situation.
You don’t need to do tons of isolation work to be strong and look awesome at the same time. It just drains the energy out of you and hinders you process towards these goals.
[quote]Xxspdxx95 wrote:
Thanks everyone for the ideas. So I’m gona try something like this
Monday chest/tris/shoulders
Bench press
Incline dumbbell press
Bench press with 3 second pause at chest
Incline flyes
Overhead press
LAteral raise
Close grip bench
Skull crushers
Tuesday back/bis
Weds legs/abs
Thursday chest/tris/shoulders
Bench press with bands
Incline dumbbell press
Floor press
Incline flyes
Shoulder press
Lateral raise
Close grip bench
Skull crushers
First benching day will be heavy weights lower reps and second one will be higher reps lower weight. How does that look?[/quote]
That looks better but I still reckon there’s too much ‘fluff’ that won’t help your bench. Bench is my weakest lift and the thing that helped me the most was doing lots more plain ol’ benching with some close grip, close grip decline and overhead pressing work and lots and LOTS of rows/pull-ups. The upper and middle back is huge for me in my bench. Might not be for you, but there isn’t much upper/mid back in your training so that could be something for you to think about. The key in terms of benching for me was working on speed, strength and size on three separate days per week. I did that intensively and put 5 kg on my max in three weeks.