has anyone tried/heard of the Blast Your Bench program by Lee Hayward? It is a bench press specialization program for 3 weeks.
if i am reading it correctly, Lee wants you to bench 5 days in a row every week for 3 weeks? wtf? is this even possible to do without severe overtraining?
the only reason why i am even considering the program is because mega n3wb is a big fan of it and has used it before with success. i would ask him for advice but he hasn’t been on for like 2 months…
can someone please give me their experience on this program, or at least attest to its efficacy? i just cant wrap my head around benching 5 days in a row…for 3 weeks…
I used it once and found that it was effective. I personally believe that if your going to pay for a bench specialization program then critical bench is a much better way to go.
I used it once, and i got a few of my friends to try it. We all made decent gains on it. You hammer bench a fair bit in 3 weeks, about 5 sets a day every day. It definitely wasn’t the worst program i’ve ever bought of the net
I haven’t tried it again recently, and i don’t know if i ever will. I have a strong suspicion that as you get more advanced it would lose some of its impact.
If you didn’t want to buy the program you could try something like smolov or smolov jr for bench, which i have never tried but i assume would work just as well.
[quote]MAS50 wrote:
I used it once and found that it was effective. I personally believe that if your going to pay for a bench specialization program then critical bench is a much better way to go.[/quote]
Can’t speak to Blast Your Bench, but I gained next to nothing on Critical Bench.
mas50 i am also interested in hearing where you started
please give me any advice on how to make the most of the critical bench program. i am going to start it in 4-5 weeks with around a 200 lb bench and hoping to end anywhere from 225 to 250.
also i am going to start taking creatine and Spike. do you think Power Drive would help too and should i only take Spike and Power Drive before chest days like he says, or maybe Spike+Power Drive before chest days and Power Drive the other days
OP, you have the right to set your own goals, but at 200lbs of bench press, you may just need a simple strength routine for overall gains: your best choice would be to stick with a beginner, strength-oriented program (WFSB, Madcow beginner/intermediate version, Rippetoe’s advanced novice…).
Is really your bench lagging behind other lifts? What do you squat/deadlift?
I started the program with a 300 pound bench press and ended around 365. I continued using the principles of the program to get to 385. That was over a year ago. My high school lost it’s weight room in Hurricane Gustav in August 08 so I couldn’t train until after my senior year of football ended but since then have reached a 435 max. It’s a good program to break some barriers but learning to train yourself is the best thing you can do. I’m sorry I just saw this thread again. I don’t use forums very often.
Threads come and go, hard to keep up but that is some mean bench press for anyone let alone for high school. From my POV that means the program works great. I think I remember that hurricane. We had this really rainy week up here. It was a total drag and pissed me off. I mean-Damn weather! I hate it when it drizzles
I tried blasting my bench and what it got me was overtrained. I do think it is a good program, maybe just spread the days out a bit. I was also probably too weak and inexperienced when i did it. One awesome thing is I e-mailed Lee Hayward and he promptly responded and tried to help me with my problems and it showed he cared. i appreciated that.
