I have recently broke into the 400Lb raw bench press. I recently benched 405 with a pause at the bottom for 2 singles. I am hoping for a 435 by July. I compete in the 220 class and was wanting to hear from anyone here at TNation on how long it took them to go from 400 to 500 on the bench. I have been competing for 5 yrs now and started at a 295Lb max. On a side note I am looking for a 600 dead as well.
Great accomplishment. I am currently training 2 young powerlifters who have both gone into the raw 400 range for bench. We are documenting there progress to 500. We call it “the drive to 500”. I got it up on youtube and there is a thread up here on T-Nation that I update every month or so. They are drug free lifters and only interested in hitting it raw. Perhaps it will help motivate.
All the best.
Michael