Horrible bench

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
21

My current lifting partner’s bench sucked wheh he first started training with me. He could barely do 225 for 5 reps. He is rather small, 5’7" 165lbs, but i knew he could do better. Not to mention he was very knowledgeable. I started having him do 3 sets of 10, at the same weight, with me.

  1. warm up - minimum 2 sets
    - set of 135x10
    - 155x6
  2. main focus - 3x10 at 185.

Hopefully you will have trouble doing 3 sets of 10, but that is the point. Once you can handle 3x10 @ 185 then go to 205 for 3x10 and warmups at 135 and 165. You might regress at first but you will ultimately improve.

  1. perform this routine for 3 weeks, flat barbell then incline dumbbells
  2. next two weeks go heavy.
    • 6 reps/set (135, 155, 185, 205, 225, etc). go till you can no longer do 6 reps.
  3. next three weeks-
    -start with incline barbell
    -then decline barbell
    -no FLAT bench.
  4. repeat cycle several more times.
  5. I am a big boy, 5’11" 2 250lbs…i started with sets of 315 (3x10), but could not get it. It took me several months, maybe 4, to achieve my goals. No a year later i can do 315 for 3x15 and rest pause 405. Hopefully along with this and all the input from the T-nation will help out.
    Good luck with all your training.
    corey
22

If you bounce the bar off your chest and thrust your butt way up in the air, then you will be able to bench more.

23

McVicker, do any pre-fab routines come to mind that fit that sort of criteria?

24

I wouldnt touch anything pre-fabbed from a book. They are primarily designed for extreme athletes, not for the common person. Learn as much as possible and ask questions to the bigger guys in the gym, most didnt get big overnight. The vast majority of these guys have learned from others and are willing to offer you assistance.

25

Reasonable goals for BP,Squat,Deadlift could be:
Bench Press 300 lbs
Squat 400 lbs
Deadlift 500 lbs
Therefore you have a similar performance in these 3 lifts. For these lifts you should use a proper training cycle of 3 months beginning each cycle with approximately 80-85% weight of your best performance, adding small weights at each workout. The idea is to finish each cycle with a bit more weight in each lift. An alternative to barbell bench press are certainly dbs. Try CT’s “Violent variations”. Another good alternative is V-dips, with the body inclined using a full range of movement.

26

Infinity
Looking at that, I would say you definitely need more volume and to be lifting at a higher intensity.
Do more triples and 3-5 single reps.
When you say you missed 165 do you mean for a single?

If the 155 is hard at a triple then maybe only do that as a single and then move up 5 pounds and do another single. Then try 165 for a single. You should do at least three singles over 90% of your RM.

When you do triples only do it up until where it starts to become hard, you aren’t going for a 3RM.

Double your volume so you are doing nearer 30 total reps. The more total weight you lift the faster your strength gains.

Start off lighter. Don’t be afraid to lift small loads for your 5RM e.g. 90lbs then do 110lbs. You are trying to work up to 1RM not max out your 5RM.

27

I think the most common misstake people do is to go to failure when they want to gain strength!

Use heavy weights for something like 4x4 og 4x4,3,2,1, but never to failure! My favourite is to do one heavy and one explosive workout/week. Use 50-60% load for only 2-3reps in 4-6setts on the explosive day! Do incline barbell/dumbell and explosive dips as well. Close grip benchpress (8inch between thumbs) is another great exersise.

/chiroman/

28

try CT’s pendulum training for powerlifiters… just started that yesterday… it hurt to sit in school today… arghhh my booty

29

Blam,

Look at the way Chad Waterbury puts together a program, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about. Thing is, if you cut the volume down more on a daily basis, you can train more often. In ABBH, that means about 2x a week. (Site’s down right now, I can’t search.) If you drop the volume even a little lower, you can go more often.

Listen, I know that a lot of people think that you need “complete muscular recovery” or whatever between workouts, but that’s horsecrap. If you bench heavy, often, with a little volume, your bench press will go up. Repeated successful efforts will make you succeed, which is why it’s so important to stay away from the to-failure methods.

The trick is, you don’t reduce your overall volume. You spread it out. So instead of doing 3x10x100 (sets x reps x weight or 3000 pounds worth of work) on Monday, and then letting yourself off the hook for six days, you do, say, a little of that by doing 3x3x150 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday–NOT GOING TO FAILURE–and your volume creeps up by about a thousand total pounds.

Please note that this will do little to-nothing for the appearance of your physique. If you want to balance the two extremes, try Chad’s ABBH.

Listen, here’s a neat experiment you can try if you want to boost your bench press a little bit. Set up a bench in your kitchen with 85% or so of your 1RM. Then every time you come in to eat (I know you’re eating at least 6x a day, right?) you bench it once. After a little while, you’ll get strong enough to double and triple it every time. Then you add a little weight. Keep that up for a while, and in a few weeks, test your max.

Trust me when I say that the weight will go up. Your muscles may or may not get bigger, but you will get stronger. This is something Dr. Judd Biasiotto did… and he benched 319# at a little more than a buck and a quarter!

Getting stronger, at least at the basic levels, has a lot to do with neuromuscular efficiency, which has a lot to do with training volume, frequency, and weight.

High, high, and high, while staying as fresh as you can (don’t burn out–you want to WANT to train).

Again, read Chad’s articles. It’s not all obvious, but it’s there. Joel Marion’s RRD talks a lot about training frequency, too.

It’s really simple, ultimately. Practice often, heavy, and not to failure.

That’s it.

Dan “Not a bench guru” McVicker

30

Thanks Dan and everyone else. I got a power rack and bench setup in my basement last night, so I can work some of these techniques into my usual gym routine. I did 155x1 yesterday. Today I did 3x3x135. Felt good. Eating alot, getting my protein, chest is burning, good stuff. I’m going to continue with this for a couple weeks, benching 3x a week, I hopefully can get my 1RM up to 180 reasonably quickly. We’ll see.

31

Dan Mc Vicker says:
Keep weight at or above 80% of your 1RM. (Keep the big wheels on, at the least.) Progressively add weight to the bar–when you hit a new peak, cycle back to 80% of your new max.
Get your Squat and Dead up too.
Your Squat,Dead and Bench are balanced.
Use Dan’s periodization for 3 months cycles. After each cycle take a week off. Get your Squat,Dead and Bench up.
Monday: Squat,Wednesday: Bench, Friday: Dead
Perform also Military presses, Pullups, Chins, Rows, Dips + some calves, abs and grip work.
Try to gain at least 25 lbs body mass.