First a little information about me, I have been training for almost a year following a 5x5 brooks kubik style program which has me doing flat bench once a week and close grip bench on a separate session which translates to twice a week benching if you include the close grip bench.
My main goal is to increase my strength in the big 3 as I’m interested in powerlifting so far at a body weight of around 64kg/140lbs I have managed a 2 x bodyweight squat 130kg/286lbs, a 2.5 x bodyweight deadlift 160kg/352lbs and a 1.2 x bodyweight bench 75kg/165lbs.
Due to other commitments I can only train a maximum of 3 times a week which suits me as at 47 years old I’m no spring chicken and work full time.
Any how I would like to hear how many times its best to train for maximum strength on the bench without the aid of a bench shirt ?
If more than once do you do recommend different styles of benching at each workout or different rep ranges ?
Do you think it best to train triceps on the same day as bench or separately ?
I train bench twice a week one heavy and focus on Tricep overload something like Bench up to a heavy 3 x 5 or something then throw on a Sling Shot and work up to a Max Triple then finish off with some high rep press down work.
Then one lighter for Tricep conditioning using a close grip for sets of 5-10 and then 2-3 tricep movements ranging from 6-15 reps. Pretty vague bit in nut shell if you want more detail I can lay it out and or you can look at my log.
Thanks for the reply Reed I would definitely like to hear more about how you train for bench as you know your stuff when it comes to power lifting.
From what I can workout you pretty much have one session devoted to heavy regular grip bench work and the second session you do is close grip based which I think is pretty much how mine is done.
At the moment I just do a couple of warm up sets and then 3x5 working sets for both flat bench and close grip bench which are done at different sessions, what I’ve done so far is start with a moderate weight and add 1kg/2.2lbs to the bar at each session. Eventually once my reps drop down to around 3x3 I then go for a 1 rep max to see where I’m at then lower the weight and start over but I’m not sure if this is the best way to train for the power lifts or not.
Ps I just had a brief look at your training log, when you do speed bench do you do those touch and go style with speed through out the entire movement or do you pause at the bottom and explode up as fast as you can /