Kso I know the general idea about finding weakeness in Bench press from where you get stuck durng the rep but heres my problem, I get stuck at two seperate places. Last week, I maxed bench at 165 and even though I got it on the second attempt, I got stuck on the first attempt around 10 inches up. This week I tried to max at 170 but completely failed around 2 inches off the chest. Where do you think is my weakness? Triceps to lockout or Chest and Lats to liftoff? I dnt think its my shoulders considering I can military press around 70% of my bench press standing up.
Your bench press is very weak. You just need to get stronger. Pick any of the great strength programs available and stick with one for a few months. It’s really too early to concerned with specific weak points.
I just got off SS after following it for 6 months and am now on Westside. Since the Westside routine works by targeting weak points, I kinda have to do this.
I gotcha. Unfortunately I’m not familiar enough with Westside to help you out with that one. StormtheBeach is our Westside expert here if you post in his Westside thread I’m sure he’ll be more than able to help you out. The Westside thread is on the first page.
Assuming that is 165lb you have no need to do westide yet… It is hard to program and while can be very effective, you need to know what you are doing. As you bench 165, you don’t know what you are doing unless you are a 100lb female. So, just do something linear and easy to follow for a while.
You can do westside whenever, but if you’re just coming off SS, than chances are you simply don’t know enough about your body, or your training to do it. Westside is a thinking-mans program and it really helps to have someone who knows how to run it properly and assess properly your first go through.
Since you’re not very strong, and you don’t know how to assess, and don’t seem to have access to someone who knows what they’re doing, go hop on another program that is a bit easier to run and LEARN YOUR BODY. Even if you figured out that you have a comparatively weaker chest than your weak triceps, you don’t know what works FOR YOU to fix the issue yet.
Many people will recommend all sorts of stuff because biomechanically it should work, but you may find that various recommendations do not work for you.
As much as I love Westside, I’d run something a bit easier and less thinking required until you learn your body. Go give 5/3/1 a try.
well what you need to do, is go back to starting strength, or similar linear program. i would not recommand 531 for you at this stage, as you’ll simply (imo) WASTE time adding weight monthly. There are plenty of programs that you can do on your level. Westside for skinny bastards for example is good one, it’s similar to what you wanted to do. But REALLY, you are at stage where day to day progress is going to happen, do not waste it.
Hell some of the best gains I made in the beginning was following 10 weeks cycle that had this progression…
Monday
100x10
110x9
120x8
130x7
140x6
150x5
160x4
170x3
180x2
190x1
Friday
Do whatever you can handle for a set 4 add 5 pounds every week.
Doing cycles of this over and over again got my bench to over 300 pounds and than it stopped working lol.
Well, the only reason I stopped linear progressing is I seriously stalled on all three main lifts on SS and I’ve been eating enuf if you are wondering, gained 6 lbs in the last month and half. Also, I originally intend Westside for my squat and deadlift because they are pretty strong for my bodyweight so upper body sorta just came with the routine.
@Ghost16, that progression looks interesting, whats it called or its just something that you’ve stumbled upon before.
[quote]LiquidMercury wrote:
As much as I love Westside, I’d run something a bit easier and less thinking required until you learn your body. [/quote]
x2
You aren’t at a level where you should be worrying about weak points. You just need to keep working hard at the total movement. Remember, progress isn’t linear and sometimes you’ll see some rapid gains while you will plateau at other times.
I haven’t tried 5/3/1 yet, but I definitely recommend trying something along those lines- something proven to be effective, and simple. You should get results from any program like that, but you might have to try a handful of them before you find which one works best for you.
[quote]Macmade wrote:
Well, the only reason I stopped linear progressing is I seriously stalled on all three main lifts on SS and I’ve been eating enuf if you are wondering, gained 6 lbs in the last month and half. Also, I originally intend Westside for my squat and deadlift because they are pretty strong for my bodyweight so upper body sorta just came with the routine.
@Ghost16, that progression looks interesting, whats it called or its just something that you’ve stumbled upon before. [/quote]
Idk if it has a name but I got the Monday’s workout from a powerlifter. I added in the heavy day later in the week though because it doesn’t matter how hard my bench workouts are if I only bench once a week I make NO progress. I absolutely have to bench twice a week no exceptions if I want to make progress. I find that the bench press responds very well to alternating between low rep and high rep workouts. However, this might not be universal for everyone.
As much as I love Westside, I’d run something a bit easier and less thinking required until you learn your body. Go give 5/3/1 a try.
X2 ! for an investment of $20.00 Wendlers 5/3/1 will do you well…just my $0.02 worth.
I would try 5/3/1 gained 1 lbs on my bench and 30 on my Dl after my first cycle
I always agree to sticking with the basics. Something like Bill Starr’s 5X5 which I have been doing is simple and effective. Squatting, Deadlifting, Rowing, Benching…it’s helped my bench greatly. Just my take.
Not advanced by any means, but if you want to do Westside in the future, but not at that level yet, maybe you could do something like DeFranco’s Westside for skinny bastards? it basically takes the thinking out of of Westside for you, but follows a similar template…
Consider this:
From your chest, to halfway is the strength part
From halfway, up, is lockout strength.
Based on where you get stuck, you’ll know what you need to improve.
If it’s strength, you need to work you chest, delts, and triceps harder.
If it’s lockouts, a nice phone book taped to another, or lock out boards will help that.
You don’t have to stop doing westside. You just have to get stronger at everything. As a beginner everything is weak, so just improve on everything and you’ll get stronger.
You maxed at one weight one week and missed at midpoint or lockout. Than you upped the weight the very next week and got stuck just off your chest…? You don’t have two weak points, you just put so much weight on the bar so that you couldn’t even get the bar through your strong point.