[quote]hydroxide wrote:
Incline bench press: 1RM: 187lbs (85kg), 3RM 176lbs (80kg)
[/quote]
How do you put 176 lbs and 187 lbs on the bar? Do you have 1 lb plates? So when you bench 176 you have 1 extra pound on one side? Please enlighten me.
His plates are kilograms, not pounds. He was converting to pounds to help us understand.
One of us didn’t.
[quote]futurepharm wrote:
His plates are kilograms, not pounds. He was converting to pounds to help us understand.
One of us didn’t.[/quote]
Burn!
haha ok kelso from that 70’s show
[quote]blade2287 wrote:
What does your split look like, and what does your workout look like? Meaning what are you doing for each day and how long are you working out for. Your probably doing too much. [/quote]
Thanks for all the info everyone.
Each session generally lasts an hour. The split is as follows (pretty much 5x5, and not in any particular order).
Chest
Flat bench
Incline bench
DB Flys
DB Press
Abs
Shoulders
Military press
Arnold press
Lateral raises
Upright rows
Legs
Back squats
Front squats
DB Lunges
GHRs
Good mornings
Back
Deadlifts
Bent over rows
Incline chest supported rows
Pullups
Arms
Dips
Curls
Chinups
Skullcrushers
Abs
Get a spotter and try to progress on either reps or weight each time. Even if your not getting the last rep all by yourself your still pushing yourself that much more harder. If that fails i would focus more on shoulders and overhead pressing, or switch to dumbells for a while for something different. You might just need a few days off from training.
have heavy negatives been mentioned?
if so…pretend this post never happened
What is your goal? Strength or a bigger upper chest? The answer would be different for which ever your goal. If your goal is a bigger upper chest, I’d pre-fatigue your upper chest with an incline cable fly to put the emphasis on the chest muscles. Your weight might go down at first but as you got bigger you would get stronger. In fact, you could do two sets of drop sets with incline cable flys really focusing on the chest squeezing both in and pushing up at the top.
You would then work up to a heavy set of incline bench presses (trying to squeeze the bar together, I have to use a medium grip for this) and after some rest finish off with another drop set of incline cable fly’s. This would ensure a serious blasting of the upper chest. Your focus would be on the feel of the movement in the upper chest, not on the weight used. The weights will come get the mind muscle connection first.
You would also try to flare the elbows as much as possible while keeping the stress on the shoulders to a minimum. The fine line here is difficult to find for some.
If you goal is strength then you might work on a lot of over head pressing.
Gaining weight will help a lot with both, I’m sure you know that right?
Also, varying your set and rep schemes is a good place to kick start stagnation. I personally am not a big fan of straight sets with 5x5. I like to work up to 1 or 2 heavy sets in my desired rep range. I think different muscles respond better to different rep ranges, but all muscles (in my case) need to be shocked with a new rep range from time to time.
I am 6ft 3in and have been up to 250lbs at one time. My focus was fully on strength, but after many injuries I’m simply in this to get bigger and am starting at 215 this time. I am finally injury free enough to start adding size again.
The injuries had little to do with my lifting and more to do with sports injuries and a car wreck.
I started this game much much smaller and lankier.
You could try isometrics. You know…pushing the bar against pins as hard as possible for a set amount of time. Don’t have any experience myself but I’m pretty sure Poliquin is a fan of this for breaking sticking point.
[quote]hydroxide wrote:
blade2287 wrote:
What does your split look like, and what does your workout look like? Meaning what are you doing for each day and how long are you working out for. Your probably doing too much.
Thanks for all the info everyone.
Each session generally lasts an hour. The split is as follows (pretty much 5x5, and not in any particular order).
Chest
Flat bench
Incline bench
DB Flys
DB Press
Abs
Shoulders
Military press
Arnold press
Lateral raises
Upright rows
Legs
Back squats
Front squats
DB Lunges
GHRs
Good mornings
Back
Deadlifts
Bent over rows
Incline chest supported rows
Pullups
Arms
Dips
Curls
Chinups
Skullcrushers
Abs[/quote]
You are doing too much. You are doing upper body 4 days a week; even though you might not think so, you are using muscles that you use while bench pressing on each of those days.
You are probably consistently making progress on your squat and wondering why you can’t do the same for your bench; it is because your are giving your self a week to recover for legs.
Combine your workouts so your in the gym fewer times per week. Unless you are taking drugs your body can not recover enough to make optimal progression if your in the gym more than 4 times a week. If you work opposites you can still be in the gym for less than an our at a time by doing super-sets.
Do not do more than 9 sets a week for a major muscle groups (try to keep it around 7 or 8) (includes Chest, Back, Legs). Do not do more than 5 sets per week for secondary muscles (Deltoids, triceps, biceps) (try to only do 4).
Suggested splits
Spit 1
day 1 chest/back
day 2 off
day 3 legs (hams/quads/calves)
day 4 deltoids/arms
day 5 off
day 6 off
day 7 chest/back (off if needed)
Split 2
Day 1 Lower body
Day 2 off
Day 3 upper body
Day 4 off
Day 5 lower body
Day 6 upper body
Day 7 off
- If you need examples of actual workouts let me know