Muscle Media's Benchpress Routine

Anyone ever had success with this? Looks like a lot of volume to me:

www.timinvermont.com/fitness/benchpgm.htm
www.timinvermont.com/fitness/progrtbl.htm

Yep. About 10yrs ago. Went from ~295 to 365. Most of this was probably because I had been lifting almost entirely in the 8 to 12 rep range for my entire lifting career.

I do remember that my shoulders really took a beating. Maybe because my weighted dips got real heavy. Maybe just because my shoulders were, and still are, shit. If you have bad shoulders, I would change a few things.

[quote]dhickey wrote:
Yep. About 10yrs ago. Went from ~295 to 365. Most of this was probably because I had been lifting almost entirely in the 8 to 12 rep range for my entire lifting career. I do remember that my shoulders really took a beating. Maybe because my weighted dips got real heavy. Maybe just because my shoulders were, and still are, shit. If you have bad shoulders, I would change a few things.[/quote]

Jesus… that’s some increase. Which link did you use, first or second??

I havne’t actually looked at them, so they could both be the exact same!

[quote]Hanley wrote:
Jesus… that’s some increase. Which link did you use, first or second??

I havne’t actually looked at them, so they could both be the exact same![/quote]

One is just the progression chart. It’s been awhile but I seem to remember having to bump up max on the test days for at least the first few. The first part of it was pretty easy and I believe this was from working with some heavy weight and low reps for the first time in my lifting career.

I also wasn’t doing much for back except some lat PDs before this so that probably helped as well.

Someone that is already working with a decent program probably won’t see the same gains. I had been working with very high volumn and lower weights for 6 or 7 years prior to that. This was the first reasonable program I had worked with and first time I had ever written down weights and reps.

I think I was at 230lbs at the time at a 5’10". This was at the end. Not sure how much weight I gained.

I used the program at least 10 years ago. I got some really decent gains out of it back then. I think I went from a 275 to a 335 touch and go (maybe bounce and heave back then).

I tried it again recently, and got maybe 5-10lbs out of it.

I would agree with dhickey, if you’ve been lifting high rep, you might see some decent gains out of it. If you’ve already been training heavy weight/low rep, the gains would be more modest. Also the less advanced you are, the better your gains will likely be. The higher your bench, the more unrealistic the predicted max becomes.

bump on this

Seems like an interesting progression.

I decided to try it and post a log, which someone moved from this forum to another one:
http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/blog_sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding_log/my_muscle_media_bench_press_log?pageNo=0#2513322

It is an interesting progression, but I think the real value comes from the term progression.

If you are a beginner to intermediate, and not used to working in the low rep range, or if you are used to going into the gym and hitting the same weights and reps on a weekly basis, then I think you can get a lot out of the program, simply from it’s structured approach.

If you’ve been training heavy already, and have a good deal of experience, then the projected max is quite unrealistic.

The nice thing about the program is that is has a built in testing day, where if you are progressing too fast, you will bump up your max, and if you aren’t progressing as fast as expected, you decrease your max, so you don’t end up missing lifts.

I recall that last time everything went well up until the last couple of weeks, and then the numbers all became a little optimisitic.

[quote]Modi wrote:
It is an interesting progression, but I think the real value comes from the term progression.

If you are a beginner to intermediate, and not used to working in the low rep range, or if you are used to going into the gym and hitting the same weights and reps on a weekly basis, then I think you can get a lot out of the program, simply from it’s structured approach.

If you’ve been training heavy already, and have a good deal of experience, then the projected max is quite unrealistic.

The nice thing about the program is that is has a built in testing day, where if you are progressing too fast, you will bump up your max, and if you aren’t progressing as fast as expected, you decrease your max, so you don’t end up missing lifts.

I recall that last time everything went well up until the last couple of weeks, and then the numbers all became a little optimisitic.[/quote]

So far I already had problems with the set/rep scheme. I couldn’t do one rep of the last scheduled set as I posted in my training log I decided to knock 5 pounds off of my max and stick with it. Oh yes, and while I am used to low reps, I am not used to that sort of volume, so I am very sore today.

Right now I’m looking for a simple progression to get me back to where I was over the summer before spraining my thumb and start building up again- couldn’t use my left hand for 4 weeks basically and went from 235 to 205.

I’m way too tempted by “special” programs rather than trusting my own programming abilities… I’ll probably end up running it.

Did it about 9 or 10 years ago. I think I got about 40 lbs out of it.

[quote]IronAbrams wrote:
bump on this

Seems like an interesting progression.[/quote]

It’s not a bad progression. The part I like for beginners is that it’s very detialed and there are test days to adjust the progression. Here is a link to the details of the entire program

I would personally change most of the acessory work.

seated DB Clean > Side Raises
Tate Press or Westside style DB Ext > Regular ext.
Close Grip BP > Dips
GM, DL, or RDL > Leg press and Leg Curl

I would probably skip bicep curls and add more shoulders or back. Face Pulls, H-Rolls, etc.

All in all it’s a decent bench program for those that are in need of something structured.

.

[quote]IronAbrams wrote:
Right now I’m looking for a simple progression to get me back to where I was over the summer before spraining my thumb and start building up again- couldn’t use my left hand for 4 weeks basically and went from 235 to 205.

I’m way too tempted by “special” programs rather than trusting my own programming abilities… I’ll probably end up running it.[/quote]

I do think that this would be a solid program for someone who is trying to regain lost strength.

Give it a shot. If your current max is 205, but you were capable of 235, then use 200 as your max. I think you could easily regain the lost strength. If you are progressing faster than expected, you will increase your max at testing time.

Sounds like a plan, thanks for the advice Modi. Keep up the training log, it’s awesome.

[quote]IronAbrams wrote:
Sounds like a plan, thanks for the advice Modi. Keep up the training log, it’s awesome.[/quote]

Will do. I took a week off from training due to a nasty little respiratory infection. I should be back to normal this week. Thanks for the kind words.