Old Thibaudeau Bench Article

Does anyone remember an article Thibaudeau wrote on benching where he recommended benching three days/week and benching three times on one day? I think it was from '04 or so, can’t remember the title and search turns up a ton of results, but none seem to be the one I’m looking for

This? 8 Weeks to a Record Bench

That’s the one - thanks!

I am currently 6 weeks in (did 4 weeks consecutive, took a week to deload for a meet, and am now continueing the program). I am more or less following it as Tim H. prescribed in a more recent article, with the second bench workout being at 80RM rather than 90RM, and sometimes combining the first and second workouts together. One other thing that I have changed is the rep scheme for the skull crushers after the third bench workout: instead of 3 x 6 I am doing 5 x 20 (going heavy on skulls can sometimes bother my elbows, so going light I can push a lot of blood into the area instead). I also do cable flies after the fifth bench workout (with the negatives) to promote recovery (either 3 x 20, or one all-out set of 75 - 100 reps).

If you are serious about giving this program a try, one thing that I will say is that you MUST be on top of your recovery. I lacrosse ball my shoulders and foam roll everything 8 times a week, I am abusing the use of vitamin C and D (4g and 3,000 IUs, respectively), am taking glucosamine with chondroitin, and am on a sleep-enhancing stack of extra strength melatonin and GABA. I also take a B-complex vitamin, take 5g of creatine monohydrate and glutamine before and after each workout (even on the 3x workouts a day), and am up in the ~4g range of OMEGA 3s.

Good luck! It’s not an easy program by any means, but after the first 4 weeks my bench already went up about 7.5kg :slight_smile: