Unexpected Strength Gain

I have been stuck at the same bench press strength for a year or so and decided to just work on my upper chest by doing only inclines and dips for the last 6-8 months.

So I’ve just been doing smith machine incline presses, incline dumbbells and triceps, I also do type of superset where I take a 45 pound dumbbell on the incline bench and do press and a fly, press and fly for 10 reps each.

Well I went back to flat bench because I wanted to give my shoulders a break from the pounding they take with inclines. After a couple weeks I noticed my flat bench strength has increased by about 25 pounds. I put up 315 * 4 times and 335 one time.

Crazy!

  • adam

Oh yah, i’m 6 foot, 225 pounds.

Congrats. I hadn’t benched in roughly 2 weeks, because of 2-a-days, and then I put on 225 and got it 5 times. My previous pr was 3 times. Not much, I know, but hell, it’s progress.

Sometimes muscle groups just need a while to recover. I put 20lbs on my deadlift just by resting a week and letting my body recover after training hard for the prior 6 weeks or so.