Full on hardgainers is definitely on the cards for next year, especially if spreading across fewer training days is an option.
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Work for today:
Press (ss. Pull ups):
5 x 40kg
3 x 50kg
3 x 55kg
1 x 60kg
0 x 65kg
1 x 60kg
0 x 62.5kg
1 x 60kg
Trap bar press (ss. 5 pull ups): 5 x 50kg
Alternating with:
Z-press (ss. 5 pull ups): 5 x 40kg
Giant set:
Push ups (handles): AMRAP
lateral raises x 12
Band pull aparts x 20
Notes:
- This looks likely to be my press workout, with very few modifications until Christmas
- Before I plan out my cycles, I thought Iād better actually test a max. Probably lucky I did, because it was a lot lower than I thought. Looks like I have work to do here. A bit of back of the envelope calculations tells me that following this plan, my last set of this 21-week plan will be round 62.5kg x 5, which would equate to roughly a 70kg max. Thatās halfway there, I guess, but I will have to squeeze every last gram of progress out of this time if Iām going to stand a chance of 80kg.
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Thereās absolutely no way to slaughter the overhead press more than the bench has been slaughtered. Bend back all you want, thereās no way to have a 2 inch ROM on a press.
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Powerlifting should be the sport that demands the most power and weightlifting should be the sport in which you lift the most weight 
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Thatās a fair ways off 80 guinea pigs lol. Is this what ur plan for pressing is going to look like in broad strokes?
Just read 40 posts about the press and different names for it and yet I still donāt know what you are all talking about !! 
I need coffee
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A million times this. It is one of the reasons the strict press is hard to progressā¦you cannot really cheat the ROM.
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Yeah, Iām hoping it was just a terrible day, because thatās well off where I thought I was. If itās a true reflection, itās just made the job twice as difficult.
That will be my āpress dayā for the foreseeable, but with 531 main sets instead of the singles, that was just testing. Iām also planning some push pressing on bench day and, now Iāve seen how far off I am, I may have to add an extra short session in somewhere else in the week as well if I can.
My two cents. For a variety of reasons, presses are harder to progress than the other lifts. The ROM, the starting position being your weakest part of the lift, fewer and weaker muscles being recruited, etc.
If you take those things as a given, it makes sense to me to progress it using a lower % of 1RM and a whole lot more volume. If, for example, you can only press 60 for one or two reps, then the leap to 65 is actually quite a gap, almost an impossible one (unless you eat your way to it).
On the other hand, if you can press 40 for ten repsā¦then you can work your way up to 12 reps. 15 reps. 18 reps. Then suddenly you might be able to press 45 for ten reps. Then 12. And so on. This is far more manageable, because these āleapsā are actually fairly small.
And then one day, you test your maxes and find out you can press 65. For a double.
I think this works very well for me for the press.
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I agree volume is the way to go. Iāve had my best success with press by having 2 days: 1 as heavier volume work (8 x 3) and one pump fest. I havenāt yet decided on the set up of my bench day (because I donāt yet have access to a bench), but Iām debating turning that into a pump fest for press after some basic, heavy bench work.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of just chasing a press goal and leaving bench in maintenance. I canāt imagine a situation in which I make sizeable gains in the press and donāt increase my bench as well. I also canāt help think that a respectable press will do more for my physique than any other lift.
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Now youāre using the old nugget. Do that.
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Recent training has proved to me that Pwn is once again right.
This winter I did an o-lift program for 2 months with 0 bench and actually 0 chest direct training and I lost like 5 kgs on my max bench, and barely lost, if any, chest muscles.
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Work for today:
21-15-9 push ups and 36kg swings
Deadlift:
5 x 3 @ 120kg
Giant set (3 rounds):
10 x SLDL @ 110KG
15 x trap bar shrugs (60kg)
20 x back extensions
20nx V-ups
Pendlay Death March: 18kg
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I just wrote this out for the post Iām going to post later this week, but spot on. Check out the physiques of dudes that are on the stricter side of pressing in strongman, like Kaz, Poundstone, Hall, Radzikowski, Andersen, etc, and you see striking physiques. Reliance on leg drive and the double dip can allow for a lankier physique, but reliance on brute strength out of the bottom of the lift requires big and broad shoulders and a wide set back, big arms, traps, etc.
The physique of lean bench specialists is also nothing to sneeze at, but excessive chub can be more rewarded in the bench than it can in the press.
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What would be your thoughts on my current approach?
Essentially 531 Boring But Strong one day, with some āextra workā on a second day? What would you recommend as a useful addition on the second day?
Iām a bigger fan of BBB vs BBS when it comes to building size, and Iāll run heavier percentages than 50% of the TM for the most part.
Building the back is very important for the press, so chins, rows, and pull aparts would factor in big for extra work. I always like dips too.
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Iāve tried and failed with BBB so many times for press, that people are going to try and misquote einstein at me if I do it again.
The others are all definitely going to make an appearance, especially since Iām more and more decided on changing it from a ābench day in which I also pressā to a āpress day with a few sets of benchā
Thanks for the input as always man.
This could very well be the exact instance of a training protocol that forces you to eat to be able to recover enough to actually meet the goals.
Always happy to lend some words.
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Its believable, my logs and records tend not to tell me what my nutrition looks like while Iām training and they donāt go back as far as Iād like.
Whatās ur minimum/baseline nutrition look like? At the worst of times u still hitting 0.8g protein / lb for example?