435 Bench @200

Training
21

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:

[quote]barbedwired wrote:

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
Thanks fellas!

The rack is excellent. The drawback for some is that you can’t tuck your feet under very far, so for toe benchers it hurts their setup. Obviously that’s a non-issue for me, but it’s worth noting.

I’m happy to field any bench questions here or in my log.[/quote]

What helped most taking your bench from 365 to 405ish? Any suggestions? [/quote]

I’ve yet to run into a prolonged sticking point when I’m healthy.

But phased training, high frequency pressing, and pause reps are my bread and butter. I have a slight elbow tuck, but not too much, and my wrists stay vertical. I train most of the year with a moderately narrow grip and without wraps. And lastly, I don’t try to out-technique the lift. 90% of increasing your bench should be from increasing the size and efficiency of the prime movers. From there you can worry about perfect technique.
[/quote]

Awesome bench man. A very small percentage of people can claim a legit 435 paused bench. And it looked easy for a PR. Liking the advice here would love to hear more.[/quote]

Hmmmm I’ll try and give generic “truths” I can think of.

Assistance: vary your grips. The narrower the grip, the more muscle activation you get; bench at least 2x weekly…my shoulders are trash and they can handle it; board presses…2 and 1 board…will help you get used to heavier weights.

Stuff that doesn’t work for me: overhead pressing…I like doing it, but it never improves my bench and usually gets me hurt; benching against band tension…all this did was mess up my bar path; any variation of speed work.

And the lats are not contributors to the upward movement of the bar. Chris duffin I know made a nice long argument for why they could be, but it was basically intelligent nonsense. The pecs, anterior delts and triceps move the weight upward. Anything else is negligible and not worth worrying about. I’ve heard utterly ridiculous things like the lats acting as a spring or natural bench shirt at the bottom of the lift, and it’s all so silly. Tightness at the bottom matters a lot, but it’s not going to move the bar for you.

22

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:

[quote]barbedwired wrote:

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
Thanks fellas!

The rack is excellent. The drawback for some is that you can’t tuck your feet under very far, so for toe benchers it hurts their setup. Obviously that’s a non-issue for me, but it’s worth noting.

I’m happy to field any bench questions here or in my log.[/quote]

What helped most taking your bench from 365 to 405ish? Any suggestions? [/quote]

I’ve yet to run into a prolonged sticking point when I’m healthy.

But phased training, high frequency pressing, and pause reps are my bread and butter. I have a slight elbow tuck, but not too much, and my wrists stay vertical. I train most of the year with a moderately narrow grip and without wraps. And lastly, I don’t try to out-technique the lift. 90% of increasing your bench should be from increasing the size and efficiency of the prime movers. From there you can worry about perfect technique.
[/quote]

Awesome bench man. A very small percentage of people can claim a legit 435 paused bench. And it looked easy for a PR. Liking the advice here would love to hear more.[/quote]

Hmmmm I’ll try and give generic “truths” I can think of.

Assistance: vary your grips. The narrower the grip, the more muscle activation you get; bench at least 2x weekly…my shoulders are trash and they can handle it; board presses…2 and 1 board…will help you get used to heavier weights.

Stuff that doesn’t work for me: overhead pressing…I like doing it, but it never improves my bench and usually gets me hurt; benching against band tension…all this did was mess up my bar path; any variation of speed work.

And the lats are not contributors to the upward movement of the bar. Chris duffin I know made a nice long argument for why they could be, but it was basically intelligent nonsense. The pecs, anterior delts and triceps move the weight upward. Anything else is negligible and not worth worrying about. I’ve heard utterly ridiculous things like the lats acting as a spring or natural bench shirt at the bottom of the lift, and it’s all so silly. Tightness at the bottom matters a lot, but it’s not going to move the bar for you.[/quote]

Good stuff man. You said 2x weekly bench but no speed work… So what do you do different between the two days if anything?

23

Different rep schemes and different grips. I do competition grip one day narrow the other. My main goal with the second bench day is to get extra volume. In the offseason it’s something like:

B1: heavy 3, backdown 5s until I hit a certain RPE
B2: 5s, shooting for the heaviest 5 from B1 or more for at least three sets.

Eventually I move to ramping 3s and a backdown set or two, then whatever feels good the second day.

Takeaway point: more volume to build more muscle.

24

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
don’t try to out-technique the lift. 90% of increasing your bench should be from increasing the size and efficiency of the prime movers.
[/quote]
plz no…

Anything but actually having to get bigger and stronger! Give me some kind of secret technique cheat!

25

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
don’t try to out-technique the lift. 90% of increasing your bench should be from increasing the size and efficiency of the prime movers.
[/quote]
plz no…

Anything but actually having to get bigger and stronger! Give me some kind of secret technique cheat![/quote]

Exactly! Otherwise what’s the point of the internet?

HT you ever fucked up your shoulders from benching so much? How’d you get around that if you did?

26

[quote]Yogi wrote:

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
don’t try to out-technique the lift. 90% of increasing your bench should be from increasing the size and efficiency of the prime movers.
[/quote]
plz no…

Anything but actually having to get bigger and stronger! Give me some kind of secret technique cheat![/quote]

Exactly! Otherwise what’s the point of the internet?

HT you ever fucked up your shoulders from benching so much? How’d you get around that if you did?[/quote]
What you guys don’t know about it is my CONTROVERSIAL STEROID ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUE. TRAINERS HATE ME

Yes and no, Yogi. I messed up my rotator cuff in my early twenties, and like the idiot I was kept benching and overhead pressing through pain until I couldn’t bear it any longer and had to take 4 months off liftng.

I’ve actually only gotten healthier since I started benching 2x weekly about 3 years ago. The how is a combination of things, as it always is, and here’s what I think helped me the most:

  1. cutting out overhead pressing pretty much entirely; I have shoulder anatomy that is conducive to impingement, so I don’t aggravate it with OH stuff. Now that won’t be true for everybody, it’s just what has proven to be true for me over the last 8 years in the game since I started having problems.

  2. work the back heavily and frequently. The back is made of postural muscles, so they need to be hit with a lot of volume and often to induce the kind of change you want.

  3. lacrosse ball rolling around the shoulder blade, PVC to the upper back, and broomstick stretching. I’ve tried any and all stretches and foam rolling variations, and these are by far and away the most effective. Seek out the pain when rolling with the lacrosse ball…that’s where the tension is being held.

  4. technique. You’ve heard it all before, but squeeze the shoulder blades (and pull them down toward the butt, too), get your knuckles straight up so that you are applying force directly through the bar, and keep the elbows directly under the bar. A cue that works for most of that is to try and reach your chest to the bar as you bring it down.

No particular order on any of those. They all are equally important given context.

27

as you press, do you press up and back or just focus on rotating the elbows out?

28

[quote]kalb wrote:
as you press, do you press up and back or just focus on rotating the elbows out?[/quote]
That’s a good question …got me thinking.

I’d say I focus more on rotating the elbows out, and the backward movement of the bar takes care of itself.