hi,
have been training for little more than one year and all my lifts has improved
my squats went up to 360 lbs. my powerclean to 220 lbs and deadlift 370 lbs. with a BW of 155.
but no matter how hard i try, my benchpress wont go any further than 170.
what can i do to improve my sucked benchpress? what kind of program or periodization?
thanks stefan95
[quote]stefan95 wrote:
hi,
have been training for little more than one year and all my lifts has improved
my squats went up to 360 lbs. my powerclean to 220 lbs and deadlift 370 lbs. with a BW of 155.
but no matter how hard i try, my benchpress wont go any further than 170.
what can i do to improve my sucked benchpress? what kind of program or periodization?
thanks stefan95
[/quote]
A few thoughts (and I’m certain that others will chime in, so this should be a good thread), and I’m just spit balling here:
-Are you performing the movement correctly in terms of proper form, warm ups without excessive fatigue etc?
-What’s your split and how frequently are you hitting chest? (possibly doing it too much) I remember that when I focused on really improving #s, I backed off on my frequency, and focused more on full recovery.
-Have you examined your secondary muscles involved in the lift? Very often people with weak benches focus solely on pec strength, but find that lagging triceps, lats, and delts can be a limiting factor.
S
I agree with mbdix, numbers are shady.
Anyway, two best ways to get the bench up is (1) improve setup/form and (2) upper body hypertrophy. The importance of (2) is often neglected. And no, benching 5x5 and overhead pressing 1x/week is not enough for it…
is the 170 in Kgs?
@ a BW of 155, you can DL 370 and SQ 360…
Hmmmm…
[quote]mbdix wrote:
[quote]stefan95 wrote:
hi,
have been training for little more than one year and all my lifts has improved
my squats went up to 360 lbs. my powerclean to 220 lbs and deadlift 370 lbs. with a BW of 155.
but no matter how hard i try, my benchpress wont go any further than 170.
what can i do to improve my sucked benchpress? what kind of program or periodization?
thanks stefan95
[/quote]
[/quote]
Oh I believe him. I know several guys with much greater disparities. Their problem is, though, that they don’t make benching a priority. When you start your workouts with moderate-high intensity squats 3x a week and tack on bench as an afterthought once a week, of course it won’t go up.
This leads me to ask, what are you currently doing for your bench?
Numbers do seem weird but in his defense I personally knew someone who could pull 3x his BW at about 465 and had an ok squat at 315 but his bench was always stuck around 195.
Not quite as low as 170 but it still always amazed how this guy could pull 3x his BW and then just get crushed under the bench.
Upper body mass, the kids I’ve seen get fast results with squat and dead, bench can be pathetic, and it seems mostlty to do with upper body mass, kids with more upper body size don’t seem to struggle as much with bench, and OHP. This is hard to fix, torso mass, but lots of calories, and lots of BW dips, and chins is the best thing I’ve found for torso mass. I do have a hard time with believing the 220 clean, but mabey you train specialy for it. The other lifts are common for a teenager, I work with them, and this is a common problem, lower lifts sky rocket, and upper body lifts are dependant on upper body weight. 2cents
Also sorry, but this problem, if thats what you want to call it, can be compounded by being athletic from a young age - hockey, soccer, running, your lower body already has a head start. I had a 16yr -150lb goalie that could squat 300 first day in the gym, but still can’t bench 2plts, two years latter. Time and calories !
Watch Dave Tate’s vids on here about proper setup and execution of the bench press…
If you’re working up to that 170lb bench (maxing out) every time then back off and build off a training max, per Jim Wendler…
Train your upper back (rear delts and rhomboids)
Eat more and Grow!
[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
Also sorry, but this problem, if thats what you want to call it, can be compounded by being athletic from a young age - hockey, soccer, running, your lower body already has a head start. I had a 16yr -150lb goalie that could squat 300 first day in the gym, but still can’t bench 2plts, two years latter. Time and calories ![/quote]
I was about to call B.S. but just remembered in HS I could hit 3x10 at 315 on squats at 170lbs and could barely muster 185 for as a 1RM on bench. I never really worked out though and my quads were always very conditioned from basketball. We did basically no upper body conditioning though and it just totally didn’t exist.
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
Also sorry, but this problem, if thats what you want to call it, can be compounded by being athletic from a young age - hockey, soccer, running, your lower body already has a head start. I had a 16yr -150lb goalie that could squat 300 first day in the gym, but still can’t bench 2plts, two years latter. Time and calories ![/quote]
I was about to call B.S. but just remembered in HS I could hit 3x10 at 315 on squats at 170lbs and could barely muster 185 for as a 1RM on bench. I never really worked out though and my quads were always very conditioned from basketball. We did basically no upper body conditioning though and it just totally didn’t exist.[/quote]
[quote]mbdix wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
Also sorry, but this problem, if thats what you want to call it, can be compounded by being athletic from a young age - hockey, soccer, running, your lower body already has a head start. I had a 16yr -150lb goalie that could squat 300 first day in the gym, but still can’t bench 2plts, two years latter. Time and calories ![/quote]
I was about to call B.S. but just remembered in HS I could hit 3x10 at 315 on squats at 170lbs and could barely muster 185 for as a 1RM on bench. I never really worked out though and my quads were always very conditioned from basketball. We did basically no upper body conditioning though and it just totally didn’t exist.[/quote]
[/quote]
I take it you don’t believe me? As Jake said, if something is left untrained, while another is, strength disparities like that can easily occur. To that point I balanced everything out in less than a year of regular training, turned into a bro and ignored any leg work in college and ended up with the opposite problem. A shit squat and a decent bench.
Edit: for clarity, the squat numbers were not first day in the gym numbers, they were after a month or two of regular lifting and my 1RM was not much higher than the 315. They capped us at 315 so we would just add reps to the sets so I got good at reps and although my max increased I never really got good at translating the effort into a 1RM push.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
I agree with mbdix, numbers are shady.
Anyway, two best ways to get the bench up is (1) improve setup/form and (2) upper body hypertrophy. The importance of (2) is often neglected. And no, benching 5x5 and overhead pressing 1x/week is not enough for it… [/quote]
Also agree with the hypertrophy point, increasing my benching frequency and volume, adding mass to my upper back, chest and arms greatly increased my efficiency on the bench.
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]mbdix wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
Also sorry, but this problem, if thats what you want to call it, can be compounded by being athletic from a young age - hockey, soccer, running, your lower body already has a head start. I had a 16yr -150lb goalie that could squat 300 first day in the gym, but still can’t bench 2plts, two years latter. Time and calories ![/quote]
I was about to call B.S. but just remembered in HS I could hit 3x10 at 315 on squats at 170lbs and could barely muster 185 for as a 1RM on bench. I never really worked out though and my quads were always very conditioned from basketball. We did basically no upper body conditioning though and it just totally didn’t exist.[/quote]
[/quote]
I take it you don’t believe me? As Jake said, if something is left untrained, while another is, strength disparities like that can easily occur. To that point I balanced everything out in less than a year of regular training, turned into a bro and ignored any leg work in college and ended up with the opposite problem. A shit squat and a decent bench.
Edit: for clarity, the squat numbers were not first day in the gym numbers, they were after a month or two of regular lifting and my 1RM was not much higher than the 315. They capped us at 315 so we would just add reps to the sets so I got good at reps and although my max increased I never really got good at translating the effort into a 1RM push.
[/quote]
Yeah man I don’t believe those #s. It was high school after all. So, are you sure it wasn’t 225? I just have a very hard time believing a high school athlete after a couple of months training is repping 315-10 times. Well, one that didn’t go on to play div 1 athletics. Did you play college ball anywhere, any ball? Where did your 315 max reps end up at? 20 reps, 30 reps?
[quote]mbdix wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]mbdix wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
Also sorry, but this problem, if thats what you want to call it, can be compounded by being athletic from a young age - hockey, soccer, running, your lower body already has a head start. I had a 16yr -150lb goalie that could squat 300 first day in the gym, but still can’t bench 2plts, two years latter. Time and calories ![/quote]
I was about to call B.S. but just remembered in HS I could hit 3x10 at 315 on squats at 170lbs and could barely muster 185 for as a 1RM on bench. I never really worked out though and my quads were always very conditioned from basketball. We did basically no upper body conditioning though and it just totally didn’t exist.[/quote]
[/quote]
I take it you don’t believe me? As Jake said, if something is left untrained, while another is, strength disparities like that can easily occur. To that point I balanced everything out in less than a year of regular training, turned into a bro and ignored any leg work in college and ended up with the opposite problem. A shit squat and a decent bench.
Edit: for clarity, the squat numbers were not first day in the gym numbers, they were after a month or two of regular lifting and my 1RM was not much higher than the 315. They capped us at 315 so we would just add reps to the sets so I got good at reps and although my max increased I never really got good at translating the effort into a 1RM push.
[/quote]
Yeah man I don’t believe those #s. It was high school after all. So, are you sure it wasn’t 225? I just have a very hard time believing a high school athlete after a couple of months training is repping 315-10 times. Well, one that didn’t go on to play div 1 athletics. Did you play college ball anywhere, any ball? Where did your 315 max reps end up at? 20 reps, 30 reps? [/quote]
It was 315, never did a rep max. We were capped at 315 so when we made it there on 5’s we would just do higher volume sets, moved up in 1 rep a set each week, if you did all 3 add another. I quit football after my sophomore year. My school had the worst team in the state but a highly competitive basketball team. Trained with football from Jr High to sophomore year. Had a respectable squat then at 265 for 3x5, didn’t get access to the weight room Jr year as our couch was experimenting with all this band resisted jump training, plyometrics, and other conditioning drills exclusively. Summer between Jr and Sr, back to the weight room. Bench sucked, Squats hadn’t lost really anything and after a couple weeks I was right back where I left off. By the October rolled around I had hit 315 for 3x10. So actually it was from May thru September, so 5 months. Bench still sucked.
[quote]mbdix wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]mbdix wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
Also sorry, but this problem, if thats what you want to call it, can be compounded by being athletic from a young age - hockey, soccer, running, your lower body already has a head start. I had a 16yr -150lb goalie that could squat 300 first day in the gym, but still can’t bench 2plts, two years latter. Time and calories ![/quote]
I was about to call B.S. but just remembered in HS I could hit 3x10 at 315 on squats at 170lbs and could barely muster 185 for as a 1RM on bench. I never really worked out though and my quads were always very conditioned from basketball. We did basically no upper body conditioning though and it just totally didn’t exist.[/quote]
[/quote]
I take it you don’t believe me? As Jake said, if something is left untrained, while another is, strength disparities like that can easily occur. To that point I balanced everything out in less than a year of regular training, turned into a bro and ignored any leg work in college and ended up with the opposite problem. A shit squat and a decent bench.
Edit: for clarity, the squat numbers were not first day in the gym numbers, they were after a month or two of regular lifting and my 1RM was not much higher than the 315. They capped us at 315 so we would just add reps to the sets so I got good at reps and although my max increased I never really got good at translating the effort into a 1RM push.
[/quote]
Yeah man I don’t believe those #s. It was high school after all. So, are you sure it wasn’t 225? I just have a very hard time believing a high school athlete after a couple of months training is repping 315-10 times. Well, one that didn’t go on to play div 1 athletics. Did you play college ball anywhere, any ball? Where did your 315 max reps end up at? 20 reps, 30 reps? [/quote]
I’m not sure why those numbers are unbelievable. There were at least 10 guys on my HS football team that could 1RM 405 on squat and bench over 225.
Goofing off on my on at that time, my squat max only reached 365. I never have been able to perform well with an all out effort on squat. And no I did not play college ball. I was recruited for tennis at D3 but I hardly think that counts. I did run a 4.45 electronically timed 40 as a Sophmore at an LSU football camp so I am somewhat athletic.
[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:
[quote]mbdix wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]mbdix wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
Also sorry, but this problem, if thats what you want to call it, can be compounded by being athletic from a young age - hockey, soccer, running, your lower body already has a head start. I had a 16yr -150lb goalie that could squat 300 first day in the gym, but still can’t bench 2plts, two years latter. Time and calories ![/quote]
I was about to call B.S. but just remembered in HS I could hit 3x10 at 315 on squats at 170lbs and could barely muster 185 for as a 1RM on bench. I never really worked out though and my quads were always very conditioned from basketball. We did basically no upper body conditioning though and it just totally didn’t exist.[/quote]
[/quote]
I take it you don’t believe me? As Jake said, if something is left untrained, while another is, strength disparities like that can easily occur. To that point I balanced everything out in less than a year of regular training, turned into a bro and ignored any leg work in college and ended up with the opposite problem. A shit squat and a decent bench.
Edit: for clarity, the squat numbers were not first day in the gym numbers, they were after a month or two of regular lifting and my 1RM was not much higher than the 315. They capped us at 315 so we would just add reps to the sets so I got good at reps and although my max increased I never really got good at translating the effort into a 1RM push.
[/quote]
Yeah man I don’t believe those #s. It was high school after all. So, are you sure it wasn’t 225? I just have a very hard time believing a high school athlete after a couple of months training is repping 315-10 times. Well, one that didn’t go on to play div 1 athletics. Did you play college ball anywhere, any ball? Where did your 315 max reps end up at? 20 reps, 30 reps? [/quote]
I’m not sure why those numbers are unbelievable. There were at least 10 guys on my HS football team that could 1RM 405 on squat and bench over 225.[/quote]
I am assuming he is talking about me being only 170 and saying it happened after only a couple months which I did misrepresent (5 months). Undoubtly that’s what he means because my HS had 3 or 4 guys that could put up numbers similar to what you laid out. They were all pretty heavy though.
[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:
[quote]mbdix wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]mbdix wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
Also sorry, but this problem, if thats what you want to call it, can be compounded by being athletic from a young age - hockey, soccer, running, your lower body already has a head start. I had a 16yr -150lb goalie that could squat 300 first day in the gym, but still can’t bench 2plts, two years latter. Time and calories ![/quote]
I was about to call B.S. but just remembered in HS I could hit 3x10 at 315 on squats at 170lbs and could barely muster 185 for as a 1RM on bench. I never really worked out though and my quads were always very conditioned from basketball. We did basically no upper body conditioning though and it just totally didn’t exist.[/quote]
[/quote]
I take it you don’t believe me? As Jake said, if something is left untrained, while another is, strength disparities like that can easily occur. To that point I balanced everything out in less than a year of regular training, turned into a bro and ignored any leg work in college and ended up with the opposite problem. A shit squat and a decent bench.
Edit: for clarity, the squat numbers were not first day in the gym numbers, they were after a month or two of regular lifting and my 1RM was not much higher than the 315. They capped us at 315 so we would just add reps to the sets so I got good at reps and although my max increased I never really got good at translating the effort into a 1RM push.
[/quote]
Yeah man I don’t believe those #s. It was high school after all. So, are you sure it wasn’t 225? I just have a very hard time believing a high school athlete after a couple of months training is repping 315-10 times. Well, one that didn’t go on to play div 1 athletics. Did you play college ball anywhere, any ball? Where did your 315 max reps end up at? 20 reps, 30 reps? [/quote]
I’m not sure why those numbers are unbelievable. There were at least 10 guys on my HS football team that could 1RM 405 on squat and bench over 225.[/quote]
Yeah, mine too. But none of them were doing it a couple of months after first starting weight training. Dude think about that for a minute. None of those guys started out squating 405. Let me put it this way. Even though his coach put a limit on their max at 315#s… 315x10 translate into a 400+ squat. No matter how you look at it. can you picture a guy that played on the basketball team walking into the gym and in 2 months is squating 315x10? I mean I understand it is possible. But highly unlikely. And anyone who is squating 315x10 after a couple of months of beginner weight training is a very very gifted lifter. A phenom!