Bench Press Wont Go Up

Training
21

[quote]jbpick86 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]

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]

This I can believe

22

Ah I see what you are saying. Carry on.

23

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:

[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]

I don’t see it as 5 months. How long did it take you to get up to the 265x5? You had already spent the time in the weight room prior to those 5 months. If you take out the years prior to your layoff in the weight room and just say 5 months i was squating 315x10 is where I find the issue. If you had never spent those prior years getting to 265x5 do you think you would have still been as strong in those 5 months? I am not trying to be a dick, I just was thrown off at 315x10 in a couple of months

24

I love how people post question and never get back, though I do enjoy the back and forth long after they are long gone.

One post; I guess that should be a red flag.

25

Yeah, the more I actually got to thinking about my prior lifting history the more I was actually realizing how much I actually did lift when I was young. It was sporadic because we had a different coach every year and were often left to our own devices in the offseason but I did get a decent amount of training in. My point was more to illustrate the point of the disparity between the OP’s lifts not being unreasonable, and should have more carefully chosen my words.

I don’t see it as 5 months. How long did it take you to get up to the 265x5? You had already spent the time in the weight room prior to those 5 months. If you take out the years prior to your layoff in the weight room and just say 5 months i was squating 315x10 is where I find the issue. If you had never spent those prior years getting to 265x5 do you think you would have still been as strong in those 5 months? I am not trying to be a dick, I just was thrown off at 315x10 in a couple of months

26

High school squats were probably 8 inch ROM :wink:

27

I work with highschool athlete’s, hockey player’s mostly, 15-20yr, and it takes roughly a year for most to hit a double body weight squat and dead, this is generaly 350ish. A few take longer, and a few get well past 400 in the first year. These are kids in the 150-200lb range, normal, on a solid PLing style program, and no hang ups about a 6pac, they’re athlete’s trying to get stronger, with a coach and a solid program. The OP talked about a stalled bench, and this is common, and normal, in fact if you look at most pro PLer’s, they’re bench is around half they’re deadlit number, and I explain this to my kids. Lowwer body lifts will pull ahead at first.

Having a 275lb bench, and a 300lb squat is nothing to brag about, but this is what we’re used to seeing with young kids, that don’t have good coaching, so we acept this as normal, and then we question a kid with a 400lb dead, 350 squat, and a 180 bench. In the scheme of things these are bang on, and the bench will come with time, and body weight. We’re so used to kids/guys over doing they’re bench training, putting to much of they’re focus on it, at the cost of the other two lifts. This is the wrong aproach, and the Op’s on the right one.

Stay focused on the 3 big lifts, with progressive programing, hammer your upper back with rows, and face-pulls, work your delts-tri’s -pecs with asistance work, try to get 100 dips, and 100 pull-ups a copuple times a week, while taking in extra calories, this will help with torso mass, and your bench will move, I’ve been doing this for 20yrs, and your on the right track. In the mean time enjoy your squat and deadlifting, those are great number’s should be proud of. Goodluck !

28

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Yeah, the more I actually got to thinking about my prior lifting history the more I was actually realizing how much I actually did lift when I was young. It was sporadic because we had a different coach every year and were often left to our own devices in the offseason but I did get a decent amount of training in. My point was more to illustrate the point of the disparity between the OP’s lifts not being unreasonable, and should have more carefully chosen my words.

I don’t see it as 5 months. How long did it take you to get up to the 265x5? You had already spent the time in the weight room prior to those 5 months. If you take out the years prior to your layoff in the weight room and just say 5 months i was squating 315x10 is where I find the issue. If you had never spent those prior years getting to 265x5 do you think you would have still been as strong in those 5 months? I am not trying to be a dick, I just was thrown off at 315x10 in a couple of months
[/quote]

No worries. And I agree that OP’s lifts are possible. I just don’t believe the poster.

29

I squatted 300kg atg when I was in HS. Then I got some knee problems and stopped squatting for a few years. I’m still trying to get back to that level. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch it on vid.

At least that is what I tell the old people that try to sell me their numbers from their glories days. Of course, if they try to sell me a 300kg squat, I will add another 20kg to my squat. Works.

30

[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
I squatted 300kg atg when I was in HS. Then I got some knee problems and stopped squatting for a few years. I’m still trying to get back to that level. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch it on vid.

At least that is what I tell the old people that try to sell me their numbers from their glories days. Of course, if they try to sell me a 300kg squat, I will add another 20kg to my squat. Works.[/quote]

A full squat; 660 lbs in high school?

31

It takes a year to squat twice your body weight. The longest I’ve ever seen it take someone I was coaching was two years ( rare case) If you’ve been at this thing longer than that, and aren’t there yet, instead of making excuses, jokes, and bashing people that are there. Do yourself a favour, and hire a proper strength coach for a year.

The kids I deal with are athletic, and when they start weight training seriously, from day one they have a strength coach, so they don’t screw around, and waste 5yrs on BBing magazine programs. 2 cents

32

[quote]doublelung84 wrote:

[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
I squatted 300kg atg when I was in HS. Then I got some knee problems and stopped squatting for a few years. I’m still trying to get back to that level. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch it on vid.

At least that is what I tell the old people that try to sell me their numbers from their glories days. Of course, if they try to sell me a 300kg squat, I will add another 20kg to my squat. Works.[/quote]

A full squat; 660 lbs in high school? [/quote]

He was lying dude. It was an example of how people lie, and he was saying that, when people lie to him, he uses that lie as well.

It was similar to how Mike Jenkins (RIP) would tell people he benched around 700lbs whenever they asked for his numbers. Numbers have become so ridiculously inflated in the minds of average people that they are meaningless.

33

[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
I work with highschool athlete’s, hockey player’s mostly, 15-20yr, and it takes roughly a year for most to hit a double body weight squat and dead, this is generaly 350ish. A few take longer, and a few get well past 400 in the first year. These are kids in the 150-200lb range, normal, on a solid PLing style program, and no hang ups about a 6pac, they’re athlete’s trying to get stronger, with a coach and a solid program. The OP talked about a stalled bench, and this is common, and normal, in fact if you look at most pro PLer’s, they’re bench is around half they’re deadlit number, and I explain this to my kids. Lowwer body lifts will pull ahead at first.

Having a 275lb bench, and a 300lb squat is nothing to brag about, but this is what we’re used to seeing with young kids, that don’t have good coaching, so we acept this as normal, and then we question a kid with a 400lb dead, 350 squat, and a 180 bench. In the scheme of things these are bang on, and the bench will come with time, and body weight. We’re so used to kids/guys over doing they’re bench training, putting to much of they’re focus on it, at the cost of the other two lifts. This is the wrong aproach, and the Op’s on the right one.

Stay focused on the 3 big lifts, with progressive programing, hammer your upper back with rows, and face-pulls, work your delts-tri’s -pecs with asistance work, try to get 100 dips, and 100 pull-ups a copuple times a week, while taking in extra calories, this will help with torso mass, and your bench will move, I’ve been doing this for 20yrs, and your on the right track. In the mean time enjoy your squat and deadlifting, those are great number’s should be proud of. Goodluck !
[/quote]

Ok I am just trying to make sure I have this right. Not that I don’t believe you, just want to make sure I understand correctly. You train a lot of high school athletes, most of them are squatting double body weight numbers within a year (including hockey season)? Or a year of strength training, meaning during season you back off the program and then return offseason, so a couple of years calendar wise but 1 year strength training? Or do you just keep them on the strength building program year round including during season? Are these athletes that come to you out of reputation or referrals? Are you training all types of high school athletes or just the “cream of the crop”? How many athletes (guestamate) are you helping to accomplish this yearly? I am honestly curious about your program because I have family members that are into athletics and some that will be some day, and some that are getting close to high school age and want to know if things have changed in strength training high school athletes from when I was in high school busting my ass for football

34

Have you had any of your old clients come back to you after moving onto college that are now squatting 2.5xs their bodyweight? Did this strength training affect their on field performance? I have a lot of questions for you

35

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]doublelung84 wrote:

[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
I squatted 300kg atg when I was in HS. Then I got some knee problems and stopped squatting for a few years. I’m still trying to get back to that level. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch it on vid.

At least that is what I tell the old people that try to sell me their numbers from their glories days. Of course, if they try to sell me a 300kg squat, I will add another 20kg to my squat. Works.[/quote]

A full squat; 660 lbs in high school? [/quote]

He was lying dude. It was an example of how people lie, and he was saying that, when people lie to him, he uses that lie as well.

It was similar to how Mike Jenkins (RIP) would tell people he benched around 700lbs whenever they asked for his numbers. Numbers have become so ridiculously inflated in the minds of average people that they are meaningless.[/quote]

Just wasn’t sure and didn’t want to call bullshit. You know, I bet someone’s done it, just wasn’t me. Well maybe at twice that age. :slight_smile:

36

[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
It takes a year to squat twice your body weight.
[/quote]

Maybe 3 if it’s a full squat. So how long for 3x? It took me 12 years to do 3x and some guys never make it. BTW before anyone asks, no juice.

Guess I should of had you as a trainer. Spent a lot of time figuring it out on my own!

37

[quote]doublelung84 wrote:

Just wasn’t sure and didn’t want to call bullshit. You know, I bet someone’s done it, just wasn’t me. Well maybe at twice that age. :)[/quote]

The giveaway was the fact he said he increases the number based on how much the person says, indicating it was a flexible and non-fixed amount picked purely for the sake of one upsmanship.

38

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
It was similar to how Mike Jenkins (RIP) would tell people he benched around 700lbs whenever they asked for his numbers. Numbers have become so ridiculously inflated in the minds of average people that they are meaningless.[/quote]
He told me about that lol. Loved that story. He said “Yeah people are always asking me how much I bench, and I just lie and tell them ‘around 700’, and then their response is usually something like ‘Oh wow that’s pretty good’.”

Yeah it’s pretty good lol.

39

Also looks like the OP never came back. OP if you’re still out there, just in case you don’t like any of the advice given you could always get way fatter, older, and take a bunch of roids. Problem solved.

40

i work with 4-6 kids a year, and l aso do some team stuff, but it’s the one on one kids I’m talking about here. I am getting picky now days when it comes to clients, and who I work with, but it hasn’t always been this way. As you go along you refine your training, and get more specific. I do alter training with hockey kids, with jan-spring being less strength focused, we cut down to two workouts a week. The rest of the year is strength focused, building to a mock meet during Christmass holidays.

So during the summer we’re strength based, with extra conditioning, and come Sept, we drop conditioning, and work solely on 1RM strength for our mock meet at the end of Dec. These kids are athletic to begin with, most have been playing hockey since they could walk, basicly, and probably playing around with some weights themselves before I get them. basicaly I’m working with 15-20yr in the 150-180lb range, and these kids can usually manage around a 225lb squat within the first couple weeks, as we lock in they’re form.

At this point we will get on a 4x week workout schedual, focusing on squats, deads, box squats, RDLs, and leg press. If the kid weighs 170lb he only need a 340lb squat to be double BW, thats basicly 50% increase in the first year of heavy training. I belive most of the kids I work with, have that strength the day they start with me, it’s only mental barrier’s and technique that are stopping them from double BW the fisrt day.

If you take athletic kids like this, and have them focus right from day one, on just getting stronger on the 3 main lifts, no distractions, set up a proper program, that has them resetting they’re 1RM once a month, and basing the next months training off of this, we can move up 10% a month at times, so 50% a year, is not so unbeliveable. The facts, I see as a gym owner, are that most kids spend the first year or more, with no direction, and when they do find a half decent program.

They don’t push hard enough to acomplish anything, switching programs the minute, things get dificult. I wish I had the time, and I try to work with every kid that walked through the doors of my gym. Anyway gotta go, hope this clears things up. latter