Bench Problem & More Bench Problems

Im using a westside split, and the past few ME days my bench just has been crap and i dont know whats wrong. I used to use a pretty narrow grip, with my little finger on the inside of the rings. Today i tried benching with my ring finger on the rings and i felt strong, but then couldnt even do 215, when 225 is my normal max. Any thoughts on whats wrong and what i could do to fix this?

i"m not sure what the westside split is (and I’ll probably get nailed to the wall for that), but before I got hurt I was able to help A buddy with about the same problem you could try any or all of these.

  1. it could be over trianing, take some time off of doing flat bench, and do incline (dumbell or barbell), dips, cable crosses, stay away from declines, and flys for the time being. this will give your chest some time to heal with out losing to much he was training chest 2 or 3 times a week.

  2. get your legs up to par, some guys only do upper body(at least at the gym I go to). get your squat up, everything I’ve read says that your body tries to stay in proportion with its self, so it increases muscle elsewhere as well.

  3. SHOCK YOUR CHEST doing mega sets with lighter weight, like do a weight that you find light but at the end of 4 sets of 15 you can barely move. or pyramide it like 7 sets ending with a set of falures you just go until you can’t.

I can’t tell you if tis will work for you but it worked for him. his bench is now 30% higher than it was 2 months ago.
good luck and enjoy the sorness.

WESTSIIIIIIIIIIIDE! that’s a great system but, it tends to overtrain ya. like the man said befo- rest a week or two. eat a hell-load. take some caffene, use creatine, eat big before you lift. If you’re training in the morning make sure you eat two meals before you lift.

Where is your bench failing? How long have you been doing the same max effort movement, maybe time to change?

And I disagree with the overtraining statement. That is the whole point of changing ME movements every one to three weeks…

My .02

My experience in helping lifters with their benches is that at first when they widen their grip, they bench less because they aren’t used to doing it and their strength is more tricep-heavy. Then I see their poundages increase rapidly after they start using wide grip for a while. My grip is the maximum allowed by most powerlifting federations and that seems to be the best for me and most others.

I am sorry but I don’t have anything to add to maybe help you out. I just want to know, Subhuman or anyone else for that matter, what is wrong with Decline Bench? I have heard a lot of negative hype about them and I want to get some opinions. I am sorry for highjacking your thread Bigdirk, but feel that decline bench is a great exercise and would like to hear what you guys think.

Joe_Bob

Re Decline Bench:
There is no problem if you have healthy shoulders and warm up well. It can put a lot of pressure on the clavicle and shoulder cuff whihc is why I didn’t suggest it. Great for the triceps if done with a close grip though…

Joe_Bob, dont worry about what other people think. If a certain exercise works for you, then use it. Everyone is different and certain movements have different effects on different people. That is why you shouldnt use some cookie cutter routine just because someone else made gains with it. With that being said you have to make sure the movement is actually helping you. There are a lot of exercises that I like or think are great but they do very little for me so I dont use them that often. Remember that nothing works forever and something that doesnt work now may work in the future.

[quote]barbender242 wrote:
Joe_Bob, dont worry about what other people think. If a certain exercise works for you, then use it. Everyone is different and certain movements have different effects on different people. That is why you shouldnt use some cookie cutter routine just because someone else made gains with it. With that being said you have to make sure the movement is actually helping you. There are a lot of exercises that I like or think are great but they do very little for me so I dont use them that often. Remember that nothing works forever and something that doesnt work now may work in the future. [/quote]

AMEN, BRO

Alright guys, I just wanted some opinions because a lot of people I talk to say that decline bench has no benefits. I disagree because I have had great success with decline for chest development. I agree that Close grip decline is probably one of the best exercises you can perform for your tris. Subhuman, how do you figure decline is bad for your shoulders? I feel it is the only chest pressing exercise that doesn’t directly hit your shoulders, but then again I guess that is my opinion.

Joe_

european lifters and coaches swear by declines…i just finished a swedish powerlifting program in which you decline bench twice a week and flat bench once a week…
K?re Lundgren…a swedish powerlifting coach recommends declines because he believes that they are less stressful for the shoulders…

I had gotten myself an A.C. inpengment doing heavy flat bench. the way the decline is set up all the pessure is felt directly on the top of the shoulder and clavical area,from gravity. don’t get me wrong before the injury I loved to do declines, it is A great movement for the biggest part of the chest.

The decline for MOST but not all will work better than the bench if size is what you are after.This is due to the fact of fiber alignment with the line of pull. The problem with many declines is the bench.Most individuals only need about a 15 degree angle of declination. For some well built (READ squat and deadlift) individuals whose feet comfortably reach the floor when benching and have lower body thickness, that angle is almost obtained during a flat bench.This is the same reason many can “flat” bench more if they arch their back.They have made their flat bench a slight decline. Another important factor is thickness of rib cage.This will change your moment arm (of the humerus)significantly.The most important thing to remember is WHY ARE YOU BENCHING? Size? Competition? General Preparedness? Combine Test?,ETC.This will always determine the way you should do things(Depth,angle,load,frequency,etc) when combined with YOUR OWN biomechanics. Lift heavy but lift safely! Peace,zach_

[quote]mattwray wrote:
Where is your bench failing? How long have you been doing the same max effort movement, maybe time to change?

And I disagree with the overtraining statement. That is the whole point of changing ME movements every one to three weeks…

My .02[/quote]

Yeah I totally agree. The only reason people might think this about Westside is because they use someone elses program and use too much volume for a beginner. No work out should be set in stone anyway. If you are feeling tired from overtraining then back off.
The whole point of Westside is that it is flexible and designed by the individual for the individual. Unfortunately it can take time to get to know what works best for you.

On the use of decline well it can work. For me at least it helps my strength off the chest and I find it LESS stressful on my shoulders because they are not as externally rotated as a normal flat bench.

I am puzzled as to why I am not increasing any weight for my bench press. I have proper nutrition, get plenty of rest, and have good form. I continue to increase weight on incline dumbbell flys and presses and flat db flys and presses. At first, I thought the problem was inadequate shoulder strength, but it seems that is not the problem.

Any thoughts?

celibrate2047,

Maybe it is your tri strength?

[quote]celibrate2047 wrote:
I am puzzled as to why I am not increasing any weight for my bench press. I have proper nutrition, get plenty of rest, and have good form. I continue to increase weight on incline dumbbell flys and presses and flat db flys and presses. At first, I thought the problem was inadequate shoulder strength, but it seems that is not the problem.

Any thoughts?
[/quote]

Do you do all these movements in one workout? I would venture to say your chest is heavily overtrained if that’s the case. Also, what is the order for your exercises? What does the rest of your training program look like? Give us more info and we can better help you out.

Stay strong
Mike

Also how often do you train bench press? If you do flat bench and nothing else you will not make any progress after a while. Substitute board presses, floor presses, inclines bb, decline bb, reverse band presses and change up every three weeks or so. This will stop your CNS fatiguing so much by changing the exercise stimulus.

I do flat bench on Monday. My chest on Mondays is like this: flat bench, incline db press, incline db flye, angled dips. For each exercise, I do 2 sets of 10 reps and 2 sets of 8 reps, increasing weight slightly each time. The problem, like I said is I can’t get past 225 and this has been going on for a long time even though my db weight keeps going up.

I go back on Friday and hit incline db flye and incline db press and the angled dips. So, I only do bench once a week.

Just to chime in on the decline discussion:

i have read that the metal militia crowd loves them because you press downwards wich according to them is the correct way to bench press.

My personal experience is that declines really teach you to get your lats tight. If I don’t pull my shoulder girdle down with my lats it hurts my shoulders. For this reason I have stayed with tripples on this ME movement.