A little background. I’m 23, weigh ~90 kg at 177cm (~200lbs @ 5’10") and have been training for the last 3 and a half years, mostly on a 4 way split, with the general goals of increased mass and strength. I’ve gained around 18 kg in that time.
Over the last 4 months, I’ve been testing Eric Cressey’s new program, somewhat of a follow up to Maximum Strength (his book). It has been a great program, 2 upper and 2 lower days. I followed it as outlined, minus the conditioning, as I was purely aiming to get stronger (this was an acceptable option outlined by him at the start).
Yesterday was retesting (after 6 days off lifting as EC suggested), my goals were to improve my deadlift, bench and neutral grip pull up during the time (he didn’t outline any specific lifts to test, left that to us).
Anyway, my bodyweight increased 2 kg, my deadlift went from 180 kg to 200 kg, my 3RM neutral grip pull up from BW + 20 to BW + 40 kg (with 2kg more BW), however my bench ‘only’ increased 10kg, from a pathetic 90 kg, to a less pathetic 100 kg. Which is weird, because during the training, about half way through, I benched 105 kg.
My goal was to hit 110 kg by the end of the 16 weeks.
Testing went:
Bar * 10,
60 * 5,
80 * 3,
90 * 1,
100 * 1 (Miss),
90 * 1,
100 * 1,
110 * 1 (Miss).
I can’t say why I missed the first 100, but would that have adversely affected my performance. Any ideas as to why my bench regressed? I probably would have been happy with 105 kg again, that would still have been a 15 kg (~33 lbs) lifetime PR.