[quote]RampantBadger wrote:
thanks again for all the replies guys.
Badger that’s a good article.
“*Difficulty locking out the weight at the top is usually due to a relative weakness in the triceps, whereas difficulty getting the weight moving at the bottom is typically due to a weak chest.
*The bar barely leaving the chest can be attributed to lat weakness, assuming the problem isn’t form or ego related. However, if you’re unracking the bar and it’s stapling you to the bench, odds are that you just aren’t being realistic as far as your true strength levels are concerned.”
- Matt Kroc
Probably mentioned already, but a raw bencher really needs to select different ME variations and assistance work than any of the guys training over at Westside for a 900lb geared bench. Louie preaches “tris/lats/delts,” but as a raw lifter developing your chest is the most important part IMO. Also, Louie rarely if ever mentions chest, but their supplemental lift right after the ME is often something that hits the chest hard from what I’ve seen – DB pressing variations and illegal wides a lot of times.
I’d try picking full ROM variations for your ME movement (CGBP, BP, paused BP, 1 board or maybe 2 board, rack lockouts with the pins just off your chest), and then hit chest first right after the ME movement (cambered bar bench presses, illegal wides, DB press variations). You can then also add a third “extra workout” for bench that is basically RE/hypertrophy for your chest and Tris. Something like:
M - ME Bench
T - DE Squat/DL
W -
Th - DE Bench
F - ME Squat/DL
Sat - Extra workout focused on RE work for chest/tris
Sun -
Disclaimer: weak bencher here…anyway, I managed to make my bp less embarassing focusing on:
-
upper back (horizontal pull mostly);
-
2 secondsd pause on chest & pushing explosively every rep;
-
SMOLOV JUNIOR
It has you benching 4 times a week, with different rep/set schemes. It may sound a bit too much, but if you calculate the weights using 90% of your true max, it will work wonders;
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
Once every other week, work up to singles at 80 90 95 all competition paused, then drop back to around 75% and do 6 second pauses on your chest. Jump up around 10 lbs each set. [/quote]
Interesting idea. Where’d you find that?[/quote]
Coaches Idea. We run a Bulgarian style template, in that we work up to a new max every time we walk into the gym for the 3 main lifts (4 x a week for now).
Being that we compete in PL we obviously had to modify certain things since you cannot realy take the PL lifts as many times on average as you can with say the CJ or snatch due to the extremelty different eccentric portion of the lifts.
Anyhow, one of the variations we use on the bench is a 6 second pause. And it has worked like hell lately, I was getting a little slow on my lock out but after doing the 6 sec pauses my lockout immediately improved since i was getting the weight their quicker. (its main purpose of course is speed off chest and tightness) all I can say is 6 true second pauses suck, they work great but once you get to like 85 % you hate life. (take this with a grain of salt my best bench is only low 400s so its nothing crazy enough to really be giving others advice)
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
Once every other week, work up to singles at 80 90 95 all competition paused, then drop back to around 75% and do 6 second pauses on your chest. Jump up around 10 lbs each set. [/quote]
Interesting idea. Where’d you find that?[/quote]
Coaches Idea. We run a Bulgarian style template, in that we work up to a new max every time we walk into the gym for the 3 main lifts (4 x a week for now).
Being that we compete in PL we obviously had to modify certain things since you cannot realy take the PL lifts as many times on average as you can with say the CJ or snatch due to the extremelty different eccentric portion of the lifts.
Anyhow, one of the variations we use on the bench is a 6 second pause. And it has worked like hell lately, I was getting a little slow on my lock out but after doing the 6 sec pauses my lockout immediately improved since i was getting the weight their quicker. (its main purpose of course is speed off chest and tightness) all I can say is 6 true second pauses suck, they work great but once you get to like 85 % you hate life. (take this with a grain of salt my best bench is only low 400s so its nothing crazy enough to really be giving others advice)[/quote]
That’s crazy awesome. A raw 400 bench ain’t bad my friend. I’m still in the mid 4’s for my all-time best too so I don’t really want to give too much specific advice to powerlifters since my bench sucks pretty hard in competitive circles lol.
I am currently running an experiment with some frequency training (which I have always liked, but now I am toying with some different styles/variables)…how are you approaching the training maxes? Are they around 90% of your true max?
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
Once every other week, work up to singles at 80 90 95 all competition paused, then drop back to around 75% and do 6 second pauses on your chest. Jump up around 10 lbs each set. [/quote]
Interesting idea. Where’d you find that?[/quote]
Coaches Idea. We run a Bulgarian style template, in that we work up to a new max every time we walk into the gym for the 3 main lifts (4 x a week for now).
Being that we compete in PL we obviously had to modify certain things since you cannot realy take the PL lifts as many times on average as you can with say the CJ or snatch due to the extremelty different eccentric portion of the lifts.
Anyhow, one of the variations we use on the bench is a 6 second pause. And it has worked like hell lately, I was getting a little slow on my lock out but after doing the 6 sec pauses my lockout immediately improved since i was getting the weight their quicker. (its main purpose of course is speed off chest and tightness) all I can say is 6 true second pauses suck, they work great but once you get to like 85 % you hate life. (take this with a grain of salt my best bench is only low 400s so its nothing crazy enough to really be giving others advice)[/quote]
That’s crazy awesome. A raw 400 bench ain’t bad my friend. I’m still in the mid 4’s for my all-time best too so I don’t really want to give too much specific advice to powerlifters since my bench sucks pretty hard in competitive circles lol.
I am currently running an experiment with some frequency training (which I have always liked, but now I am toying with some different styles/variables)…how are you approaching the training maxes? Are they around 90% of your true max?[/quote]
Negative, we use true training maxes for every variation.
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
Once every other week, work up to singles at 80 90 95 all competition paused, then drop back to around 75% and do 6 second pauses on your chest. Jump up around 10 lbs each set. [/quote]
Interesting idea. Where’d you find that?[/quote]
Coaches Idea. We run a Bulgarian style template, in that we work up to a new max every time we walk into the gym for the 3 main lifts (4 x a week for now).
Being that we compete in PL we obviously had to modify certain things since you cannot realy take the PL lifts as many times on average as you can with say the CJ or snatch due to the extremelty different eccentric portion of the lifts.
Anyhow, one of the variations we use on the bench is a 6 second pause. And it has worked like hell lately, I was getting a little slow on my lock out but after doing the 6 sec pauses my lockout immediately improved since i was getting the weight their quicker. (its main purpose of course is speed off chest and tightness) all I can say is 6 true second pauses suck, they work great but once you get to like 85 % you hate life. (take this with a grain of salt my best bench is only low 400s so its nothing crazy enough to really be giving others advice)[/quote]
That’s crazy awesome. A raw 400 bench ain’t bad my friend. I’m still in the mid 4’s for my all-time best too so I don’t really want to give too much specific advice to powerlifters since my bench sucks pretty hard in competitive circles lol.
I am currently running an experiment with some frequency training (which I have always liked, but now I am toying with some different styles/variables)…how are you approaching the training maxes? Are they around 90% of your true max?[/quote]
Negative, we use true training maxes for every variation. [/quote]
Right. I feel like we might be talking around each other here. How do you define your training max is what I am asking–taken to technical failure, grinding, or what…and what ballpark are your typical training maxes compared to your true all-out max (typically technical breakdoen happens around 90-94 ish % for a lot of people) Or are you taking true raw maxes and competing geared, or how is your maximum training poundage defined for the day?
[quote]Brett620 wrote:
I’m getting closer and closer to 40 years old, and a goal of mine was always to be able to bench 300 for 1 rep.
Right now I’m stuck at 270 with my all time best of 285 last year at a body weight of 20 pounds heavier.
I follow a West-side system of 2x per week, and my weak point is off of the chest. The bottom third. Once I get to the second third, I’m able to struggle through the middle and top portion to complete the rep.
Question: what would be a good focus/assistance program to address this weakness??
**Also, I think my bench is more shoulder dominant and less tricep involved. My elbows tend to flare often. My standing barbell press is pretty good: I weigh 170 and can do 185. It’s my best lift. My close grip bench is weak. I do 185/205 for low reps.
Any help? Thanks in advance. [/quote]
My closegrip has always been around 90% of my regular bench, and it actually is good for strength off of the chest because you are in a deeper position at the bottom of a closegrip than a regular grip bench, and you have to be tight. Stronger tris help at every point in the bench.
Also I like 1-arm dumbell bench presses for 5-10 rep sets, squeezing tight, and lat work.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
Once every other week, work up to singles at 80 90 95 all competition paused, then drop back to around 75% and do 6 second pauses on your chest. Jump up around 10 lbs each set. [/quote]
Interesting idea. Where’d you find that?[/quote]
Coaches Idea. We run a Bulgarian style template, in that we work up to a new max every time we walk into the gym for the 3 main lifts (4 x a week for now).
Being that we compete in PL we obviously had to modify certain things since you cannot realy take the PL lifts as many times on average as you can with say the CJ or snatch due to the extremelty different eccentric portion of the lifts.
Anyhow, one of the variations we use on the bench is a 6 second pause. And it has worked like hell lately, I was getting a little slow on my lock out but after doing the 6 sec pauses my lockout immediately improved since i was getting the weight their quicker. (its main purpose of course is speed off chest and tightness) all I can say is 6 true second pauses suck, they work great but once you get to like 85 % you hate life. (take this with a grain of salt my best bench is only low 400s so its nothing crazy enough to really be giving others advice)[/quote]
That’s crazy awesome. A raw 400 bench ain’t bad my friend. I’m still in the mid 4’s for my all-time best too so I don’t really want to give too much specific advice to powerlifters since my bench sucks pretty hard in competitive circles lol.
I am currently running an experiment with some frequency training (which I have always liked, but now I am toying with some different styles/variables)…how are you approaching the training maxes? Are they around 90% of your true max?[/quote]
Negative, we use true training maxes for every variation. [/quote]
Right. I feel like we might be talking around each other here. How do you define your training max is what I am asking–taken to technical failure, grinding, or what…and what ballpark are your typical training maxes compared to your true all-out max (typically technical breakdoen happens around 90-94 ish % for a lot of people) Or are you taking true raw maxes and competing geared, or how is your maximum training poundage defined for the day?[/quote]
We have a Tendo unit. So while we were running Sheiko we used it on our skills eval and mock meet days to find our training maxes. (personally I think a tendo is extremely important when running Sheiko).
We the transitioned from Sheiko to our modified Bulgarian method. The point was to pretty much perfect form/habits, before going into Bulgarian where we would be maxing out every time we stepped in the gym on the days variation.
I am still fairly new to PL and have only done a couple meets so my training maxes are not very far from my competition, that being said, both of those meets I was easily able to tack on 10 lbs+ @ the meet to what ever I had hit the week or two before the comp. Now that I have been using the method longer though I feel I will start seeing much bigger differences. Would be awesome to get the 10% jump in meets that Sheiko and Abejaev(SP lol) talk about their elite athletes getting.
Not sure if that cleared it up for you. Basically we use the tendo which tracks your speed/force output on the rep, to determine the maximal effort that day and where to cut it.
If I did not have a tendo I would literally go until a grinder from hell or a miss. I usually only re-attempt a miss 2 times, and then if still didnt get it that day drop to 90-95 for a few reps. I do not feel you can take a weight, miss it 7 times and hit it the 8th like the Bulgarians were able to do, this is the biggest difference from Oly to PL imo.
Do you have an email? I would be interested in discussing how you modify the method for your training and the pm system here does not work real well.
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
Once every other week, work up to singles at 80 90 95 all competition paused, then drop back to around 75% and do 6 second pauses on your chest. Jump up around 10 lbs each set. [/quote]
Interesting idea. Where’d you find that?[/quote]
Coaches Idea. We run a Bulgarian style template, in that we work up to a new max every time we walk into the gym for the 3 main lifts (4 x a week for now).
Being that we compete in PL we obviously had to modify certain things since you cannot realy take the PL lifts as many times on average as you can with say the CJ or snatch due to the extremelty different eccentric portion of the lifts.
Anyhow, one of the variations we use on the bench is a 6 second pause. And it has worked like hell lately, I was getting a little slow on my lock out but after doing the 6 sec pauses my lockout immediately improved since i was getting the weight their quicker. (its main purpose of course is speed off chest and tightness) all I can say is 6 true second pauses suck, they work great but once you get to like 85 % you hate life. (take this with a grain of salt my best bench is only low 400s so its nothing crazy enough to really be giving others advice)[/quote]
That’s crazy awesome. A raw 400 bench ain’t bad my friend. I’m still in the mid 4’s for my all-time best too so I don’t really want to give too much specific advice to powerlifters since my bench sucks pretty hard in competitive circles lol.
I am currently running an experiment with some frequency training (which I have always liked, but now I am toying with some different styles/variables)…how are you approaching the training maxes? Are they around 90% of your true max?[/quote]
Negative, we use true training maxes for every variation. [/quote]
Right. I feel like we might be talking around each other here. How do you define your training max is what I am asking–taken to technical failure, grinding, or what…and what ballpark are your typical training maxes compared to your true all-out max (typically technical breakdoen happens around 90-94 ish % for a lot of people) Or are you taking true raw maxes and competing geared, or how is your maximum training poundage defined for the day?[/quote]
We have a Tendo unit. So while we were running Sheiko we used it on our skills eval and mock meet days to find our training maxes. (personally I think a tendo is extremely important when running Sheiko).
We the transitioned from Sheiko to our modified Bulgarian method. The point was to pretty much perfect form/habits, before going into Bulgarian where we would be maxing out every time we stepped in the gym on the days variation.
I am still fairly new to PL and have only done a couple meets so my training maxes are not very far from my competition, that being said, both of those meets I was easily able to tack on 10 lbs+ @ the meet to what ever I had hit the week or two before the comp. Now that I have been using the method longer though I feel I will start seeing much bigger differences. Would be awesome to get the 10% jump in meets that Sheiko and Abejaev(SP lol) talk about their elite athletes getting.
Not sure if that cleared it up for you. Basically we use the tendo which tracks your speed/force output on the rep, to determine the maximal effort that day and where to cut it.[/quote]
So do you stop when your force starts to go down?
When it falls down to a certain point. Sometimes a maximal effort lift will not even register on a tendo ( if your body comes to a complete stop). We have certain numbers married to certain percentages for a lift. This is extremely useful in volume cyclesl ike Sheiko because the standard bench session is say 5x3 or 6x2 ect. you are only using 80-85% of your training max therefore the tendo unit lets you see the amount of force/speed output so that you can make modifications set by set.
Something completely worth buying if you find a cheap one on craigs or amazon
But even at zero speed you need to add the isometric force (weight) to determine your force. What are the output units for the Tendo? I think that if it something that falls to zero you should add barweight to the total. Is it power or force or speed?
One of my favorite things to help the lower end of my bench is extremely heavy band tension. I rarely use more than 135 on the bar. I begin with a light band. On my Forza, I hook the band over the end of the bar, under the lower bench support beam (approx. under my shoulder blades), then over the other end of the bar.
With each set I will decrease the reps and add another mini band in the same fashion. I’ve done singles with a light + 6 or 8 minis. This forces you to remain very tight through the whole movement as well as requiring serious explosion off the chest. If you don’t get the bar moving, you won’t be able to lock it out. My best raw bench was 485 at 220 and this exercise was used 2-3 times a month in my training cycle.
[quote]Antman517 wrote:
One of my favorite things to help the lower end of my bench is extremely heavy band tension. I rarely use more than 135 on the bar. I begin with a light band. On my Forza, I hook the band over the end of the bar, under the lower bench support beam (approx. under my shoulder blades), then over the other end of the bar.
With each set I will decrease the reps and add another mini band in the same fashion. I’ve done singles with a light + 6 or 8 minis. This forces you to remain very tight through the whole movement as well as requiring serious explosion off the chest. If you don’t get the bar moving, you won’t be able to lock it out. My best raw bench was 485 at 220 and this exercise was used 2-3 times a month in my training cycle.[/quote]
I’ve used double looped small and medium bands, and a pair of doubled medium bands adds roughly 130 or 140 pounds of force at the bottom of the bench and 180-200 at the top. It DOES make you super tight and I maintain that tightness even for 4-5 days if I bench again, but I have been experimenting with how often to use them.
If you did them 2-3 times a month, how many total times were you benching in that period? I think I tended to overuse them and get away from barweight.
Also, unexpectedly, after using double bands for a few weeks I found that I could not lower barweight only very fast-I had a natural resistance to lowering it when I tried to max.
I bench twice a week. One day will be full range and the other is a partial movement (boards, floor press, decline). I don’t think you can do too much band work or too little “just bar weight”. Remember, you are pushing with maximum force no matter what type of resistance is on the bar. I concern myself more with how much I am taxing myself using max resistance in a given time period. You can’t go balls out twice a week for a month and not expect to be injured or even regress
Any love for floor presses? They do an ok job for me if I pause them a long time at the bottom. It’s a tiny bit higher than a one board for me and with an arch that might be close to my regular bench. It used to be a more like a two board for me, but I managed to beef up my upper back over enough time to reduce the ROM.
Which brings me to my point, beef up your upper back and chest so you don’t have to suffer through that low point as long.
Another tip is to use a narrower grip. Granted, for the extra pop off the chest you get, you lose power higher up in the stroke.
Wide grip bench press is kind of like sumo pull I’ve found, if I can get it off my chest more than a few inches I’ve got it but with a medium or narrow grip the weight flies off my chest and gets stuck around the middle to the bottom of lockout.
Any love for floor presses? They do an ok job for me if I pause them a long time at the bottom. It’s a tiny bit higher than a one board for me and with an arch that might be close to my regular bench. It used to be a more like a two board for me, but I managed to beef up my upper back over enough time to reduce the ROM.
Which brings me to my point, beef up your upper back and chest so you don’t have to suffer through that low point as long.
Another tip is to use a narrower grip. Granted, for the extra pop off the chest you get, you lose power higher up in the stroke.
Wide grip bench press is kind of like sumo pull I’ve found, if I can get it off my chest more than a few inches I’ve got it but with a medium or narrow grip the weight flies off my chest and gets stuck around the middle to the bottom of lockout.
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]Curls4Girls wrote:
Once every other week, work up to singles at 80 90 95 all competition paused, then drop back to around 75% and do 6 second pauses on your chest. Jump up around 10 lbs each set. [/quote]
Interesting idea. Where’d you find that?[/quote]
Coaches Idea. We run a Bulgarian style template, in that we work up to a new max every time we walk into the gym for the 3 main lifts (4 x a week for now).
Being that we compete in PL we obviously had to modify certain things since you cannot realy take the PL lifts as many times on average as you can with say the CJ or snatch due to the extremelty different eccentric portion of the lifts.
Anyhow, one of the variations we use on the bench is a 6 second pause. And it has worked like hell lately, I was getting a little slow on my lock out but after doing the 6 sec pauses my lockout immediately improved since i was getting the weight their quicker. (its main purpose of course is speed off chest and tightness) all I can say is 6 true second pauses suck, they work great but once you get to like 85 % you hate life. (take this with a grain of salt my best bench is only low 400s so its nothing crazy enough to really be giving others advice)[/quote]
That’s crazy awesome. A raw 400 bench ain’t bad my friend. I’m still in the mid 4’s for my all-time best too so I don’t really want to give too much specific advice to powerlifters since my bench sucks pretty hard in competitive circles lol.
I am currently running an experiment with some frequency training (which I have always liked, but now I am toying with some different styles/variables)…how are you approaching the training maxes? Are they around 90% of your true max?[/quote]
Negative, we use true training maxes for every variation. [/quote]
Right. I feel like we might be talking around each other here. How do you define your training max is what I am asking–taken to technical failure, grinding, or what…and what ballpark are your typical training maxes compared to your true all-out max (typically technical breakdoen happens around 90-94 ish % for a lot of people) Or are you taking true raw maxes and competing geared, or how is your maximum training poundage defined for the day?[/quote]
We have a Tendo unit. So while we were running Sheiko we used it on our skills eval and mock meet days to find our training maxes. (personally I think a tendo is extremely important when running Sheiko).
We the transitioned from Sheiko to our modified Bulgarian method. The point was to pretty much perfect form/habits, before going into Bulgarian where we would be maxing out every time we stepped in the gym on the days variation.
I am still fairly new to PL and have only done a couple meets so my training maxes are not very far from my competition, that being said, both of those meets I was easily able to tack on 10 lbs+ @ the meet to what ever I had hit the week or two before the comp. Now that I have been using the method longer though I feel I will start seeing much bigger differences. Would be awesome to get the 10% jump in meets that Sheiko and Abejaev(SP lol) talk about their elite athletes getting.
Not sure if that cleared it up for you. Basically we use the tendo which tracks your speed/force output on the rep, to determine the maximal effort that day and where to cut it.[/quote]
Yeah that definitely helps. I don’t have access to a $1600 Tendo unfortunately :). But it clears up how you were measuring when to cut the sets off for the day which is what I was trying to understand, since most people speak of training maxes and comp maxes differently (technical breakdown and all that). About what were your cut-off points on the Tendo for speed/force/power? It might come in handy later if I end up investing in one.
Also good point about using Sheiko as a prep for Bulgarian style training. I think that is very overlooked.