This is an odd story and tell me what you guys thinks. My training partner mentioned to me how this one dude had raised his bench by 75 pounds in about a little more than two months at his old gym. What he would was bench once a week with boards, and the following week he would take off a half inch from the board and continue with the same weight used the previous week, he finally continued this until the boards were all cut away.
If I remember correctly he was able to go from something like 325 to about 400 pounds in bench. What is your view on this do think this is plausible? Have any of you had similar experiences with approach. I only find this interesting because I am just imagining getting my bench from 375 to 440 in maybe three months time.
I feel how I would attack this is start with my 3 board press 2 rep max, and every week I would shave a half inch off my boards and use the weight from the previous week. I would probably bench only once a week but just to maintain my bottom strength I would do regular bench once a while too. I would also make sure to work my rotator cuffs and my back especially I would probably two sessions of back work. I would probably avoid working shoulders just to prevent overtraining.
Well sorry for the long rant but I am really desperate to get to 400 and beyond and it sounds pretty plausible with a progressive minute changes in the board height to increase ROM and still use the same weight.
Please leave me a comment I am open to all opinions and suggestions!!!
Yeah, I heard a similar story about a guy who dug a hole in the ground and set a heavy-ass squat weight above it. So in the hole his ROM was an inch before the plates hit the turf. Every week he would throw a shovelful of dirt into the hole until he was squatting full ROM.
[quote]Brant_Drake wrote:
Yeah, I heard a similar story about a guy who dug a hole in the ground and set a heavy-ass squat weight above it. So in the hole his ROM was an inch before the plates hit the turf. Every week he would throw a shovelful of dirt into the hole until he was squatting full ROM.[/quote]
Thats who i heard did this method, however i heard he did it with a rack and just lowered the pins 2 niches each time. I think its in Beyond Bodybuilding. I have done something similar with deadlifts with good succces. I lifted the weights off 6 inch blocks, then 4 inch blocks, then 2 inch blocks and finally the floor. Took my deadlift from 240kgs to 295kgs in three months.
[quote]Hanley wrote:
Brant_Drake wrote:
Yeah, I heard a similar story about a guy who dug a hole in the ground and set a heavy-ass squat weight above it. So in the hole his ROM was an inch before the plates hit the turf. Every week he would throw a shovelful of dirt into the hole until he was squatting full ROM.
I’m using this exact strategy for my Standing overhead press. Once I hit a triple at a given weight, I increase the ROM 2 inches. It’s working so far… Down to eye level with 190 for singles right now.
[quote]Brant_Drake wrote:
Hanley wrote:
Brant_Drake wrote:
Yeah, I heard a similar story about a guy who dug a hole in the ground and set a heavy-ass squat weight above it. So in the hole his ROM was an inch before the plates hit the turf. Every week he would throw a shovelful of dirt into the hole until he was squatting full ROM.
Paul Anderson?
Don’t remember the name, so it could be.[/quote]
Yeah, it was Paul Anderson. Arthur Dreschler talks about it in his book.
[quote]aussiethrower wrote:
Thats who i heard did this method, however i heard he did it with a rack and just lowered the pins 2 niches each time. I think its in Beyond Bodybuilding. I have done something similar with deadlifts with good succces. I lifted the weights off 6 inch blocks, then 4 inch blocks, then 2 inch blocks and finally the floor. Took my deadlift from 240kgs to 295kgs in three months.[/quote]
Wow if this is true, please PM me on everything you did for that cycle. That is seriosuly impressive gains. How exactly did you set all that up, if you could PM me that’d be really awesome man. peace
I planed on doing this but I would bench to my chest before the board pressess to make sure I keep bottom end strength.
I was actualy going to do deadlifts like this today, Paul Anderson talked about starting off with 2x20 and and moveing down every two weeks until you only had 2 reps.
I have always wanted to do this but was never sure about it until a couple days ago, funny this came up…
This method works very well. I’ve done it with squats. I start off with a high box squat then lower the box an inch every week with that same weight until I got to parallel. Sometimes, it might take longer than a week. Works great at first, but results started slowing down on the 2nd cycle.
It’s analogous to the micro loading method. Just like there’s really not much of a difference in a 1 pound alteration, there’s really not much of a difference in a 1 inch alteration as well. It’s just that joint angle and strength curve seems to play a bigger role in the latter.
[quote]Traps59 wrote:
This method works very well. I’ve done it with squats. I start off with a high box squat then lower the box an inch every week with that same weight until I got to parallel. Sometimes, it might take longer than a week. Works great at first, but results started slowing down on the 2nd cycle.
It’s analogous to the micro loading method. Just like there’s really not much of a difference in a 1 pound alteration, there’s really not much of a difference in a 1 inch alteration as well. It’s just that joint angle and strength curve seems to play a bigger role in the latter. [/quote]
After having done way too much straight bench press on a Bill Starr program for 8 weeks, I found my bench to have actually suffered a little.
Part of my previous strength was due to a lot of supramaximal partials as per Westside. Just unracking heavy weight made my working weight feel that much lighter.
I recently decided to do a progression of triples, singles, then partial ROM singles all in one cluster as part of a new program I made with more variation.