I am a female lifter wanting to make progressions on my bench and seated military press and wondering if using the Smith machine can allow progressions without the need for a spotter. I can usually find someone I trust but not always, and I don’t want to wonder if the guy I keep asking minds me asking.
The question applies to both exercises:
Bench Press:
I have pretty much abandoned traditional bench pressing since I need a spot almost every time for at least the last two sets and found it too difficult to progress. I have been doing a seated, pressing 180 x 6 by the end of the set.
Seated Military Press
Recent PR 115 x 3. Having the most difficulty with the release and can usually find someone to spot me for this part but not always. I used to need a spot with 110 but have recently been able to release that on my own for 4 reps.
I am wondering if the Smith machine would be a better way to go with both these exercises. If so, how do you account for the bar of the weight (if at all) on the bench press. Just for kicks, today at the end of workout I benched 120 x 6 on the Smith. This was at the end. I imagine I would have better results earlier in my workout.
Doing these exercises on Smith will get you better at doing them, on smith, but some of that strength can still carry over to BB lift (emphasis on some).
If your goals are for strength, as in powerlifting meet specific, I don’t think I would recommend this as your primary progression - although it could be used well as supplemental work (in addition to regular BB lifts).
If your goals are for hypertrophy, then this substitution would work fine for that. Building muscle is building muscle, doesn’t really matter what exercises you do to get there =)
I’m not sure I know what you mean by a seated bench.
I’m not a smith machine hater, and basically agree with everything @Andrewgen_Receptors said!
For hypertrophy, I’d consider splitting the difference on your exercise choice and trying incline. Especially for women! It’s a great blend of delt and upper chest.
In terms of no spotter, and again considering hypertrophy, I don’t think there’s any reason to go for a rep you’re unsure you’ll get on compound moves. I’ll go to failure on machines, but I can’t even get myself to a point I’d miss a barbell lift. I may be (and likely am) just wussy.
I don’t think it matters what you call the weight on the bar, as long as you’re consistent. You’re not reporting smith world records, it’s just for your own progress. I’d probably call it 45 to make my math easy!
I would support what TFP is saying here. My training focus is strength (for powerlifting) but that includes doing hypertrophy work too. Even in my strength training blocks it is very rare for me to miss a rep (get stuck) and most of the time I train one or two reps away from failure. Even doing this you can still progress strength and add muscle. For bench press does your gym have a bench or rack with safety arms on it. These are great to use for benching alone, as the bar will sit on the safeties rathe than your neck if you do get stuck. I have trained by myself for a long time and never need a spotter.
With the military press are you doing these standing up ? If so you should not have a problem putting the bar back on the hooks when you cant lift it anymore. Just set the hooks up low enough that you are having to get under the bar with it across the front of your shoulders when you unrack it.
@Andrewgen_Receptors and @TrainForPain have covered the rest of your question well. If you are just trying to build some muscle and get stronger then the smith will still do the job. All that really matters is consistency and effort, the rest is all just icing on the cake.
Seated bench is the wrong description. Does seated chest press sound right? It is interesting to me to hear that you don’t get to the point of missing a barbell lift. I wonder if that speaks to your experience in the gym, gender or development of other muscle groups - or probably all three. If I want to progress on bench I will fail the barbell lift every time - with the current goal of 135. I managed 115 x 3 several months ago then just switched to the seated version.
@Andrewgen_Receptors my goal is to get strong af but not for meets - just because I want to. You provided a great reminder that building muscle is building muscle. I am just getting frustrated/annoyed with myself having to ask someone to help me every time for both exercises (seated chest press and seated barbell overhead press) and thought the Smith can help alleviate that. Every few weeks I can get out of the Smith and see how my progressions are.
@TrainForPain does the incline bench press “combine” both the bench and overhead press? I actually really enjoy doing the overhead press as my primary reason for doing them. But certainly combining two exercises in one is appealing for many reasons.
I don’t know if I’d say it combines them. I’m not particularly strong at either bench or overhead relative to my strength on incline. Strength does tend to be specific. I think in terms of bang for your buck, it’s a nice middle ground for the muscle groups that look good in a t-shirt or sundress.
If you like the overhead - never stop! Seriously. This is a hobby; we have to do what we like.
You’re a strong person! I understand what you mean now on seated chest press.
I would offer you’re more likely to progress faster on your strength lifts by leaving a rep or two in the tank. I do think failure (or close to it) is very beneficial for hypertrophy, but only on “safe” lifts. Not only is the risk very high on a squat or bench if I truly fail, but it may take me two weeks to recover to a point where I want to do any real volume again. That trade off doesn’t work out over the long term if I do it more than once in awhile.
Folks will definitely come in and disagree with me on that last point, which is totally fair, but we usually find we’re disagreeing on the definition of failure. They’ll say they “failed” when their form got ugly; to me I’m saying I collapsed in the rack. In either case, I absolutely think you’re good to put the bar up when you know you did your last crisp barbell rep, then go fail on a machine press.
I’ll also edit myself here that @simo74 is definitely more adept at strength style training than I am, as are others, so I’ll rate his advice higher than my own.
@DTX did you start a training log yet ? I know you were discussing it with @TrainForPain in your other thread but i didn’t see the new log yet. If you are OK to log your workouts and food I really think there is heaps of benefit you will get from it. Having people check in with you daily to see how well you are doing as well as offer direct advice to the program and diet you are running is really invaluable. You clearly love doing this stuff, have made some awesome progress so far and have your head screwed on the right way. I am genuinely excited to see how well you could do with just some small changes and guidance.
This being the case: there’s no rules. Any lift you want to get strong at, just do it - whatever form that may take. I would go as far as to say you should look into DoggCrapp Training because the entire program is built around getting stronger at every lift, every week. When you stop progressing with that lift/exercise, you move to a new one and get stronger at that one… it suits your goals pretty well, i think.
Joking, if people (including guys blasting AAS) could gain 50lbs of muscle in a year, there would be no other programs in existence… 50lbs is a LOT of muscle, so this is a bit of an exaggerated claim.
Title aside, this training method will get you strong and build muscle. Your goal with this training method is to increase weight or reps each training session, and when you can’t do that anymore - you change out the specific exercise you stopped progressing in. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, then i think this program will work well for you. Of course, if you’d isn’t your style - there are dozens more programs if you wanted to change things up.
Or if you just wanted to keep doing your thing and add in the smith machine - that works too.
That’s a problem, in my opinion. There’s no reason why you need to be pushing your sets to failure, particularly if STRENGTH is your main goal (as opposed to physique). The best lifters I know rarely do this on their main lifts (male or female) and they continually make progress. I DO understand training to failure on supplemental lifts (think bicep curls, tricep extensions, lateral raises, etc) on burnout sets where you’re pushing a very high rep count. But you’re talking about training in the less than 5 rep range. If every session, you’re failing bench presses under 5 reps, your program needs rethinking.
If it’s important to you to keep failing on sets, or pushing near-failure, here’s another way you could approach it: You said it’s only the last couple sets that you fear failure on bench press, right? So maybe do all the sets you can that you don’t need a spotter for on a standard barbell, and then for your heavy sets you’re worried about, move over to the smith machine THEN. That way you get work done on both!
Appreciate your reply. Bench has always been hard for me to progress on alone. Maybe because I was new to lifting overall and has not developed enough peripheral strength with other muscle groups. Last I was under the bar several months ago I needed help with 115 x 2-3 reps. I wanted to try 135 but did not want to bother the same person again to spot me. After that I just switched to seated chest press and have made some progress there. Last seated press max was 180 x 6. I will try to get back under the bar and report back.
Have you posted what your training looks like on here somewhere? If you have, I’d love to take a look. My hunch is that you’re working too much in the very low rep ranges. Generally speaking, it will pay off to spend time working on higher rep ranges, specifically on the bench press, as well. Doing work in the 8-15 rep range, along with the lower reps, can help strength gains tremendously.
All these brilliant minds above have covered everything… almost. The only thing I’ll add is to clarify what’s going on with your exercise selection and the weights used.
Your body has a set amount of energy to give to something. On a seated bench press, there is nothing to do except press. The movement is determined by the machine so there is no balancing. If both arms are connected as one unit, then you don’t even have to worry about one arm doing more work than the other. All of your effort is going into the press.
Now let’s look at barbell bench. While doing this, you have to balance your body left and right as well as balancing the bar left, right, forward, and backwards. That’s a lot of extra work compared to the seated chest press. The end result is that you press less weight because you’re multi tasking. You’re “leaking” energy to stabilize things. This is also why you typically can’t dumbbell press what you barbell press. You have to balance each arm independently so you’re losing energy to all the extra work done to balance the weights.
Training on the seated chest press will make you stronger, but it won’t transfer to barbell bench right away. You will have to go back to training barbell bench for a bit before that new strength shows up.
The science says strength is developed by generating volume in the 80-87% of 1RM range. That should put you somewhere in the 3-6 reps per set range. If you do a rep that is a slow grind, then you’re done. Grinding reps aren’t necessary to build strength. That’s why many lifters stop a set when their form starts to break down or the speed of the bar decreases. I’m not saying that you can’t improve from grinding reps, but they have no place in your training if you don’t have a safe way to fail a rep.
