It’s time to see other benches. I’m gonna play the field, of benches.
Bench has always been a shit lift for me. My strongest benches came when I focused on overhead stuff. I know I don’t have to do a lift to improve a lift. So why do I keep benching? Because Ripplestilkskin said to?
My right shoulder is a problem. I fix it, then bench press messes it up again. My shoulder can’t move through that ROM properly, my arm does something strange, and it irritates my elbow and shoulder.
So every bench is a bad bench. Practice of Garbage. I made a little progress on decline bench and Tricep stuff. Cutting the range of motion or changing the angle allowed me to train better. Then the bamboo bar let me get used to flat bench again. My bench went up 30 pounds. It worked so good, I stopped doing it.
Also, my max effort moves are disjointed and un-unified. I had no plan, and the lifts didn’t build of eachother.
I was listening to Wu Tang, and heard this quote
My training is chaotic!
Bench is easy! I just have to practice better. Benching is not the best practice for benching.
I’ve just got to practice shoulder position, then exercise with that shoulder position. Limited ROM benches(decline, maybe something else), with chains for accomodating resistance. Less weight at the bottom so I can maintain good position through the lift.
For Max Effort, I’ll start high with short range Bench Lockouts. Then I’ll just increase the ROM of the lift every week, finishing with something longer and more difficult than bench press, like close grip incline. If I hit a PR every week, working down, surely I’ll be able to hit a PR flat bench after 6-9 weeks.
Dumbbell pressing will let me hit any other relevant angles, without damaging myself.
So, rythm to my max effort. Decline bench for melody. Dumbbells for harmony.
