Sometimes the thought that I still can’t bench 225 makes me wonder if I’ve been doing anything right at all in the gym for the past 4 and a half years
Hmm, what are your goals? If it’s strength, I’d say you missed the boat. If it’s hypertrophy, no necessarily terrible I’d think…
I’d suspect you don’t really focus much on improving your lifts?? Is that accurate?
What are the rest of your lifts like?
Yeah, correct. Only ever trained for hypertrophy. Still, 225 isn’t such a big milestone right? I thought it might have come just with training
Not sure about RM’s, but as far as pr’s I got
Squat 300 x 3, and 260-something x 13
Deadlift 400 x 1 (not a max effort single, although close), 350 x 13
If I could do it all over again I’d put way more emphasis on getting more out of less than the other way around.
On the other hand, I got to learn all kinds of neat stuff about shoulder rehab, prehab, etc. and a mediocre accomplishment on an exercise with virtually no carry over to real world movement.
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So basically you’re saying, work on making a light weight feel heavy?
Yeah, I thing that’s a good way of saying it.
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It is … it’s s lot of fucking weight to lift with your upper body lol … it takes 99% of people who can lift it training to achieve it … if you don’t focus on that type of training it makes sense you wouldn’t be able to … if that type of thing doesn’t (didn’t?) fit into your goals but you still were hitting your goals I don’t think it really matters
If you want to get 225, train for it … I’m sure you have the base to hit it fairly quickly with a bit of effort and focus…
I lol’d
Dude, I still can’t bench 1 plate 
I’ve been stuck at 57.5kg for a good year and that’s probably gone down significantly from not being in the gym
If you use kgs then you only need to hit 220 for a two plate bench.
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That changes everything!!
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I confess I’m again witnessing the effects of age and equipment limitations on my training philosophy. At 42 I’m not old, but I’m not a teenager either. Now that I’ve returned to the gym - Planet Fitness, for now - I’m rethinking my training goals.
They have no free barbells and the dumbbells only go to 75 pounds, so traditional lifts and weight-to-the-bar standards for measuring strength are on hiatus. The scary part is, I’m ok with that. For now.
I’m enjoying getting a pump, and I like the fact my joints aren’t the only fulcrums for movement forces. I’m even going to start a bro split or push/pull/legs for the first time in more than a decade. My training and fitness paradigms are evolving again. Someone intervene if/when I start wearing sweatbands on my wrists.
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I had an earlier confession in this thread about my goal for this year being to bench 200 (bodyweight for me) and feeling it was a bit lame. I’ve changed my mind on it being lame.
I saw a thread about 350lbs being achievable for most men, and frankly - it isn’t. We forget that people on these forums tend to be genetically gifted in terms of strength AND also focused and motivated when it comes to training.
I’m going to make a wild guess here and estimate that less than 1% of men (and even fewer women) on this planet can bench their bodyweight right now, today…
No point comparing yourself to a bunch of gifted, dedicated meatheads who can all lift 500, but equally no point in comparing to a bunch of couch potatoes who can barely lift a 16oz beer without pulling a fat.
225 is a lot of weight and a good milestone to shoot for.
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I confess that I know this is the wrong place to discuss this, but all the people whose advice I actually respect post in this thread, so here’s where I’m asking:
Standing vs seated overhead press - does it make much of a difference?
(I live in the UK, and in this country, they’re good at the sitting-down sports: cycling, rowing, sailing, motor racing, canoeing…)
I confess that this will now be in my vocabulary. Permanently.
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Not lame at all … because:
I think this is pretty accurate - at least in the ball park
No, it’s achievable. But it requires A LOT of work and dedication. Both things the vast majority of men (I’ll go with what your number of 99%/1%) won’t develop the work ethic, fortitude and dedication to achieve it.
That’s not a knock on them either … it’s fookin’ hard and a lot of set backs will most likely occur along the way. A lot of wear and tear on the joints and shit like that along with other things in life happen. I’ve maxed out at 325# about 8 years ago. Then life things happened and I shifted away from lifting for strength goals.
I could have achieved 350# no doubt in my mind, but I shifted my focus towards other things, as people are apt to do. It’s achievable, but very, very difficult and my be very impractical to pursue given the opportunity costs of the pursuit…
To reiterate, this is 100% accurate. 225# is a lot of weight.
I benched 225 once and never did it again. I kinda feel like I’d I can do 4-5 pull-ups at a weighted 180 that’s a more impressive feat. If I see guys do pull-ups- instantly more respect
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I tend to understand the questions to be one of possibility rather than probability. I think the majority of men can bench 350lbs if forced to: it’s the “forced to” bit that gets lacking.
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I’ve gone off program multiple times already just trying to get a 225 bench. It’s a small/insignificant goal I have, and to be honest I kind of hate benching, but I want to do it to prove to myself that I can. As of right now I just want to do it and get it over with so I stop thinking about how I haven’t done it yet.
I guess my confession is that I am super impatient. Sometimes it turns out to be a good thing, like going off program for a zercher squat, and other times it totally screws over my training for weeks… Like the fucking 4 plate dead and 2 plate bench. It pisses me off just thinking about it.
You’re right that probability is entirely different to possibility.
I don’t believe there is any possibility that I could ever have benched 350. I’ve trained for more than 30 years and I think I pretty much realized my potential for lifting weights. I hit 300 when I was in my mid-30s, and I think there’s no way I could have added another nearly 20% to that. Maybe.
But I’ve also been in the army, and played rugby, and even in those peer groups I was always at least top half for strength. So I’d say half of those peer groups definitely couldn’t do it (based on me maybe being able to do it). And I’d say being in the army or a rugby team is as close to being forced to your maximum physical limits as practically possible in the real world (appreciate that you can caveat that by saying that they’re not primarily focussed on benching).
Anyway, regardless of which of us is correct, I still say @samul should be pretty chuffed with 225, and if I hit 200 this year I’m definitely going to post a selfie on Facebook saying “Just benched 400!”
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Did you take steroids and get your bodyweight up to 400lbs? Those are two of the most immediate things I would do to get someone to a 350 bench if I was forced to.
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