Pugs, have you checked out the West Side site or any of the articles by Dave Tate? I’m certain if anyone is able to help you a bit, it’s a man who benches 600 lbs.
Here's a bit of an interesting story. Some time last year I was extremely busy and needed a workout that wouldn't be very time consuming. I stumbled upon "Static Contraction" by Pete Sisco. Basically what it sounds like. You hold immense amounts of weight in a static position; every time you can hold that weight for about 12 seconds you move the weight up.
Long story short, my static strength obviously increased dramatically, but so did my dynamic strength. I increased my dynamic 3 rep max from 315 to 335. I wasn't "stuck" at 315; but I had only recently broken my 295 plataeu. It's something you may want to consider. Hope this helps.
kelly offers one good school of thought, but at the same time, if you have tiny lats or shoulders, work on hypertrophying them, concurently with strength workouts (this is incorporated in in WSB)… i sincerely doubt your tris are currently the limit when looking at your close grip bench. Some things to try (some have already been mentioned) in different phases, negatives, isometrics and chains (accomodating resitance, dont mess with bands yet). poliquin has some good articles on basic incorporation of these, on this site and on his own.
My height is 6’0 my weight is around 250, i have very broad shoulders, I think to my knowledge most of My sticking points are a few inches off of my chest…
What is the longest you have gone without benching? If it is not going up, you are not getting stronger nor bigger, so you are not maximizing your time. I want to say wasting but that is too strong a word for some. GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THE BENCH FOR A WHILE, A LONG WHILE. Where are you sticking? Are you doing bent over rows for as many sets and in the same % of 1rm as you bench? Too many answers here. Do you periodize?
Yes I did, It was my sophomore year in HS and I competed in the Junior division for 15-16 y.o., In the 248 weight class, yes I got 1st with those numbers. You have to figure At that age not too many 15-16 year olds can nearly squat and deadlift close to 400 pounds, that is alot for that age, even though my bench was only 200, It was at this meet that some dumasses loaded ed coans bar something like 60 pound heavyier than supposed to, and he ended up hurt both of his knees because the Dumb spotter can’t count. i think the bar was like 1075 or 1085 lbs, instead of 1020lbs which was what it was supposed to be. Man you want to see someone pissed off , he was stark raving f’ing mad(rightfully so). It was in Las vegas. But to sum things up yes I did get first because of the age group I was in and competing against…
Ok, I wasn’t going to touch this one, but have since decided to. First off, what the hell are you doing using Androsol and Fina before you even reach 19? There’s part of your problem( going for that quick fix), I think it would be well agreed upon that you should leave that until you’re 20 something(at the very least). Second, your old grip outside the rings is an ultra wide grip, the grip you use now is a wide grip. I’m willing to bet you still have some degree of inpingement in your shoulders(even if it doesn’t hurt),resulting in less than optimal nerve output. I’d get that looked at,could definetly be a cause. Seriously, there is NO other topic talked about to the degree of the bench, do some searching.
I’d imagine seeing those figures in a local meeting but not in anything that calls itself a national or world championship. In the little town I grew up in, I’ve seen kids on the high school football team put up those figures (at age 16). And when I was in high school, there was a competitive powerlifter who couldn’t have weighed more than 190 and had a total of atleast 1500.
Man, I’m so in agreement with Alex (formerly The Ol’ Kid). And another yes, on the Dave Tate’s articles on benching. And Kelly is correct (as usual), too: what Ko and I have done is cut down the volume and consistently increase the weight. It’s worked - our bench has improved.
Pugs, did you say you think dumbell benchpress doesn’t help? I disagree.
It helped my bench a lot, when I stopped using the bar for a while, and used dumbells for flat bench. When I went back to the bar, I hadn’t lost a step, in fact I was stronger.
I’m 19 am 6’1 and am about 205. I know that having long arms sucks real bad, but in order to drive that weight up all that distance you need to work on SPEED, SPEED, and more SPEED!!! I beg you to look at Tate’s website of elitefts.com and look at some of his articles from him and Louie Simmons. Also check out the “Ask Dave” section and you can have ALL of your questions about WSB answered and your bench will go up. I only do medium grip to narrow grip do to it’s sport carry over (rugby) but have increased my close grip to over 300lbs using their system. Hope everything works out for you.
Trevor