Stalled Bench Press Progress

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
1

CT, So I’ve hit a wall at 295 lbs on my bench press and wondering if you have any recommendations w.r.t using the layer system. Right now I bench twice a week (incline/decline tilt) and two high pull days which constitutes my weekly upper body work. Usually when my bench stalls I take to DB twist presses (DB’s start parallel and then perpendicular at the top) and that helps but not so much this time. For example should I try different ‘layers’ instead of HDL?

2

With the bench press, stalling often happens to me when I’d doing too much HDL work.

If I want to blast through a plateau I drastically decrease (or even remove) HDL work, and layer in more ramp/cluster work.

Something like:

  1. Max Ramp to 2RM
  2. 2 cluster sets with 90%
  3. Max Ramp to 1RM (starting with the weight used for clusters)… don’t worry if it’s lower than your 2RM
  4. 2 cluster sets with 90%
  5. 4 speed seta with 60% and 30 sec of rest between sets
3

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
With the bench press, stalling often happens to me when I’d doing too much HDL work.

If I want to blast through a plateau I drastically decrease (or even remove) HDL work, and layer in more ramp/cluster work.

Something like:

  1. Max Ramp to 2RM
  2. 2 cluster sets with 90%
  3. Max Ramp to 1RM (starting with the weight used for clusters)… don’t worry if it’s lower than your 2RM
  4. 2 cluster sets with 90%
  5. 4 speed seta with 60% and 30 sec of rest between sets[/quote]

@CT:

This seems to me to be the preferred method for gaining strength quickly.

I’m gonna try this in my next decline tilt bench session.

Thanks!

4

[quote]Mutsanah wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
With the bench press, stalling often happens to me when I’d doing too much HDL work.

If I want to blast through a plateau I drastically decrease (or even remove) HDL work, and layer in more ramp/cluster work.

Something like:

  1. Max Ramp to 2RM
  2. 2 cluster sets with 90%
  3. Max Ramp to 1RM (starting with the weight used for clusters)… don’t worry if it’s lower than your 2RM
  4. 2 cluster sets with 90%
  5. 4 speed seta with 60% and 30 sec of rest between sets[/quote]

@CT:

This seems to me to be the preferred method for gaining strength quickly.

I’m gonna try this in my next decline tilt bench session.

Thanks![/quote]

To blast through a plateau, no doubt… But I’m still experiemnting to see if it’s better to start with the 1RM ramp or the 2RM ramp.

5

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
With the bench press, stalling often happens to me when I’d doing too much HDL work.

If I want to blast through a plateau I drastically decrease (or even remove) HDL work, and layer in more ramp/cluster work.

Something like:

  1. Max Ramp to 2RM
  2. 2 cluster sets with 90%
  3. Max Ramp to 1RM (starting with the weight used for clusters)… don’t worry if it’s lower than your 2RM
  4. 2 cluster sets with 90%
  5. 4 speed seta with 60% and 30 sec of rest between sets[/quote]

Excellent I’ll give it a try on my next bench day! Thanks!

6

Oh and should this be done from pins like usual?

7

Did this from pins and with a decline tilt today, felt really good. I’m thinking doing this for a few weeks might help, so I might go for 4 weeks and see where I’m at. Do you think throwing in a little bit of dumbbell work at the end would be overkill?

8

[quote]briansays wrote:
Did this from pins and with a decline tilt today, felt really good. I’m thinking doing this for a few weeks might help, so I might go for 4 weeks and see where I’m at. Do you think throwing in a little bit of dumbbell work at the end would be overkill? [/quote]

I would avoid any extra work for the first 2 weeks to see how your body reacts to it. Then if you are resuming progress you could add 3 sets of 6-8.

9

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]briansays wrote:
Did this from pins and with a decline tilt today, felt really good. I’m thinking doing this for a few weeks might help, so I might go for 4 weeks and see where I’m at. Do you think throwing in a little bit of dumbbell work at the end would be overkill? [/quote]

I would avoid any extra work for the first 2 weeks to see how your body reacts to it. Then if you are resuming progress you could add 3 sets of 6-8.[/quote]

Thanks CT, upper body pressing has been a weakness that I’ve made a lot of progress on in the past year thanks to your training and advice so I appreciate it.