Alright fellas gonna lay it out here. I have a dominant lower body and damn proud. A good 500 pound parallel squat. A 450-500 deadlift.(maxed out at 450 but felt like I could have done alot more.)But a lousy 235 pound bench.
Now the summers coming and im doing nothing but lifting and getting ready for football. Which program would suit me better to get that bench up Bills5x5 or Chads TBT?
Push ups help bench like crazy…do them on your off days of pushing movements.
Just try a basic 5X5 twice a week with dumbbells, that should help. If not, either stop flat-benching and try a different angle, or try working supporting muscle groups a bit more (shoulders, triceps, etc.)
But which program wold you guys do? Tbt? or Bills 5x5?
[quote]yogaroots wrote:
push ups help bench like crazy…do them on your off days of pushing movements.[/quote]
you’re kidding right?
[quote]MarineStrong_Zm wrote:
But which program wold you guys do? Tbt? or Bills 5x5?[/quote]
The problem is that no program will actually solve your problem completely. Since you are fairly strong, chances are that you have already some experience with the basic lifts. The most likely cause of your bench press plateau is that you have either:
a weak link in the chain (muscle) which is holding the whole lift back. In that case, simply doing more bench press will not help you because it will only strengthen the muscles that are already strong enough but not those thar are holding you back.
technical inefficiency: less then perfect pressing technique can greatly impair your performance, especially with maximal weights.
Lack of neural drive… incapacity to fully activate the high threshold motor units in the muscles involved in the press.
lack of explosiveness from the start of the movement. This leads to insufficient bar speed to blast through thr weak point.
As you can see, no magical problem will automatically solve your problem. You need to find the exact cause for your lack of progress and take the necessary measures to correct it.
[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
MarineStrong_Zm wrote:
But which program wold you guys do? Tbt? or Bills 5x5?
The problem is that no program will actually solve your problem completely. Since you are fairly strong, chances are that you have already some experience with the basic lifts. The most likely cause of your bench press plateau is that you have either:
a weak link in the chain (muscle) which is holding the whole lift back. In that case, simply doing more bench press will not help you because it will only strengthen the muscles that are already strong enough but not those thar are holding you back.
technical inefficiency: less then perfect pressing technique can greatly impair your performance, especially with maximal weights.
Lack of neural drive… incapacity to fully activate the high threshold motor units in the muscles involved in the press.
lack of explosiveness from the start of the movement. This leads to insufficient bar speed to blast through thr weak point.
As you can see, no magical problem will automatically solve your problem. You need to find the exact cause for your lack of progress and take the necessary measures to correct it.[/quote]
Now that you mention it my Triceps do lack tremendously. So im guessing any of the programs with extra tricep work? id also wish I knew of a program that included power cleans.
I found that stopping bench pressing( i flat lined at 105kg) every session maybe once a week every two weeks, i found when i concentrated on doing weighted dips and military press, my bench press rocketed up
im currently doing madcows 5x5 and finding it’s helping greatly with my bench press
for the record i benched 135kg on friday,
if you want you can give me some of your squat poundages 
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
yogaroots wrote:
push ups help bench like crazy…do them on your off days of pushing movements.
you’re kidding right?[/quote]
No. They’ve increased mine by alot. I never thought it would help until I tried it. The military uses them for a reason- THEY BUILD STRENGTH! Give it a shot. The worst that will happen is after a month trying them you’ll be wherever you are now.
I see a noted difference in my bench when I’m not doing them atleast twice weekly. Several articles have been written by tmag staff on their effectiveness. You’d be surprised at the number of champion bench pressers that do them.
Partial reps lifted off the safety bars in the squat rack with a load ranging from 90% to 105% of your 1RM.
These will be especially beneficial if your triceps are holding you back.
[quote]yogaroots wrote:
jehovasfitness wrote:
No. They’ve increased mine by alot. I never thought it would help until I tried it. The military uses them for a reason- THEY BUILD STRENGTH! Give it a shot. The worst that will happen is after a month trying them you’ll be wherever you are now. I see a noted difference in my bench when I’m not doing them atleast twice weekly.
Several articles have been written by tmag staff on their effectiveness. You’d be surprised at the number of champion bench pressers that do them.
http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=2139352[/quote]
Sorry but being someone that had a decent bench before going into the military, my bench went down tremendously after all the push-ups we had to do. Yeah I could do 100+ pushups in 2 minutes but my bench press was much weaker. Heavy weights build bench, not pushups.
Lol push ups build strength. The reason they probably helped you out was with recovery. I used to be in AFROTC and could do over 100 push ups in a minute…my max bench press was 150 lbs same as my body weight.
Push ups could help but don’t go labeling them as a strength exercise and that’s why the military uses them cause it is just plain wrong.
MarineStrong:
Try weighted dips…especially if your triceps are weak that should bump you up fairly quickly.
gotta agree with beefy, pushups aren’t going to help you move more weight the way you’re thinking, it was probably the recovery factor, forcing some blood and nutrients into your chest.
One single thing won’t help, but a lot of litte things will. Coming from a guy who’s bench was weak for a long time, the things that helped me were:
Getting a lifting partner. Heavy Negatives. Hit chest twice per week, one day ME and one day speed training, heavy negatives, etc. Fixing form. Build up supporting muscle, triceps back and shoulders.
[quote]jstreet0204 wrote:
yogaroots wrote:
jehovasfitness wrote:
No. They’ve increased mine by alot. I never thought it would help until I tried it. The military uses them for a reason- THEY BUILD STRENGTH! Give it a shot. The worst that will happen is after a month trying them you’ll be wherever you are now. I see a noted difference in my bench when I’m not doing them atleast twice weekly.
Several articles have been written by tmag staff on their effectiveness. You’d be surprised at the number of champion bench pressers that do them.
http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=2139352
Sorry but being someone that had a decent bench before going into the military, my bench went down tremendously after all the push-ups we had to do. Yeah I could do 100+ pushups in 2 minutes but my bench press was much weaker. Heavy weights build bench, not pushups.
[/quote]
They work for me. Period.
[quote]superthrustjon wrote:
gotta agree with beefy, pushups aren’t going to help you move more weight the way you’re thinking, it was probably the recovery factor, forcing some blood and nutrients into your chest.
One single thing won’t help, but a lot of litte things will. Coming from a guy who’s bench was weak for a long time, the things that helped me were:
Getting a lifting partner. Heavy Negatives. Hit chest twice per week, one day ME and one day speed training, heavy negatives, etc. Fixing form. Build up supporting muscle, triceps back and shoulders.[/quote]
May not work for everyone. But they’ve helped ME.
[quote]yogaroots wrote:
They work for me. Period.[/quote]
Really? Post your bench number then…
Not trying to get into a “mine is bigger than yours” cock fight here, but if someone is giving advice on getting a strong bench, you’d think they would have a decent one. My best is a touch-n-go raw 485 in a competition. Not a world record by any means, but good enough to put me into a fairly small percentage of the population.
Congrats on your lift, 485 is phenomenal. I’m not there.
The point I was making is that push-ups helped me since I’ve added them into my workout.The key word there is ME.
What is so wrong with passing along a suggestion. I know my body/workouts better than anyone else would. Again, I’m not saying they would work for everybody or anybody.
I was simply saying that push ups have served me well and my bench has increased along with my flat db press 120lbs and my bench is at 315 after added pu’s to my workout. Before adding pu’s I was in 275lb purgatory.
Another great example is the practice I do of daily yoga. It has helped me maintain great flexibility and remain virtually injury free. Whenever somebody says they’re tight here…I suggest yoga. Some lifters would benefit from the added flexibility and perhaps some wouldn’t.
When somebody makes a post I was under the impression that this was a community and we were here to help. That’s all I was looking to do.
The t-mag writers are apparently wrong as well (which is possible) as I am because they have written several articles on the strength building qualities of push-ups.
Again, pu’s have helped ME. I’m sure we all have “things” that help us along. Perhaps a favorite supplement, routine,lift etc. I’m sure you’ve done things over the years that work great for you as well.
If you care to let me in on how you achieved such a great bench. I would be more than open-minded enough to give it a shot before shooting it down.
Be well…and again, Congrats on the 485!!!
This guy is a meathead, but explains this very well “knowing your body”
Get fat and work on your triceps
Although technique will help oodles with benching.
I’ve always had mixed feelings about valentino but I did like that video, he actually said some decent shit.
yoga, I don’t think anyone is disagreeing that pushups worked for you, just pointing out that it was more likely the active recovery that was making the difference. You could probably have duplicated the results by throwing some light weight on the bar and doing a couple sets on your off day.
[quote]superthrustjon wrote:
I’ve always had mixed feelings about valentino but I did like that video, he actually said some decent shit.
yoga, I don’t think anyone is disagreeing that pushups worked for you, just pointing out that it was more likely the active recovery that was making the difference. You could probably have duplicated the results by throwing some light weight on the bar and doing a couple sets on your off day.[/quote]
What part of CT you from? I used to live in New London.
I’ll let this dead horse lay where it is, but how is it that people on these boards know what’s accountable for MY strength gains I’ve done light reps at the end of benching in the past.(didn’t help) My bench increased AFTER adding pu’s and changing nothing else. Not my intention to flame you, but it’s not the recovery factor.