I plan on starting base building bench specialization soon. Just wondering how to progress? In the ebook it says milk everything you can out of a phase before you move on. So for phase 1, 75% x 5x8, do I keep the weight the same every week until that weight feels stupid easy? Or do I slowly add weight each week to the 75%??
My guess is keep weight same till it feels easy then move to phase 2? Just want to be sure
I was wondering the exact same thing myself. Like maybe if you should test a rep max every 6 weeks or so and recalibrate.
Anyone?
Not Paul, but I’m almost certain you don’t add weight weekly. From memory of reading BB, You can look at how long the sets take to complete and how explosively you do it as a guide. Let’s say you start out taking 25 minutes to complete the 5x8 with good bar speed. A month later it takes 15 minutes, and you’re still pushing that bar with ferocity throughout, using the same weight. That’s probably when you can start thinking about moving to the next stage.
Get 0.5kg weight plates then you can add small amounts of weight often.
I would suggest going over to LIFT.RUN.BANG, starting at the beginning, and reading everything you can. Read the book multiple times. Search reddit, every forum, EVERYTHING. I’ve been running a Base Building inspired training plan for around 5 months now, and it took me a minute to understand everything fully and really dial in my training. For the 5x8, don’t worry so much about progressing in weight. Start with the 75%, but just focus on gettin clean, solid reps. Not sure if it’s changed, but Paul used to say that if you could not get it at first, that’s okay. The way I’ve been doing it for incline bench is to start at the 75% and get 40 total reps. It might be something like 8,8,7,7,6,4 or 5x8 or even an 8x5 at first. Just get them in. Once I hit 5x8 for a couple of weeks, I try and pause the first and last rep of every set. I will also do what Mark has suggested above and time my sets, although I do Inclines, Pull ups, and Ab wheel in a circuit fashion going from one to the next so it isn’t really a problem for me to get my time down. Once I can do that, then I move on to BBM2.
The key to the system is to not get caught up in weight progression every single time you lift, or chasing a peak number. It’s called Base Building because you’re building your base or your every day max (EDM). You want to raise the weight you can do any given day regardless of how you feel. That’s how you progress in Base Building. If you can go in the gym any day of the week and bench 275 even on your 10% days, run your first cycle with 275 or lower.
Hope this helps.
AMAZING write up, oldbean! And spot on! With base building it’s not about progressive overload it’s about moving certain intensities with greater speed in a volumized block.