In the past month I have raised my Flat Bench 10 pounds and my inclines by 15 pounds using this setup. I use it on my bench day. It has given me a more explosive bench out of the bottom without hurting my top end. It will be a few more months of this before I see how it pans out long term but the initial results are promising. It doesn’t wipe me out as much, either, because of the reduced negatives. And the chains, aside from helping your speed, take some of the initial jerk out of the pin presses, saving your wrists.
Here’s how to approach it.
1.) You will first need to test two lifts in the same week but not the same day, to establish your starting point.: Flat Bench Press, and Dead Benches from the pins (no chains) with the bar barely touching the chest. Use good form.
2.) On bench day, the first movement is the dead benches w/chain (I use the chain guidelines EliteFTS uses based on my actual bench). My first week was for 75% of the dead bench 1RM, for 5 sets of 3, clustered at 15 seconds between reps. Each week, I added 5 percent and stuck to the table. This Sunday, I did 95% for 4 sets of 2 with 30 seconds between reps.
3.) Since I did not want to lose the feel of heavy weight, my lowering strength, or develop a new sticking point, I use boards for a second movement. This is the 5/3/1 part. Do 90 percent of the flat bench press to start the first wave and each wave add 5 pounds like Wendler says. Now , convert that number for the boards you will use (I got the numbers from a Wendler article called Max Effort Made Easy). 2-Boards are 105% of the Flat Bench, 1 Board is 102.5% FBP, 3-Board is 115% FBP. So when I started, 90% of my 225 Flat was about 205 rounded up, I converted that to 215 for 2-Board and computed my reps for the day using that number. And since you did dead benches first, you don’t need to warm up much for the boards. You can either do just the prescribed reps or rep out on the last set.
4.) Each wave, I will add 5 pounds to my Dead Bench 1RM and start over. My 5/3/1 movement will cycle each wave 2bd/1bd/3bd/1bd and back again.
5.) Military Press Day stays the same. And pick good accessory movements. The idea for the bench day template came from the EliteFTS Beginners Manual: their speed day is 8 sets of 3 speed benches followed by 3x3 with the boards.
I’ll post more as I go along.
