[quote]skidmark wrote:
LarryJr wrote:
I noticed a few here are doing ME and RE instead of the standard Westside ME and DE. I’m curious as to why and what the benefits are?
I have to say that I love the ME day but don’t care for DE days.
DE is supposed to train your muscles to develop force rapidly and how to use reactive force, (the tension stored in the muscle from lowering the weight). The momentum generated is near what occurs in ME, but the weight is lower, the movement more athletic.
By developing speed, it is supposed to allow you to power through sticking points, places you might fail during an equivalent max effort lift. It also lets you overload the top of a movement (through bands and chains) so the CNS gets trained for heavier weights - differently.
The downside is that the eccentric portion of the motion can be so fast that turning the weight around at the movement’s bottom is very stressful on the joints. There’s also no coasting through any part of the movement, no point at which the rep gets easier, either, as with straight weight. This is it’s purpose, but it can be really uncomfortable after doing it for a while.
The philosophy of many on the thread is that if you just get friggin’ strong this DE stuff is not necessary. And you don’t get the joint aches. Consequently, a lot of us have switched to RE or SE to replace DE.
I tend to think DE is something people pushing the envelope of human strength need more than guys like me do. It’s a good tool to spark the CNS too. A cycle of it here and there could be beneficial if your body needs a change.[/quote]
Seems like DE bench gets less love than the smith machine does. The joint aches are a big drawback of the standard speed bench; however, there have been some people who have changed the style in which they implement DE bench that are appealing both from the standpoint of helping you to learn how to maximize force production and stay tight throughout the lift.
Some articles to check out at Elitefts.com that go over these are “Starting Strength” by Jay Floyd and “Sushi Improvements” by David Adamson. David’s article goes to some detail in explaining how he incorporated speed bench with pauses and other techniques to successfully increase his raw bench by 10% in 12 weeks (I think). I’m trying out the methods from Jay’s article and I like the results so far.
By far, however, the biggest problem I think beginners have with DE bench day is using light weights yet maintaining proper form. Sometimes, we have a hard time understanding how pressing a light weight quickly will enable us to move a heavy weight. Add on top of that the joint aches, plus the fact that form for many goes to shit when they bench in 45-60% range, you have reasons to dump speed bench. I used standard speed bench non-stop for 9 months with good results, as my old problem used to be lowering the weight too slowly and not pressing quickly enough, causing me to get crushed about 2" off my chest once the weight got heavy. Now my failure point is in the 3-board area because I press with more force.
Thanks!