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Increasing bench press
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How much are you benching now?
JackSkel
Member
Three days is too much unless you’re a beginner. You can do more work with the triceps and upper back. Work on perfecting your technique too. Are you getting good leg drive. Do you have a sticking point?
Deadp007
Member
What's your age and gear status?
What 1RM % are you using to set this up?
That's a lot of intensity & frequency for chest.
Mon 3x5, Wed 3x3, Fri 3x8 is going to be high intensity & high frequency... sounds rough and not very joint friendly.
If you are young & new to lifting, sure. If mid 30's & up I'd be more cautious.
But don't let my babble deter you, I'm often wrong!
Try it out and track your progression... let us know
What 1RM % are you using to set this up?
That's a lot of intensity & frequency for chest.
Mon 3x5, Wed 3x3, Fri 3x8 is going to be high intensity & high frequency... sounds rough and not very joint friendly.
If you are young & new to lifting, sure. If mid 30's & up I'd be more cautious.
But don't let my babble deter you, I'm often wrong!
Try it out and track your progression... let us know
Btcowboy
Member
Check out Smolov JR, I ran it and put a noticeable increase on my bench
Thanks for the replies
Currently doing 345 for 5
This is for a single set though
I can bench 405 for a single last time i tried. I would love to get my bench back up to 405 for 5. Did this about 5 years ago. No really program just lots of food and moderate gear and youth on my side lol
Im 38. Weigh in low 270’s. currently using 400mg test. 5iu gh
Will be upping this shortly though. I have no problem eventually doubling the dose and adding slin
I dont tract my cals , pro my eat roughly 4000 cals , 300 pro
My only goal atm is getting the bench up
Currently doing 345 for 5
This is for a single set though
I can bench 405 for a single last time i tried. I would love to get my bench back up to 405 for 5. Did this about 5 years ago. No really program just lots of food and moderate gear and youth on my side lol
Im 38. Weigh in low 270’s. currently using 400mg test. 5iu gh
Will be upping this shortly though. I have no problem eventually doubling the dose and adding slin
I dont tract my cals , pro my eat roughly 4000 cals , 300 pro
My only goal atm is getting the bench up
Dianabolic1
New Member
Where are you failing the lift? At the top, off the chest, mid way?
This is a pretty loaded question with a ton of variable answers.
Yes, where you're failing, top.. bottom.. middle are a little important but it's mostly about increasing your strength. Tucking in your lats, recruiting more rear delts widening grip to shorten your stroke, getting some "leg drive" can help.. but really it's more about increasing your overall strength and increasing the strength of the muscles you recruit to bench press.
Making your lats and rear delts stronger, making your triceps and front delts stronger and making your chest stronger.
There is a one word answer that is of course an oversimplification.. but Deadlift. Adding heavy deadlifting to your routine will make your bench go up because it will increase the overall strength in all of your muscles.
Add in face pulls, bent over barbell rows, heavy seated rows, skull crushers, weighted body dips, heavy overhead pressing like push presses.
Change your training to heavy tripples, and doubles. Avoid going to failure (maxing every other week) but train on the threshold of failure. Focus on incrementally increasing your weights by 3-5lbs per week.
Adding 100lbs to a 5 rep max on bench is a several month to a year long process. You'll have to train long term to achieve it.
Short answer... Deadlift, strengthen accessery muscles such as lats, delts, triceps and strengthen your chest. Eat more. Rest more. Recover better. Be consistent in your training. And... Be persistent and allow yourself to be patient.
Last thing, forget your ego while training to reach your goal. You're not competing with the guy two benches over.. You're competing against yourself.
Good luck!
-P
Yes, where you're failing, top.. bottom.. middle are a little important but it's mostly about increasing your strength. Tucking in your lats, recruiting more rear delts widening grip to shorten your stroke, getting some "leg drive" can help.. but really it's more about increasing your overall strength and increasing the strength of the muscles you recruit to bench press.
Making your lats and rear delts stronger, making your triceps and front delts stronger and making your chest stronger.
There is a one word answer that is of course an oversimplification.. but Deadlift. Adding heavy deadlifting to your routine will make your bench go up because it will increase the overall strength in all of your muscles.
Add in face pulls, bent over barbell rows, heavy seated rows, skull crushers, weighted body dips, heavy overhead pressing like push presses.
Change your training to heavy tripples, and doubles. Avoid going to failure (maxing every other week) but train on the threshold of failure. Focus on incrementally increasing your weights by 3-5lbs per week.
Adding 100lbs to a 5 rep max on bench is a several month to a year long process. You'll have to train long term to achieve it.
Short answer... Deadlift, strengthen accessery muscles such as lats, delts, triceps and strengthen your chest. Eat more. Rest more. Recover better. Be consistent in your training. And... Be persistent and allow yourself to be patient.
Last thing, forget your ego while training to reach your goal. You're not competing with the guy two benches over.. You're competing against yourself.
Good luck!
-P
JackSkel
Member
Gotta ask. How much do you bench? And how much do you deadlift?
I don't compete these days and in all honesty I rarely go over 8 plates on anything anymore including squat and deadlift.
But before a nagging hip issue and a couple not so great shoulder surgeries I have benched 550 raw and 765 in a shirt. I've pulled 675 raw and 803 in a suit.
In my early and middle 30's I totaled 2200 multiple times in the 308's. Now I'm bumping 50 years old and walk around almost 100lbs lighter.
Rippidy Dippidy
Member
Hate the fact that bodybuilding when it comes to chest hinders strength gains in the gym, at least for me. If I do anything over 8 working sets leaving 1 rep in reserve, I get weaker for it too much volume. But I need to in order to grow my chest. Can’t stand it lol
If you search my old threads you'll find dozens of training cycles and strength programs I posted here along with several progression recommendations for dynamic and maximal effort training.
This is going to sound cynical but it's simply the truth. I quit giving guys personalized training routines well over a decade ago. I used to spend a lot of time on here and a few other boards helping new and moderate level guys tweek their routines. But more often than not they wouldn't stick with it and way more often than not it felt like a waste of my time because the majority of people are flash in the pan lifters who think they can't train without steroids, bench 3x per week and do their occasional leg exercises on the angle les press for 1/4 and 1/2 rom reps.
There was another moderator here named Animal Mass that I used to train with. We spent a lot of time working on training theory together. He has a lot of old write ups here too that are definitely worth searching if strength is your goal.
There was a handful of us that went up to Westside barbell and paid Louie Simmons to work with us. Hell, I used to drive 5 hours one way once a month to train with an Olympic strength training coach. Which turned a good bit of what Louie Simmons recommended on it's head.
At the end of the day it's about consistency, time in the gym and making a routine around core lifts and lots of heavy barbell work.
What I recommend nowadays is finding a good personal trainer and paying them to work with you. And not just any personal trainer that pulls shifts in the gym you workout at. Find a trainer that looks like you want to look or moves the kind of weight you want to move. In other words.. find somebody who walks the walk and not just does the talk.
It's a marathon, not a sprint.
You'll have to pay for it of course but if you're serious about making it happen you can learn a lot from 12 or 16 weeks of being trained by a quality personal trainer instead of half a dozen guys on message boards saying "do this" or no no "don't do that, do this"
This is going to sound cynical but it's simply the truth. I quit giving guys personalized training routines well over a decade ago. I used to spend a lot of time on here and a few other boards helping new and moderate level guys tweek their routines. But more often than not they wouldn't stick with it and way more often than not it felt like a waste of my time because the majority of people are flash in the pan lifters who think they can't train without steroids, bench 3x per week and do their occasional leg exercises on the angle les press for 1/4 and 1/2 rom reps.
There was another moderator here named Animal Mass that I used to train with. We spent a lot of time working on training theory together. He has a lot of old write ups here too that are definitely worth searching if strength is your goal.
There was a handful of us that went up to Westside barbell and paid Louie Simmons to work with us. Hell, I used to drive 5 hours one way once a month to train with an Olympic strength training coach. Which turned a good bit of what Louie Simmons recommended on it's head.
At the end of the day it's about consistency, time in the gym and making a routine around core lifts and lots of heavy barbell work.
What I recommend nowadays is finding a good personal trainer and paying them to work with you. And not just any personal trainer that pulls shifts in the gym you workout at. Find a trainer that looks like you want to look or moves the kind of weight you want to move. In other words.. find somebody who walks the walk and not just does the talk.
It's a marathon, not a sprint.
You'll have to pay for it of course but if you're serious about making it happen you can learn a lot from 12 or 16 weeks of being trained by a quality personal trainer instead of half a dozen guys on message boards saying "do this" or no no "don't do that, do this"
181
New Member
I would do 1 heavy bench/chest day and then 1 heavy tricep day a few days later. use a closer grip (like pinky where your pointer finger usually is) on bench for tricep day and go heavy to a 3board (3- 2x4 pieces of wood on top of each other) for top end. This is what we did at BIG IRON gym
I have always responded well to more bench. Squat and deadlift were better if I did them a bit less.
Smolov Jr worked really well for me years ago for bench. I hesitate to recommend it for most people, and even when I do I personally think it's better used as a baseline that you cater to yourself. Might be a good jumping off point for you.
Smolov Jr worked really well for me years ago for bench. I hesitate to recommend it for most people, and even when I do I personally think it's better used as a baseline that you cater to yourself. Might be a good jumping off point for you.
At your age some speed work would be in order. Use 30lb bands with 165 for 225lb in total 8X3 with about a minutes rest. I did this at 42 to get my bench back up above 405. It feels like a waste of time for about a month then you do a heavy set and you are like 'WTF where the hell did that come from.' It really brings back the explosive pop you had in your youth. Don't do it without band and/or chains. You need that top end resistance or you can easily hyper extend an elbow.
My basic program was
Sunday
Bench, flat and incline alternating every week,
Wednesday
Speed Bench
Friday
Bench varrient - Decline, Illegal Wides, Floor Press, Camber Bar, Board Press one of those variants at the same set rep structure as Sunday. Really became a fan of illegal wides.
My basic program was
Sunday
Bench, flat and incline alternating every week,
Wednesday
Speed Bench
Friday
Bench varrient - Decline, Illegal Wides, Floor Press, Camber Bar, Board Press one of those variants at the same set rep structure as Sunday. Really became a fan of illegal wides.
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