405 bench

[Irish]

I read the following article on another bb site, Is it bullshit or could it actually work and help me increase my bench?

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/randy142.htm

[Northman]

Man, increasing your bench isn't all that hard. Keep it simple.

Pick a weight you can bench 4 or 5 times.

Bench it for 4 sets, and repeat a few days later....add 5 pounds each time.

[Por2gue]

just work on beating your logbook and eating and it all falls together. Those calculators are bullshit IMO

[goodfellow]

What happens when you get the point where you just can't beat your logbook with reps/weight on an exercise?

Add more sets? Change exercise?

[crashcrew56]

I don't like that program, Northman gives some pretty basic advice, but there is more that goes into improving ones bench than just benching for a few reps and trying to beat your previous best.

If your goal is just to increase your bench then you must train the accessory muscles involved in the bench to strengthen those, do lockout work, and speed work. Also there's various other tools that could help to increase your bench if you have them avaliable to you

[Irish]

Yeah im doing high reps until november and then going to train heavy with low reps, the most ive ever benched is 140 kg / 308 lbs x 1, trying to add even 5 kg to that max.

Cheers for all the replies

[crashcrew56]

At what point do you get stuck at on your bench?

[Irish]

I unrack and let it down steady enough, I then push up about 3-4 inches and I struggle for about 10 seconds before I fail!

Ego lifting at its best...

[crashcrew56]

One thing you might want to try to incorporate in to your training is some speed work. Load the bar with between 40-60% of your 1RM, and do about 3 or 4 sets with 3-5 reps, they important thing is speed on these.

[Irish]

One thing you might want to try to incorporate in to your training is some speed work. Load the bar with between 40-60% of your 1RM, and do about 3 or 4 sets with 3-5 reps, they important thing is speed on these.

Might give it a go, do this on chest day or an alternate day?

[crashcrew56]

You could do it on chest day, usually powerlifters do speed work on it's own seperate day, but I don't see why you couldn't incorporate it into your chest day

[Irish]

Chest day
4-5 sets of ordinary bench
3 sets incline dumbell
3 sets of speed bench

Is this ok or overkill?

[crashcrew56]

I would say to get in your speed bench before your regular flat bench, sort of use it as a warm-up, and then do maybe two less sets of "ordinary bench". Also I would suggest doing the speed work every other week then since you are including it into your chest workout.

I really can't answer if that is overkill or not, only you know your capacity for workload and recovery.

[Irish]

Cheers Ill try it

[dublin guy]

maybe try lay off the flat bench for 8 or 9 weeks and focus more on incline, and flys it works for me, i find then when i go back to flat benching my lifts improve after doing thism and vice versa so i alternate every 8 or 9 weeks