Bench Press Programming

[Júlíus G. Magnússon]

I've done speed sets before. Two times before actually, when I didn't have a spotter for my intensity day. Not enough to see if it was really working for me, though.

Gant, any special reason to do them straight after the bench instead of just Wednesday? I just did three sets of 8 of weighted ring dips today... wouldn't that serve a similar purpose or am I better of doing them after Monday's volume workout?

[Dave Van Skike]

Originally Posted by Gant Grimes

The two are not mutually exclusive. Great bodybuilders are very strong. Great powerlifters are very muscular. Learn from them. Size begets strength begets size as long as you eat for it.

higher reps work. apply the 80/20 rule as needed.

I find that when the 1-5 rep, multiple set stuff isn't working, forays into sets of 8-20 will do it. My dead got stuck hard for solid month and the thing that got it going again was trainign axle dead, max reps with 365 in a minute. Boom progress. I don't know if I growed or what but things moved northward.

[Gant Grimes]

Originally Posted by Júlíus G. Magnússon

I've done speed sets before. Two times before actually, when I didn't have a spotter for my intensity day. Not enough to see if it was really working for me, though.

Gant, any special reason to do them straight after the bench instead of just Wednesday?

Yeah, because it worked for me.

A better answer might be that it's an auxiliary exercise, and training your triceps in the hypertrophy range to failure will produce a different adaptation, blah blah blah. But I like the first answer (worked for Westside, too).

Toy around with OH DB presses or JM presses as needed. Find what works for you. Like Dave said, varying the set/rep schemes helps, too (the point of which is to produce a different adaptation, hence the DB work).

[Júlíus G. Magnússon]

Good enough for me. I'll add them to Monday's workout for the next few weeks.

[Júlíus G. Magnússon]

I went for the 5x5x90kg today and actually got every rep up. My butt left the bench a little bit on the last rep of set four, but I'm counting it. I'm pretty happy about this. Especially since my triceps and neck were sore as fuck from a combatives session yesterday.

I'm thinking dropping all the swimming during the week probably allowed for better recovery, so I'll keep up with the no-swimming policy until next week when I go for 5x5x92.5kg

I did 4 sets of 15 overhead dumbbell presses afterwards with 12.5kg in each hand. Getting full extension was a bit of a struggle on the last rep on all the sets, but felt good otherwise.

Thanks for the advice, guys.

[Jamie Crichton]

You never know until you try, eh? Never underestimate the power of positive thinking. Get under that bar and fucking blast it up for every rep, maximum aggression. When all else fails, get you rage on!

[Allen Yeh]

Nice! What'd I say?