bench press tips

[redcv6]

hey guys and gals, im after some bench pressing tips.
at current i sit at 8 reps, 3 sets of 92.5kg up from 55kg in about 6 months.
although i know it is not horrible, i know it can improve dramatically as I weigh 92kg.

can anyone shed some light on how to gain quickly? its not about the muscle definition aspect to me but the overall strength gain. i set myself a goal of 8 reps, 3 sets 102.5kg by christmas. but now im thinking i want to push myself and see 110kg.

A)is it possible in 5 weeks
B) is it safe benching on monday, wednesday and friday. so far no injury but i have moved up 10kg in 1 week so im really starting to push myself.
C) how do i go about it.

cheers in advance guys, just want some other opinions.
johnny

[Escape-The-Fate]

A)is it possible in 5 weeks
B) is it safe benching on monday, wednesday and friday. so far no injury but i have moved up 10kg in 1 week so im really starting to push myself.
C) how do i go about it.

cheers in advance guys, just want some other opinions.
johnny

A) anythings possible, you will be able to bench 110kg right now...you just need a spotter and will probably only push out 2 at a time before u need a break, as i rep 90kg 10 times with 2 sets and then i do a faliure set (drop the weight back to 50kg's and do as many as possible before i phisically cannot push another one up. I can push 112kg's twice with my mate spotting rest for couple mins then go again but that is only really good for bulking.

B) its best to just work ur muscles once a week, every 5-7 days is good...if your still sore from your previous workout the couple days before..its too soon to smash the same muscle again and in doing soo will not promote growth. In saying if your muscles are still sore..if you are not getting a sore chest/what ever you workout then you are not pushing yourself enough (reason i do a failure set).

C) see above really, i do my lower body (legs, abs and lower back..deadlifts) on a monday and i do my upper (chest, triceps, biceps, shoulders, laterals and upper back on a friday..other 3 days are cardio. Once you have done your weights session have a protien drink within an hour of finishing your workout then relax and let your body do the work. Sleep promotes muscle growth because when you sleep your body releases amino acids which is what heals your muscles, 7-8 hours is good a night. You will find as you get fitter your body will recover faster therefore meaning you can get back to the gym faster, some weeks you will be sore for 3 days others maybe 2 days but make sure you are fully recoverd before excersing the same muscle again. Also there is a thing called DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) meaning 2 days after your workout you may not feel sore at all or very little..but a couple days later you can be aching DOMS affects anywere for 2-7 days.

[Troy5L]

there is a few vids on youtube, that show u how to do it right..but the tip i always use, is if you can do 10-12 reps easy/without struggling then you go up 5kg

[redcv6]

very interesting, i don't like youtube as according to some people i amnot meant to bench all the way to my chest, and i don't believe that, so i try to source from other places. cheers escape, if my chest doesnt hurt after 2 days but i am moving up in weights that i could not physically do before, what do you think this means?
cheers guys

[Tim Smtih]

A)is it possible in 5 weeks
B) is it safe benching on monday, wednesday and friday. so far no injury but i have moved up 10kg in 1 week so im really starting to push myself.
C) how do i go about it.

cheers in advance guys, just want some other opinions.
johnny

It may be possible to increase your max lift in five weeks, this depends entirely on yourself, your diet and the amount of rest you are able to manage. I wouldn't recommend three times a week to start off with, but as your body adapts you shouldn't have too many issues, but mind you don't damage any ligaments, joints. Once you start to get into really heavy weights you may find it necessary to start utilising supplements such as creatine and glutamine. Diet is important as you require the energy to lift these weights. And it's probably a good thing you aren't too fussed on physique, have you noticed how large power lifters tend to be? Anyway on the technique side of things there are that many programs out there it isn't funny. Personally i focus on low reps, max weight and range. And slow the reps down as much as you can handle for the number or reps you do.

[Escape-The-Fate]

you need to get muscle soreness for something to be working properly, u dont drop the bar all the way to your chest..probably about 2 inches before it touches you. Do a warm up set of 40-50 kg's just do 10-12 then increase to 70 kg's or so do another 10-12, then go to your "work set weight" of 92kg's/what ever your on and do a couple sets of 8-10 reps, by then your chest should be feeling pretty wrecked so drop the weight down to 40-50kg's and do a failure set which will hurt sooo bad but will do the job, once your chest is burning while doing the failure set say to yourself "ok i wanna do 3-5 more", and push yourself to do them..doesnt matter if you dont get all 3-5 of them but put everything you have into it. If you dont get a sore chest after that...i dunno whats wrong with you haha.

In between sets i find it helps to stretch my chest out, put your arm out straight against a wall/pole and twist your torso the opposite direction to feel the pull in your chest..hold for 10 seconds either side. Also its not how much you bench/lift/curl what ever, aslong as your getting the maximum benefit out of it while doing the correct movements without hurting yourself. Lighter weight but correct movement is more beneficial to you then heavy weight and bad movement. As for youtube the most helpful videos and correct training procedures are on this guys page just type in the search "instructional fitness" and go from there..he has lots of demos on alot of different exercises and equipment.

[redcv6]

ill worry about definition later. for now its really about strength gain for me. cheers guys lots of good points, much appreciated. i will have to try this failure set you speak of. sounds interesting and painful

[Joe Peeps]

youve done really well with your improvements, nice one!

in your position you need to drop the reps and up the weight - maybe even try a few pyramid. your overtraining leave 4 days between muscle group workouts

warm up set
8 reps 92.5
6 reps 95
4 reps (or max) 97.5

if Schwarzeneggar could do even a single pushup post chest workout he knew he didnt go hard enough!

you have to up the weight to grow strong. as above their is no benefit to your chest to lower the bar all the way down and if you do dont let it bounce off your chest. couple of inches is good

Good luck keep us posted

[sheepz]

Bodybuilding.com's Main Page - The Largest And Most Complete Bodybuilding Site Online! Bodybuilding Info.

Should have a look at this sites forums, they will haven all the info you need. As for strength can't remember the work out but i thinks it's called rip toes or something, it's the best way to build your strenght up, can't help much more tryin to study for my uni exam and getting distracted lol

[levymetal]

some really good tips above.

i know your goal is 3x8 110kg, but for strength you want to do less reps more weight. ie, joe peep's plan is good. you gain more strength with more weight / less reps. 8 reps is more in the muscle hypertrophy range (causes the muscles to enlarge more). you can still keep your goal, but to achieve it do less reps in the mean time

other ideas: i'm assuming you are actually have a proper program (not just bench), but if you don't, do it. for example - 3 day split:
mondays: chest/triceps
wednesdays: back/biceps
fridays: legs/shoulders

working parts of the body (especially legs) can cause muscle growth on other parts . don't forget your triceps because they are used in the bench as well.

and make sure you have at least 3 good meals a day, with 3 'protein snacks' in between (protein shake, tuna, chicken etc). so you'll be eating something every 3 hours, with at least 25g of protein each.

[JBDrifter]

Listen to Escape-The-Fate... he knows what he's talking about. I'd be giving the exact same advice, but seeing as he's already done it I'm just going to give him a +1

I am also going to recommend doing what Joe Peeps said to do. I used to train flat and always did pyramid sets, with every muscle group. The rate at which my strength gained was incredible... but unfortunately earlier this year I fell very sick and couldn't train, and while being stressed about finishing my electrical apprenticeship plus stresses in my personal life (the ex and custody battles plus court... argh) I have found it very hard to get back into it, so my strength at the moment is heaps lower than when I was at my peak, probably earlier this year. Regardless, I have learnt a bit about how to train myself and when I do get back into properly I am confident it won't take me too long to get it back.

Anyway this was my routine for my chest;

FLAT BENCH PRESS
- warm up (set of 10, low weight, plus push ups)
- set of 10, 100kg
- set of 8, 105kg
- set of 6, 110kg
- set of 4, 115kg
- set of 8, 100kg

Would then move on to decline dumbell press, same set layout but obviously different weight.
Then dumbell fly's, 3 sets flat, 3 sets incline.

Those weights are what I was doing at my peak. Now I'm happy to push out a set of 10 with 85kg. But my strength was constantly increasing with this routine, doing it twice a week. The benefit I found was that you could modify it slightly to push yourself gradually to increase your weight, for example we'd change the usual sets of; 10, 8, 6, 4 reps, to; 10, 9, 6, 4. The next week would be 10, 9, 7, 4... and then 10, 9, 7, 5. Once that was comfortable, instead of doing 10, 10, 7, 5... we'd up the weight of each set by 5kg... so my sets up above would then become;

- set of 10, 105kg
- set of 8, 110kg
- set of 6, 115kg
- set of 4, 120kg
- set of 8, 105kg

This increase would happen every three to four weeks. Obviously it takes time, and it's easy to lose motivation when you don't see suddent improvements, but when your increases are steady and constant like I experienced it wasn't too hard.

I'll also stress that diet is very important! Drink protein shakes and look at getting some creatine, and take it properly. I didn't take anything for the first year of training, and while I my strength was improving, it was nothing impressive. I started drinking protein shakes and took creatine and it was phenomenal. Strength increased very rapidly to begin with, and I also lost a lot of weight and was in much better looking shape, without even doing any cardio. I also wasn't feeling as sore for as long as I had been before hand, so I was able to train muscle groups again a bit sooner, so I could train more regularly.

Hope this helps.

As for getting to 2 sets of 110kg by christmas... I don't think that's a reasonable goal to be honest. You need to push yourself, but you also have to be careful... know your limits and don't go too hard, or you'll injure yourself and before you know it you'll be back to where you started, pushing 55kg again.

[fkford]

do drop sets which is say you start on 100KG..pump out 8-10 reps.. then go down to 80 straight away and pump out same amount of reps then 60 etc etc until u cant lift anymore...for me drop sets is the best way to get bigger.

[vswags]

for gains in strenth 6 reps would be the way to go. 8 - 12 reps is more for muscle growth or hypertrophy as stated above. muscle recovery is the most important part of body building along with diet. i would only train chest once a week so it has plenty of time to recover. also you have to train your back just as much as your chest because if your chest is stronger than your back it will pull your shoulders forward and you will have a hunch back.

if you want to speed up muscle recovery i recomend using creatine. that will help if you did want to do chest more than once a week. also try to increase weight every week.

[minux]

Use roids, easiest way to go

[vswags]

lol that would help but for roids to actually work you have to train twice as hard and eat twice as much. muscles recover twice as fast on roids so you can train every muscle at least twice a week. this also contributes to the rapid growth.

[greenfoam]

Just remember the more you weigh the slower you'll be

[rockstar09]

wow thats alot of weight im flat out bench pressing my dooner of me in the morning..

[some_guy]

wow thats alot of weight im flat out bench pressing my dooner of me in the morning..

pure gold hahah

All the above advice is good, just depends what you take out of it

[skruba]

im 65kg benching 70kg max 10 times starting at 40 is that ok.
my brothers 100kg and he can lift 110kg 9 times b4 it looks like his arsehole mite burst thru his pants.

[rockstar09]

im 65kg benching 70kg max 10 times starting at 40 is that ok.
my brothers 100kg and he can lift 110kg 9 times b4 it looks like his arsehole mite burst thru his pants.

must.... keep... valve... intact
hahaha

[redcv6]

hey guys cheers for the advice, i am taking it in.
as for an update, i was benching 5 reps 3 sets of 102kg so i think that is what i will work on this week then move up to 107kg next week and hopefully the week after that will reach my goal of 112kg. ive been looking at different techniques on how to bench, and besides that i was coming down a little to low, everything else looks good in my technique.

cheers guys

[Maxxiz]

Go see a personal trainer. At least then s/he will know whats right for YOU, not whats right for other JC forum members.

[Rolla_Rolla']

make that +2 to Escape-The-Fate

he seems to know what hes talking bout

[Joe Peeps]

Go see a personal trainer. At least then s/he will know whats right for YOU, not whats right for other JC forum members.

what for? to shell out coin for the same advice he is getting for free?

The commonly accepted ways to gain strength is big weights - low reps. This is fact. If he wants to gain strength this is the only way. We have suggested:

- less frequent training
- shocking the muscles through pyramid/exhaustion sets to stimulate muscle growth.
- diet.

Just because you get paid to do something doesnt mean you do it well or any better then people who dont.

Edit: i should add that personal trainers do have their place and can help get great results but if you are self motivated and more importantly have a training partner to help eek out those last few "growth" reps then you dont really need one.

[vswags]

im a qaulified personal trainer. if you went and got a personal trainer they wont be able to tell you anything other than what you would have read here.