| Plateaus :( - Click HERE for Original Thread |
| turbo_dave |
Well here's the deal. I've been stuck at 225lbs on bench for like 3 months now. I don't know if it's in my head or what. At first i thought that maybe my supporting muscles were the problem so I started working on my shoulders and 'ceps alot more. Both have gotten alot bigger, but sadly my bench hasn't moved. No matter what i do I die on my 4th-6th rep of 225, this has been the case for a while now. My routine involves two days of chest per week; one hard, one soft. First chest day is light, i focus on getting alot of sets in at a lower weight and i do free weights and incline, second day 5 days later after biceps and back involves more weight and small reps. I do 2 sets of 185, 3 of 205, and 2 of 225. All except the last sets i can easily get 8 reps in. I do all reps so they nearly touch my chest and i do them fairly slow. I see some guys that are benching 300lbs + and they do like 4 reps and come a few iches away from there chests.
To bust through my plateau should i increase the weight, decrease the reps or should i just stick with doing 225 until it becomes easier then move on from there? Any advice on changing my workout would be much appreciated. |
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| JustinL |
One thing to try is to increase the number of times you do chest to 3 times per week. Just make sure you leave enough time between the workouts to fully recover. You could also try building in a weekly cycle. Forgive me, but it's been a couple years since I looked at my notes but it goes like this:
Week 1: build --lighter volume
Week 2: build -- normal volume
Week 3: crash -- super high volume
Week 4: recover -- very light volume
Keep the weight load and reps the same, but change the number of sets you do to increas/decrease volume.
The same principle can be applied to your workouts within a week so you build-rest-build-rest-crash-rest-recover over the week as well.
Hopefully these ideas will help you keep progressing.
Justin |
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| s2oooR |
| i usually increase the weight (even if it is only a total of 5lbs more), decrease the reps if im stuck....... worked for me so far :dunno: |
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| TrevorK |
quote:
Originally posted by turbo_dave
I do 2 sets of 185, 3 of 205, and 2 of 225. All except the last sets i can easily get 8 reps in. I do all reps so they nearly touch my chest and i do them fairly slow.
If you're doing 7 sets of flat bench that's your problem.
Try 5 sets of 5 reps - that's what is ideal for putting on mass. |
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| Flex |
one thing that works really well for increasing bench is doing forced negatives.
If your max is 225, put 250 (just a number, go heavier if you can) on the bench. Get yourself a spotter to do this. Take the bar off the rack and hold the negative and keep it slow and controlled down to your chest, then have your spotter pull the weight up off you (let him do the work) then hold the negative again. Do this for a few reps to exhaustion. Do this as your bench workout once every couple of weeks and pretty soon 225 feels light. Plus thats where you build most of your strength holding the negative. Its helped me out of alot of benching plateaus.
This was shown to me by a powerlifter who has won the canadians and the masters canadians for powerlifting. |
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| turbo_dave |
| thanks for the advice... i never thought about negatives for chest, even though that's how i bust through plateaus for biceps. The weekly cycle also sounds interesting and today I am going to try 5 reps 5 sets. |
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