Best way to get bench max up

[centrevilleftbl]

Ive heard many rumors on the best way to get your bench max up, whats the best, i do 3 sets of 10 but ive heard 5 sets of 5 is better. Im not looking for tone, i just want my max to go up. Also, to progressively move ure max up is it smart to add around 5 pounds on per week? If you have a protein supplment when is it best to take it, something like muscle milk. Ive heard that its not smart to lift every day, is this strue, and if i feel like i might be able to do a 4th set will it hurt me to do a 4th?

[watchandsee23]

do 5x5 or 3x5. lower reps higher weight is the way to go.

[SDOptimist]

Ive heard many rumors on the best way to get your bench max up, whats the best, i do 3 sets of 10 but ive heard 5 sets of 5 is better. Im not looking for tone, i just want my max to go up. Also, to progressively move ure max up is it smart to add around 5 pounds on per week? If you have a protein supplment when is it best to take it, something like muscle milk. Ive heard that its not smart to lift every day, is this strue, and if i feel like i might be able to do a 4th set will it hurt me to do a 4th?

do higher weights lower reps. about 6 reps of a weight that you could only do 6 and wouldnt be able to go 7. thats a good way to increase your strength.

ya you shouldnt lift every day. it can really screw up your muscles, break them down and make them weaker. you need rest, your body needs to rebuild. you dont build muscle in the weight room, you buid muscle while sleeping. so get atleast 8-9 hrs of sleep every night. and your body also needs calories, carbs, fats and protein to rebuild and get stronger.

muscles milk is more of a casein protein, that you should take at night, right before bed. get Whey protein and take it before and after you workout. it is very key to get high amounts of carbs, fats and proteins ASAP after your workout.

[HenryHill]

If you want your bench press to go up continually you must change your rep and set schemes at least every couple weeks. Alternate from 3x3 to 5x8 to 5x2 to 3x10 etc. There's no set workout that will work for everyone, but the best way to keep it going up is by shocking your body through different rep/set schemes.

I also cannot stress the importance of your other lifts that you do AFTER your bench sets. So many guys do 3-5 sets of bench and immediately go to tricep pushdowns or skull crushers. You want to do more compound movements that work more muscles. Alternate incline and decline every workout after you do your regular bench. Switch from barbell and dumbells with these exercises too. Throw in some lat pulldowns or bent over rows and THEN a triceps isolation exercise to complete the upper body workout.

[SDOptimist]

If you want your bench press to go up continually you must change your rep and set schemes at least every couple weeks. Alternate from 3x3 to 5x8 to 5x2 to 3x10 etc. There's no set workout that will work for everyone, but the best way to keep it going up is by shocking your body through different rep/set schemes.

I also cannot stress the importance of your other lifts that you do AFTER your bench sets. So many guys do 3-5 sets of bench and immediately go to tricep pushdowns or skull crushers. You want to do more compound movements that work more muscles. Alternate incline and decline every workout after you do your regular bench. Switch from barbell and dumbells with these exercises too. Throw in some lat pulldowns or bent over rows and THEN a triceps isolation exercise to complete the upper body workout.

ya just going to the gym, doing the bench then leaving wont do anything. you need balance, you need to workout your other muscles. ya i usually go bench, then incline then dumbell incline and then i workout the tri's.

[RaferAlston26]

12 tips from Dave Tate to increase your bench: http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle....e=body_115b600

There are programs that are specifically designed to increase your bench like MM2K and Boris Sheikos Benching Programs. MM2k promises 40lb increase in 6 weeks I believe. Most have had success with it.

MM2K Bench Program: http://www.geocities.com/~slopitch/mm2k/

Note that everything in your upper body should be worked for power assuming you don't use MM2K program. The bench press uses so much many muscles. Let's say you have weak traps. They have poor strength, etc etc. What you could do is do some exercises such as barbell shrug to increase the strength in the traps. Maybe your bench will go up 5-10lbs who knows. It's a compound exercise. Therefore a lot of muscles should be worked for strength.

[SFT]

If you have been flat benching for a long time, it can be useful sometimes to step away from the flat bench and start using another variation for a certain period of time.

Consider variations such as incline/decline, different grips, floor presses, etc. Going to closer grip for a while really helped me out quite a bit.

Some dumbbell work after your main lift can be a good idea, maybe a few sets of incline/decline/floor press depending on what your main lift was, usually something different.

Really use your accessory lifts to push your bench up. In my experience dips are amazing for overall development/strength of the muscles you need in pushing for bench.

Heavy partials (rack lockouts) can be beneficial to being accustomed to heavier weights/tricep strength and definitely had some pretty decent results using them.

[teriyakisaki]

in all reality, each person is different when it comes to exact numbers and getting the desired results. every person is built differently, and react as such aswell. your best bet to increasing your maxes without getting into specifics would be to make sure youre always changing up the workout. you always want to be changing the amt of reps, weight, motions (DB/BB/incl/flat/decl/grip) and even the intensity. in my honest opinion, your best bet is training to failure, in addition to what i mentioned before.

[matt555]

Strength training is totally different than bodybuilding. Bench often, bench many sets of heavy low reps (3 sets of 10 reps is bad for strength, 10 sets of 3 reps is better, but what's best depends on you), never go to failure (you'll make great progress never even benching close to failure), work on technique. Best benchers can bench up to 8 times a week, but that doesn't mean you should do that straight away. Start benching 2 times a week, throw in a third session after some time and stay away from doing too much assistance work. The best way to up your bench is by benching.

[PowerBuilder08]

^^^Never go to failure

[TC123]

Bench more.

[matt555]

^^^Never go to failure

no need to be confused. going to failure is great for hypertrophy, but not for strength gains. gaining strength is about doing as much hard work as possible while staying as fresh as possible. that's why some of the guys out there can bench (raw) more than twice or three times or more their BW. check out the powerlifting section, it's all been said many times before.

[PowerBuilder08]

no need to be confused. going to failure is great for hypertrophy, but not for strength gains. gaining strength is about doing as much hard work as possible while staying as fresh as possible. that's why some of the guys out there can bench (raw) more than twice or three times or more their BW. check out the powerlifting section, it's all been said many times before.

Good point...I guess I was thinking about this more in a sports sense, while you would want to get your strength up, you would also want to push yourself as hard as possible to get ready for the rigors of your sport...good point tho

[CRyan64]

i dunno if you already have....but i haven't been working the targeted muscles to their max for a long time. Recently i've focused on targeting the shoulders/chest/tri (mind-muscle connection) while im benching and damn it def. helped bring my max up. i swear...i focus on flexing those muscle groups and it gives me that extra boost.

[RaferAlston26]

Going to failure for hypertrophy isn't that great. HIT (high intesnity training by mike mertzer or whatever) has been beaten to death by science. Going to failure period, isn't that great.

[matt555]

i dunno if you already have....but i haven't been working the targeted muscles to their max for a long time. Recently i've focused on targeting the shoulders/chest/tri (mind-muscle connection) while im benching and damn it def. helped bring my max up. i swear...i focus on flexing those muscle groups and it gives me that extra boost.

yes, targeting specific muscles that aid the press is one way to go. a great bench press is a fluid movement that involves pretty much all the muscles of your body (yes, even legs). you can increase the press by increasing strength of all the involved muscles. however, there is only one exercise that works all of the needed muscles in a perfect way (specific movement); the benchpress. there is a big difference between a powerlifting-style benchpress and bodybuilding style benchpress, though, and by just learning a proper technique (powerlifting) you'll make some progress. i made great progress with a very simple benching routine: i benched 3 times a week (mon, wed, fri), going heavy on monday (10 heavy sets of 3 reps, 5 minutes of rest between sets, usually around 80-90 % of my 3 rep max), light on wednesday (i experimented with explosive movements and all kinds of benchpress, really, i did a couple of easy sets of 3-5 reps , round 60 % ) and medium on friday (somewhere in between, no need to get to scientific). i didn't do any assistance work, i only did squats once or twice a week and i played hockey 2 times a week (so, some cardio, even). i benched around 2 times my BW (my bench was 137,5 kg and i weighed 70,5 kg) in a short period of time. every week i tried to bench a little more (1 kg per session) and when i got to a point where i wasn't sure if i can make the lift, i decreased the weight a lot and started from the beginning, so i was never even close to failure.

of course, this is just one of the many approaches. i do, however, firmly believe that 90 % of programs out there try to be a bit too scientific (all the complex % calculations) without a real need. it all comes down to low reps (1-5, fewer-better), many sets, lots of rest between the sets (you need to be FRESH, take 10 minutes off if you need to) and a strong will. some of the routines i like:
- smolov squat cycle (very brutal and not meant for beginners, primarily made for squatting, but the principles work for benchpress, too... extremely hard but i love it)
-sheiko routines (beginner and advanced level, works beautifully if used properly)
-korte's 3x3 program (includes squat and deadlift, but you can notice a pattern if you compare it to other great strength programs out there...very simple and very effective)

i don't mean to say my approach was the best, maybe it won't work for you. it all comes down to finding out what does so experiment a bit.

good luck!

[SFT]

Going to failure for hypertrophy isn't that great. HIT (high intesnity training by mike mertzer or whatever) has been beaten to death by science. Going to failure period, isn't that great.

Well isn't HIT a single set of all out failure?

Going to failure is definitely a tool though, such as the way DeFranco uses it with his RE day. Probably not best to have the majority of sets to failure, but mixing it in can help at times.

[RaferAlston26]

Well isn't HIT a single set of all out failure?

Going to failure is definitely a tool though, such as the way DeFranco uses it with his RE day. Probably not best to have the majority of sets to failure, but mixing it in can help at times.

Touche. I guess failure is good for endurance (the point of rep work) but from studies of strength and hypertrophy, it doesn't seem to swing well.

[PowerBuilder08]

I guess I'll chime in my thoughts on going to failure, I didn't really put it down exactly yet.

The main thing for me is that I don't go to failure every, single workout. Hell, I rarely go to failure any more. I have a goal that I want to get, and it's usually reachable or something I have to push a little hard to get. For us sports guys, however, I think going to failure every now and then is a good thing. While yes, it's true that it doesn't swing as well for strength, the main thing is the mental aspect of it. I think being able to mentally push yourself that hard, beyond what you normally do, is a huge thing for football. I think this mentality can also be taken into the weightroom, and every now and then getting yourself into that state of mind where you go above and beyond what you normally do is something that is needed.

[w1res5tle2r]

Ive heard many rumors on the best way to get your bench max up, whats the best, i do 3 sets of 10 but ive heard 5 sets of 5 is better. Im not looking for tone, i just want my max to go up. Also, to progressively move ure max up is it smart to add around 5 pounds on per week? If you have a protein supplment when is it best to take it, something like muscle milk. Ive heard that its not smart to lift every day, is this strue, and if i feel like i might be able to do a 4th set will it hurt me to do a 4th?

well in march i had 150 then in april i had 175 then in may i had 195 and all i did we do 3x10 starting with about 2/3 of ur max then adding 5-10 lbs each rep, then the 2nd week raise the weight the same just start at thew weight u did the 2nd rep on the first week but this time do 3x5, then the 3rd week start with the 2nd rep weight of the 3nd week and do 3x3 ur last rep should be 10-15 lbs under ur max, then do 2-3 other chest workouts 3x10, like DB bench, declined DB bench and inclined DB bench, thats what i did and i raised mine almost 50 lbs. in 2 months

[lancebriggs55]

wanna get ur bench max up?

train with singles, reps of 3 or less. one rep would be the best.


train the **** outta ur triceps, delts, lats and traps.


assitance exercises that boost the bench

close grip bench press
incline close grip bench press
weighted dips
military press
front raises
cable rows
barbell rows
dumbell rows
shrugs

[lancebriggs55]

eat like a fricking horse

lots of protein, good carbs and good fats.

get in about 500-700 more calories a day than your normal diet.


take an energy drink before u bench and a whey protein shake after.

sleep 7-9 hours a night.

[RaferAlston26]

I guess I'll chime in my thoughts on going to failure, I didn't really put it down exactly yet.

The main thing for me is that I don't go to failure every, single workout. Hell, I rarely go to failure any more. I have a goal that I want to get, and it's usually reachable or something I have to push a little hard to get. For us sports guys, however, I think going to failure every now and then is a good thing. While yes, it's true that it doesn't swing as well for strength, the main thing is the mental aspect of it. I think being able to mentally push yourself that hard, beyond what you normally do, is a huge thing for football. I think this mentality can also be taken into the weightroom, and every now and then getting yourself into that state of mind where you go above and beyond what you normally do is something that is needed.

Makes sense kind of like a slap in the face to get you back on the mental train. I just read an article about a trainer making this guy do 50 sets for his shoulders for no reason but to get him to learn what it's all about.

[Senor Awesome]

5x5 and 3x3 go between those and add weight

[centrevilleftbl]

To all, whats the best legal supplement that will help get my bench and squat max up, im on a push pull percentage workout, 4 days a week

[PowerBuilder08]

To all, whats the best legal supplement that will help get my bench and squat max up, im on a push pull percentage workout, 4 days a week

Food+Protein+Multi-vitamin+Fish Oil Capsules

[joshlavwaa14]

To all, whats the best legal supplement that will help get my bench and squat max up, im on a push pull percentage workout, 4 days a week

Creatine+Whey+post workout protein bar (I like snickers marathon-28g protein) protein in diet

[devo09]

IF you really want to increase your strength you need to do all your benching on a stability ball, it will activate all your stabilizer muscles, which is exactly what you need.
Also to improve your overall strength you should look into doing your squats on a stability ball they will activate you deep stabilizer muscles and your strength will go through the roof.....







jk dont do it

[xKKx7]

IF you really want to increase your strength you need to do all your benching on a stability ball, it will activate all your stabilizer muscles, which is exactly what you need.
Also to improve your overall strength you should look into doing your squats on a stability ball they will activate you deep stabilizer muscles and your strength will go through the roof.....







jk dont do it

actually doing dumbell press on balls does help with stabilizer muscle and core, but it won't bring his bench up too much.