My rant for Animal and other beginners
If physique is your goal, then you need to make your lifting numbers a secondary priority.
You’re doing that whole cherry picking thing again about training for strength = physique changes.
Strength gains are used strictly as a proxy to ensure you’re on the right track.
If you put 5lbs on your bench in a month or even 2 months you have progressed.
Even if you have been ****ing around for 3 years you just may not be a beginner anymore.
Also advanced is different for everyone we’ve all mentioned in other threads how super strong people have stepped into a gym and lifted 3x what you have in their first go but are still a beginner.
Everyone starts at a different point.
Rather than worry about the numbers, focus on the process and journey. Take pride in dialing in technique, establishing even a better MMC on a lift, be happy with your 2.5-5lbs monthly progress.
STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS AND COMPARE YOURSELF TO YOU 1/2/3 weeks/months/years/decades from now.
Guess what will make you really strong? Focusing on building a ton of muscle.
Wanna one day test that strength? Run a strength and peaking block.
Worry about getting stronger in higher rep ranges, eventually you can hone the SKILL of strength.
Bench is the most fickle of lifts too.
Squats and deadlifts people can muscle, but bench(even for someone like me who is built for it) can go through some insanely weird periods.
Last year I didn’t touch anything close to my max and I still improved my 1RM on lifts when I finally wanted to try for some end of year PRs and focused more on strength.
You can do things concurrently and some people excel at it.
Others do better with phases.
I am someone who does better with dedicated phases.
You could go either way, but you really need to stop hammering yourself into a wall and have a more zen attitude about it all otherwise you’ll just ruin the whole experience for yourself because you’re hung up on preconceived notions of what progress is.
Check out a guy like Alberto Nunez, if you ever watch his videos he hammers away at the same weight and rep range on incline dumbbell for WEEKS ON END.
That’s a dude who is simply going in punching the clock and increasing the stimulus when he finally deems it necessary.
If you wanna go balls to the wall every week, you can but then you have to be even more disengaged from the numbers you’re lifting.