lagging bench press while doing stronglifts

[doughboy4]

I'm currently doing stronglifts to build strength and at the same time doing 16/8 IF for weight loss since about Sept. I've been successful thus far averaging about a 1lb/week weight loss while advancing weights on SL. In Sept I was 215 and now I'm down to 202. (Im 5'8). I've been taking progress photos and can definitely see the changes to my body overall so Im pretty happy.

After 4.5 months going 2-3 times a week with SL I'm at: SQ 204, DL 235 BP 115 BR 115. OP 86
I've had to deload once on everything except DL and have been making good progress on 4 out of the 5 lifts. For some reason My bench is lagging behind other lifts. For SQ and OP I've already hit the 6 month beginner goals. DL is progressing nicely as well. I'm at 115 and failed to get 5x5 for the 2nd session. I failed x 3 before at 115 deloading and worked my way back up and now I'm there again. If I fail a 3rd time the program will want me to go to 3x5. My body type is lopsided (strong legs and back from being overweight but I have a bunch of belly fat and man boobs). I feel dropping to 3x5 would be too early given that it's only 115 and I haven't hit the beginner goal for BP. What do you think? Of course I could do it at 115 next time and this will all be moot!

[dgoyena216]

Only explanation for this would be form imo. Hows your technique? Shoulders pulled back and down, leg drive contributing to the movement, bar path, touch point, try out various grip widths? There should really be 3 points of contact with the bench. Head, upper back towards spine of scapula and your butt.

I recommend you watch some of Carlgery Barbell's form check Friday videos on youtube and watch closely when he brings up clips of guys benching and see if any of it could be applied to you.

[WolfRose7]

Obvs cutting doesn't make bench progress easy for most. (although I've hit bench PRs cutting).

But stronglifts does suck for bench

If you want a very similar sort of follow that will be better for bench look at powerlifting to wins novice programming.
Probably start from novice 2.
It also has much better progression planning than stronglifts

[MyEgoProblem]

Going 2or 3 times a week.
That's at best benching 1.5x a week.. And sometimes1x week.

Even run consistently there isn't enough bench in the program IMO...

Everyone who runs this has their lower body out run their upper.

I don't recomend it to anyone.

[sooby]

your bench doesn't seem that out of line from your squat/deadlift.

with that said I'm not a fan of stronglifts bench frequency. squats 3x a week is fine and deadlift 1-2x a week is fine. deadlifts just kinda go up with building overall muscle mass and along with the frequency of squats you are doing. it doesn't really get the job done for bench imo and OHP doesn't really carryover to that as your other pressing movement.

you are making progress apparently on your other lifts so really it's up to you at this point what you want to do, if you are that concerned about bench I would just run something different.

[rlefebvr]

My bench has lagged for 4 years.
This year I added a close grip bench to strengthen my triceps. That seemed to help.

But I agree with the form comment.

I after 4 years of vain effort, I just added 20 pounds on my bench press from 170 to 190
and most of it came by simply moving the bar about 3 inches lower on my setup.

I used to setup with the bar at eye level and now its closer to my nose or maybe even lower.

Its been 3 weeks and my bench seems stable so form can play a major part.

Ron