Bench plateau

[liffalot]

Recently it seems that everything is getting strong but my flat bench. I've increased greatly over the past three years; came into high school as a freshman benching about 140 lbs 1 rep and now sitting as a senior I'm benching 335 lbs for 1 rep. But it seems lately that my bench press, no matter how hard I work out has been plateauing recently and I'm not able to break 275 lbs for 5 reps.

My squat, cleans, snatches, back excercises, hell even my incline bench and my decline bench are steadily increasing. But for whatever reason the flat becnch is giving me hell and does not want to go past that limit. I want to get to 305 for 5 reps by the end of my track season and I'm not going to get there unless I can start making some headway.

Now its been my speculation that the problem may lie in my arm strength. I've never been too into isolating my arm muscles during a workout, so normally the only workout they get are whatever excercises I do as an auxilliary.

Let me know what you think the problem is and how you think I can bust down that fuckin wall.

Im also on a strict supp regiment of N2KTS, GEAR, Animal M-stak, and either Big blast or a crappy GNC Wheybolic ripoff (yea i know.......but i gotta use up the tub somehow)

 

[moya]

post routine, diet and stats plz...

 

[Nomak666]

how consistant is your training and diet? if youre not eatine nough to fuel your workout, your strength numbers may lag. with me, i eat the same 6 meals everyday, so i know that if i add a few h undred calories, i will be able to add a little more weight in a few short weeks. but i am simply maintaining my weight at this point.

i never really hit a plateau, i just stopped eating 6500-7500 calories. as long as you feed your body the nutrient it needs, it will grow bigger. if i dont feed you, you will get smaller and weaker. same concept.

if that is all in place, then try doing reps in "the sweet spot" instead of full range all the way down and all the way up just short of lock out, do 1/2 or 3/4 reps to stimulate the muscles, try that for 4 weeks, then go back to full range and i bet your bench will be stronger.

 

[moya]

maybe overtraining too... plz post up routine etc so we can help you better...

 

[bblazer]

I would tend to think it is a training issue over a diet issue if other exercises are still progressing.

B-

 

[IronJunkey]

if ur like alot of high school kids...its lack of good training. SYMMETRY!!!! you cant push if ur back cant support. or if ur core is weak. post ur stats. see if ur relation for your core and back.(mostly upper lat and lat delt.)is off and symmetrical then you will not be able to push more weight. your chest will get strong but strangly when u get off the bench ur areas of less tone feel swolen. Notice this and apply proper training to even your tone out. to thus push heavyr weight.

why more weight?

u want power?

looks?

consider the effects on ur joints of push past 300.

dont do it 2 brag. thats for guys will small dicks.

 

[liffalot]

Its not a lack of good training. I make very sure to workout my back and core as well as every other area evenly. It may very well be the diet, I only eat three meals a day, none of which are sizeable. I dont exactly have the means to eat 7500 calories a day though.

as far as my training regiment goes, I am training for strength. Not to show off, I'm an athlete, a shotputter/ discus thrower, and I'm not interested in making friends and impressing ladies. Im in it to fuckin win andget stronger, thats all.

It usually looks something like this for upper body:

MON: Flat Bench heavy 5 reps x 7 sets (last set is a superset of still relatively heavy weight for 10-12 reps). Cable flys heavy 10 reps x 4sets. Clean and jerks heavy 5 reps x 5 sets. Shoulder press med. heavy 5 reps x 5 sets. Core work is done with a medicine ball ranging from 12-20 lbs. Bodyweight reverse pulls.
TUES: Throwing day, no weight training.
WED: Incline Bench heavy 5 reps x 7 sets. Decline DB bench heavy 5 reps x 5 sets. Power snatches heavy 5 reps x 5 sets. Same core work is done. Bodyweight reverse pulls.
THURS: Throwing day, no weight training.
FRI: Rest day.
SAT: Flat bench 12,10,8,6,10 reps x 5 sets. Incline DB bench 10 or 8 reps x 4 sets. Decline bench 12 reps x 4 sets. Bodyweight reverse pulls. Push ups between each set of bench, 25 reps. BB curls 15-20 reps x 4 sets. DB skullcrushers 12 reps x 4 sets. Light core work.
SUN: Rest day.

Thats the basic skeleton of it. Unfortunately on the weekdays there isnt much I can do as far as the routing goes, what coach says goes. but suggestions?

 

[liffalot]

The thing too is that I know I'm putting on muscle. I can see it in my physique and one the scales.

When I stopped doing jiu jitsu for track season I weighed 188 lbs. That was at about the beginning of december.

I hopped on the scale today at 204.3 lbs, so I'm obviously putting on weight and gaining muscle, the weight increase that I would like just isnt there.

 

[bblazer]

Every day is bench day for you!

This one is easy. You are overtraining all the muscles involved in the bench.

Skip some of those bench days, and use the deadlift or squat as your primary exercise.

I'll bet you are very top heavy, and have little legs in comparison to the rest of you.

B-

 

[liffalot]

My legs are massive man. In a full body mirror they make my upper body look small. That was just my upper body workout for those days, all of them include squats, unilateral excercises, step ups, Bulgarian split squats, and overhead squats depending on the day.

 

[bblazer]

That may be the case, but I'll bet that you are still way overtraining your chest. No PLer would do that kind of bench work. You really need to be benching only once per week. With maybe some speed or additional assistance work on one other day.

B-

 

[ExtraMile]

You really need to be benching only once per week.

i agree you should decreace the amount of times u bench per week

i benchpres only once every 9 days, just sayin...

 

[dannyboy26]

u love that bench dont ya ,plenty on people in my gym do the same and wonder y there weight dont go up . y dont u do different body part each day , works very well for me .

 

[IronJunkey]

Its not a lack of good training. I make very sure to workout my back and core as well as every other area evenly. It may very well be the diet, I only eat three meals a day, none of which are sizeable. I dont exactly have the means to eat 7500 calories a day though.

as far as my training regiment goes, I am training for strength. Not to show off, I'm an athlete, a shotputter/ discus thrower, and I'm not interested in making friends and impressing ladies. Im in it to fuckin win andget stronger, thats all.

It usually looks something like this for upper body:

MON: Flat Bench heavy 5 reps x 7 sets (last set is a superset of still relatively heavy weight for 10-12 reps). Cable flys heavy 10 reps x 4sets. Clean and jerks heavy 5 reps x 5 sets. Shoulder press med. heavy 5 reps x 5 sets. Core work is done with a medicine ball ranging from 12-20 lbs. Bodyweight reverse pulls.
TUES: Throwing day, no weight training.
WED: Incline Bench heavy 5 reps x 7 sets. Decline DB bench heavy 5 reps x 5 sets. Power snatches heavy 5 reps x 5 sets. Same core work is done. Bodyweight reverse pulls.
THURS: Throwing day, no weight training.
FRI: Rest day.
SAT: Flat bench 12,10,8,6,10 reps x 5 sets. Incline DB bench 10 or 8 reps x 4 sets. Decline bench 12 reps x 4 sets. Bodyweight reverse pulls. Push ups between each set of bench, 25 reps. BB curls 15-20 reps x 4 sets. DB skullcrushers 12 reps x 4 sets. Light core work.
SUN: Rest day.

Thats the basic skeleton of it. Unfortunately on the weekdays there isnt much I can do as far as the routing goes, what coach says goes. but suggestions?

Fly's???

your chest is a fan u must consider fly's.

incline/decline

also try doing push ups on a bosu board.(half circle thinggy)

it will help stimulate nerves to fire that never did working on a unstable surface.

sometimes u gotta take a few steps back before u can go forward.

ur regimine looks fine. not over training. it seems ur going for power in the volume and rep counts. but consider rotating ur training plans

10-12 weeks tone

10-12 weeks power

10-12 weeks power/core/tone


u cant just do alot of exercises and expect to keep getting bigger u must be shocking the muscle. week 2 week.

so if it means higher reps to train the untranied slow twitch fibers then u have to change ur routine and train the slow twich and rotate what gets trained and the frequency.


DONT ALWAYS TRAIN FAST TWITCH

 

[liffalot]

Well thanks everyone for the input. Unfortunately its not entirely up to me, but ill try going lighter on the other bench days.

 

[b fold the truth]

It is going to be really hard to throw 2-3x a week and press 1-2x per week and make progress on both...unless several of them are VERY EASY days...

 

[liffalot]

Well and now I'm injured so thats fucking great too. So no shotput for the rest of this season, just the ole discus.

Our coach was on the olympic team for throwing seven years in a row (obviously only 1 olympics during this time which he did not make it too) so I had always assumed he knew what he was doing.....sort of. unfortunately the guy is old as time itself, and although I have strongly disagreed with his methods I've kept it to myself for 3 years because we're always taught that "they know better".

Dont you hate when you find out that they dont?...

 

[liffalot]

i agree you should decreace the amount of times u bench per week

i benchpres only once every 9 days, just sayin...

Yea man I hear what your sayin. The thing is though that at our age, you can have a crappy workout routine and still be getting strong quickly.

I see it all the time with buddies from school, other schools, underclassmen, the whole shabang.

Thats why we come here, to get advice from the guys who know their shit because their bodies stopped being test factories a while ago.

Not that you arent right, you absolutely are, its just always good to hear ot from people of all ages, sizes, experience levels, backgrounds, whatever!

ya digg?

 

[Academy780]

You are trying too hard. Reduce the program for a while and let your chest grow.

 

[ExtraMile]

10-12 weeks tone

10-12 weeks power

10-12 weeks power/core/tone

lol

to the OP, what u said about me being young, yeah I get what your saying, I was just agreeing with bblazer that you should bench less often

 

[liffalot]

Yea man I'm your age too haha

Well I appreciate it again everyone. Heres my question: how do you keep from having decreases ikn weight and rep ability when you dont do an excercise for a week or more at a time? and also, how do you keep from having your tits drag the ground and your belly grow a tire?

Thats what normally happens to me when I dont lift for that long