Bench Press Routine

[miked8c]

So I just came off the Tate 6 Week Bench Press Cure Program and I want to do more more volume in my bench workouts.

I am sick of working up to a single top set each workout. I want to do more sets, and really work on the bench strength and muscle, not just the CNS part.

I am thinking of doing a 10x3 with 6RM weight, the waterbury method. Anyone have any recommendations?


My bench is at 330 right now, I am just coming off a powerlifting meet so I will be deloading this week, and starting the new bench program next Monday.

 

[_cato_]

There's always 5x5 style with a volume day and an intensity or speed day. E.g. 5x5 straight sets Mon, 10x3 speed fri or ramp to a top triple or double or single fri.

 

[zedhed]

^^^ Nice program right there!^^^
Love the 10x3, it works so dam well for me.

 

[miked8c]

The thing is I want to have an OHP day also, would I be able to get away with benching once a week or should I be benching as an accessory after my OHP.

 

[miked8c]

I also want to have an OHP day solely dedicated to overhead movements though. Is there anyways I could get away with benching once a week, or would I need to bench as an accessory on my OHP day as well?

 

[_cato_]

Of course you don't "need" to do a horizontal push on your overhead day; you can limit your benching to one day only. If you're only going to work on your bench one day a week, there's always 5-3-1 type programming. Or you could try something like ramping to a top single/double/triple then reduce the weight by ~10% and do back-off sets. So for example say you worked up to a 320 single in about 5 sets for a single, then reduce the weight to 285-290 and did maybe 2-5 sets of 2 or 3 depending on how you felt. Something like that would be a bit light on the volume spectrum, but you'd be getting in a lot of quality reps in the 90%+ range for strength oriented work. Though, you could make that up in assistance work. Alternatively you could ramp to a top triple, then back off with fives. Or there's always your 10x3 which seems to have worked well for you in the past. No wrong answer here really, just do whatever excited you more as long as you're seeing some results out of it.

One other option is doing cluster sets. So for example, ramp to 90% of your max, then do 5-10 singles with 30 sec rest in between with that weight, or something along those lines.

 

[miked8c]

What you said about a top set followed by back off sets if what I normally do for my squat day. It works good in that regard because it is easy to track my gains and I am more motivated to go for that extra rep since the entire set is usually only 3-5 reps. I might try to stick with the 10x3 only because it worked so well, however I might try the back of sets idea before I resort to 10x3.