Best Bench Routine

jjb81speed

jjb81speed

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I was wondering what the best routine would be to get more power out of my chest?

My old max was 295. That was a year ago, I hit 245 as my max last week and would like to get that back. What is your guys' power chest routine. Any help is much appreciated!

reps,sets,etc.
 
drivehard

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I'm new here, so take my advice with a grain of salt...

I've always been a big fan of the pyramid workout for bench.
warm up with 20 reps then the following...
10 reps - last near failure
+20 lbs. 8 reps
+20 lbs. 6 reps
+20 lbs. 4 reps
+20 lbs. 2 reps
+20 lbs. 1 rep

last two or three sets you may not finish without a spotter. If I really want to crank it up, I go back to my weight I did the set of ten reps at and do three more sets to failure with less than 60 sec. rest between.

When I finish that scheme three times in a row, I move the whole thing up 5 to 10 lbs.

If I feel a plateau, I switch to the following for a month:

I do 6 sets of the weight I do 8 reps at from above until failure on each set.

Don't forget doing heavy weighted dips, plenty of DB flys (palms together at top), and pushups. On chest day, I end with my feet on the bench, doing pushups with my hands on DB's. That way I can get more stretch in my chest. Usually do 3 sets until failure.

Be sure to always keep good form!

I have recently added this workout to my routine.

Close grip bench.
start really light...

10 reps
+20 lbs 9 reps
+20 lbs 8 reps
+20 lbs 7 reps...keep with it until you are down to 1 rep.

I do this on my tri days..opposite of chest, as it is close grip.

Within 3 months of starting this I went from only doing 3 sets of 225 for 8 reps close grip to ending at 365 for 1 close grip. MUCH BETTER!
 
jjb81speed

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thanks alot! I havent tried a routine like that. The least amount of reps i have doen was 6. I will try to go heavy with lighter reps....
 

randall82

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Use a cycle routine.

here is an example....

say you want to have a 520 max in 8 weeks that means your current max would be around 470-480 so you would cycle up using 6 reps 4 reps 2 reps than back up to 4 reps going up 10lbs per set until you reach 520. Does that make sense? You can email me and I will send you a copy of my routine
 
jjb81speed

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what if you cant reach your goal by the third week? unrealistic goals?
 

Pumps

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I'm not sure what the exact rep and set numbers are but i like Johnny Jackson's chest routine. It's in a lot of the bodybuilding magizine's i like it cause i went from being a powerlifter in high school. He throws in floor presses which isn't common in alot of routines.
 

randall82

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Why do you want more power out of your chest? If you want your bench to go up work on your triceps and rear delts.
 

Jstrong20

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The best routine for you would depend on the sticking point. If its high then hit tricpes with lockouts, 4 and 5 board presses. If its a few inches of the chest try illegal wides, dumbell bench, and maybe floor presses.
 
jjb81speed

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Why do you want more power out of your chest? If you want your bench to go up work on your triceps and rear delts.

I want to get back to my old strength for football. I used to lift four times a week and the only thing that I plateaued on bad was chest. I am able to really push myself on legs and back but I have a hard time with chest. A year ago my weight was 170. I was hitting 225 12-15 times 250 6-10 times and 275 about 4 times. All depending on the day. I would switch up my routine and hit incline, decline with barbells and dumbbells but no matter what I did I would never go higher. I started lifting again about a month ago, taking some sups eating great and it seems the same thing is happening. I can go heavier each week on legs and back but going heavier on bench has been difficult. I know some has to do witha mental block....I was just looking for some input.

Thanks,John
 
jjb81speed

jjb81speed

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The best routine for you would depend on the sticking point. If its high then hit tricpes with lockouts, 4 and 5 board presses. If its a few inches of the chest try illegal wides, dumbell bench, and maybe floor presses.
sticks definately when i get to my chest. my triceps,shoulders, and front delts, are ok from gymnastics that i did when i was younger.....i think i just need more ouuttta my flat chest.
 

ktw

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As an athlete with the same problem (MMA though), I have kind of taken a WSB approach to my training mixed in with some basic strength training principles. I like to do a heavy set on my max day (obviously) and deload every 4th week before going heavy again. My weak point is off the chest too and I have found that 2 and 1 board presses are good to throw into the rotation, and also illegal wides are good to do as well. I do a lot of hypertrophy work for my chest as well, which is unusual for powerlifters, but I have found that my numbers go up steadily if I do so. Here is my average bench day:

Max Set
3 to 5 rm, every so often I dip down and do a 1rm
After the max set I do a set of illegal wides @ roughly 70% (12 reps I believe). After the set of illegal wides I use the same weight and do a set of paused reps with a 2 second counted pause. In the past I only did one or the other, but for me mixing the two has worked. Try it and see what happens, but pause reps are probably the best thing for building explosive power off the chest. They are also yet another option I throw into my rotation every so often if I feel I lack explosiveness.

After that set I do 4 sets of incline bench for 8-12 reps supersetted with parallel grip chins with a 45 second break between sets. The low rest periods build up stamina and really help with hypertrophy. Every week I decrease the rest by 5 seconds or increase my reps used.

I then do
Shoulder presses, 4x8-12 supersetted with 1 arm dumbell rows, same scheme as above

After all that is done, I do normal tricep training as my tri's are pretty strong and do not need much work and I do close grips and dips on my other bench day during the week. I close all of it with some light face pulls and stretches.

Hope this helps. Above all, experiment with what I gave you and figure things out. For me it took forevvvvvver, but doing a little bit of heavy work with lots of hypertrophy work has worked out the best for me
 

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