Does nature cheat you?

[viralencore84]

So here is the problem. I as of yesterday, could bench 215 from a dead stop position off my chest. VERY easily. I did 4 sets of only 3 reps and left it alone. I space those sets out by 2 hours. All went good. Now today I can't even do 205. What the hell is it? I don't feel sore or fatigue and I have been doing this for 2 months there about. And no I'm not going to see a doctor.
Please help.

 

[ShadowFury]

Focused? Mindset? Not "fully" in it? When was your last break? Eat a lot less today?


I honestly dunno, but shooting some stuff out there that are "maybes"

Someone help this man

EDIT: Also, we all have our days that just don't seem to be as good as others... this could be one of them. I would give it another day or two to see if it persists.

 

[thestudent333]

Even if you are not sore your muscles can still be broken down. What are your goals workig bench press two days in a row?

 

[viralencore84]

I do it everyday but only go all out 3 or 4 times a week. The other days I do like 2 sets a day. And as you saw I space out those sets quite a bit. I have fast metabolism and can't afford to go a day off fully or I lose strength indefinitly until it is earned back again. And that takes weeks.

 

[ShadowFury]

If you lift really heavy, you don't want to be doing it back to back. 1 or 2 days in between is best for heavy lifting, so you have some repair time. You'll have little/no growth without it. And your strength will also probably drop since you will be dead for the next day (if you lift heavy enough).

Do you only do chest? :/

 

[viralencore84]

If you lift really heavy, you don't want to be doing it back to back. 1 or 2 days in between is best for heavy lifting, so you have some repair time. You'll have little/no growth without it. And your strength will also probably drop since you will be dead for the next day (if you lift heavy enough).

Do you only do chest? :/

No I do squats and curls too. But my primary lift is benchpress. Should I lift heavy only certain days and take some weight off during the others? I just think it's weird less than 24 hrs ago I could throw that weight at the sun and now its like WHOA who is sitting on this bar as I try to lift?

 

[ShadowFury]

That sounds like the muscle just needs more repair time. Even if you don't really feel it, it still needs it.

Do you only do squats, curls, and bench? You may want to add in more exercises per body part and split your workouts up into dif body parts/day. Like, Chest/Tris one day, Back/Bis one day, legs one day, and shoulders one day(and add ab/cardio when you feel it's needed).

You can lift heavy for low reps and other times lift lower weight for more reps. It's all up to you and what your goals are. If you want size/strength, heavy/low rep. Tone/endurance, lower weight/higher rep. There's some good threads in here for splits and such if you look around

 

[EasyEJL]

You are the only one cheating you, by making up your own silly workout structure because you misguidedly believe that a fast metabolism (if you truly had one which is doubtful) would affect strength that much. Its more about diet, lifting style, etc. Nobody gains significant strength working the same muscle daily.

Find a structured workout that was done by professionals, and just follow it. If you are mostly concerned with strength, MadCow 5x5 isn't a bad idea.

 

[ItsHectic]

Training every day and hitting failure 3 or 4 times a week is way too much.
Overtraining just caught up with you. And yea it can happen suddenly like this.

I think you should mix in some higher reps and train max every 2nd day not every day.

 

[acronym007]

1. Don't bench press 2 days in row.
2. Rest is equally as important as lifting and diet itself. I cannot see any benefit in performing the same exercise two days in a row. In 9 out 10 cases you would not be able to see the same result on the second day as the first day, this is somewhat common sense. While you may not feel fatigued or sore, your muscles are fatigued.
3. Alternate body parts. If you do chest (bench) on Monday don't do it again until at least Wednesday. On Tuesday do Back or Legs.
4. 2 hours between sets?
5. If you're going to do bench press twice in one week, like Mon & Wed or Mon - Fri. Make one day a heavy day and the other day switch up the exercise or the intensity but don't go heavy. One heavy day per week, per major body part is sufficient.

Good luck, relax, and enjoy your work-outs.

 

[viralencore84]

Thanks guys for your help. I never really thought about only lifting heavy once or twice a week, and the other times lift lighter for more reps. Rest will help me. I should probaly quit being so insecure and trust this advise. My goal is 225lbs off the chest. That's the beginning of my movement. No unracking. Just like a machine would be set up but instead with a barbell. At least I got to 215 so its not a long way to go. Wish me luck.

 

[ShadowFury]

Good luck

 

[Jurassic]

Lol, only Bench, curls and squats. You play football don't you?

I wouldn't train a bodypart to failure more than twice a week, even if you don't "feel" sore, your muscle might not fully be recovered. It takes about 48-72 hours for a muscle to recover, but it can take longer for your CNS and the rest of your body to recover (tendons, organs etc).
If you like Bench as your main lift, I would suggest doing a 5x5 training protocol and training bench 2x a week. Personally 5x5 made my bench go up a lot more than other training programs. But I don't do bench as my main lift....
Best of luck

 

[Chico222]

You need more rest. The muscle needs to recover, if you force it you will eventually break it down to a point where you'll lose mass. Lack of soreness is not an indicator of recovery.

 

[omni]

You stated the problem yourself. You've "been doing this for 2 months there about." You need to change things up and you'll get past it.

 

[wicknilly]

Eat more and work each muscle ONE TIME per week! benching back-to-back days and spacing sets two hours???

bro, what are you thinking? please enlighten us

not hating, but you're severly misguided

 

[wicknilly]

and while i'm all worked up, why are so many people on this board training each muscle twice per week? the only way i would advocate that is if you're juiced up and eating a ton, but even then it's probably overkill...if you're training balls out like you should be, one time per week is more than enough...

thanks for listening

 

[tnubs]

and while i'm all worked up, why are so many people on this board training each muscle twice per week? the only way i would advocate that is if you're juiced up and eating a ton, but even then it's probably overkill...if you're training balls out like you should be, one time per week is more than enough...

thanks for listening

depends on the person and training volume. if your doing madcow, twice a week is fine. personally, ive found 3 times every 2 weeks to be perfect for me. once every 4 or 5 days for both german volume training and DC style. a lot of ppl make great gains off hitting bodyparts twice per week

 

[wicknilly]

depends on the person and training volume. if your doing madcow, twice a week is fine. personally, ive found 3 times every 2 weeks to be perfect for me. once every 4 or 5 days for both german volume training and DC style. a lot of ppl make great gains off hitting bodyparts twice per week

madcow? lol. obviously if you can recover quick enough, 2x's/wk will work, but in my experiences if you're recovering that quickly you probably aren't training as hard as you should be.

 

[tnubs]

madcow? lol. obviously if you can recover quick enough, 2x's/wk will work, but in my experiences if you're recovering that quickly you probably aren't training as hard as you should be.

madcow = bill starrs 5x5

training smart > training hard. if ur trying to obliterate ur muscles than maybe once a week would work better but your gonna get hurt eventually. all that matters is u slowly add weight to the bar. as long as you are doing that, you will grow.

 

[wicknilly]

madcow = bill starrs 5x5

training smart > training hard. if ur trying to obliterate ur muscles than maybe once a week would work better but your gonna get hurt eventually. all that matters is u slowly add weight to the bar. as long as you are doing that, you will grow.

is that really all that matters? not sure what your definition of "hard" is, but i'd be interested to hear it.

training smart and training hard definitely coincide...it's not one or the other, it's both!

 

[triton185]

I built up to a 300lb+ bench 400+ squat and a 500+ deadlift at 200lbs body weight in about a year or so training each body part once a week.

If you are busting your freakin' ass in the gym 100% (I am talking natural, no AAS) then once a week is plenty. I used to be sore as hell all the time. It is a rare dude who can do big lifts, going balls to the wall 2 times a week for an extended period of time.

Now, if you are talking AAS then everything changes.

 

[triton185]

BTW, I am not saying that my lifts were impressive......I was just saying that for me, that was a huge strength increase in a year.

 

[votum]

Twice a week can be done. I did HST for awhile, which is full body. I was doing it every other day, and doing 25-30 miles cardio on off days.

@OP: You need to work more, and rest less. Check out the starr 5x5 like everyone else already said 2 hours is a long time to be in the gym for curls squats and bench...

I agree with tnubs also, I am doing GVT now and I dont take weekends off, so hit each group thrice in two weeks. I just hurt my shoulder on decline last rotation, so all I did was change it to incline

 

[Type O Hero]

and while i'm all worked up, why are so many people on this board training each muscle twice per week? the only way i would advocate that is if you're juiced up and eating a ton, but even then it's probably overkill...if you're training balls out like you should be, one time per week is more than enough...

thanks for listening

I've done twice per week training before with pretty good results. It's all about finding the right volume. Yeah, if you're doing high volume/high intensity workouts, you'd be foolish to train each muscle group twice per week. But if you're working with a lower volume that suits you, you can get away with it (depending on the person's capabilities). If once per week works for you, stick with it. If something is working for you, use it.

If you're lifting to improve your phsyique rather than just concentrating on seeing your numbers go up, I recommend trying split like this if you're wanting to try twice per week training.

Day 1 - Chest/Shoulders w/ some Triceps (as in 1-2 sets of dips, tops)
Day 2 - Back/Legs w/ some Biceps
Day 3 - Off
Day 4 - Shoulders/Chest w/ some Triceps
Day 5 - Legs/Back w/ some Biceps

I'll go ahead and do some direct arm work at the end of my workout but I usually keep it to 1-2 sets max just because they've already gotten a good workout by working the larger muscle groups. When it comes to arm training, less is more a lot of the time. Go by feel. If you feel like you shouldn't do any direct arm work, don't, and you may see more improvement than if you'd been doing arm work.

I do something like 4-6 total sets per major muscle group. On day 1 for instance I may do 6 sets for chest and 4 for shoulders, then on day 4 I'll do 6 sets for shoulders and 4 for chest. Or maybe a little less depending on how things are going. When in doubt, less (total volume) is more, but go heavy!

Stick with the compound movements but it's okay to add in some isolation work. With the above example, on day 1 I may do only compound movements for chest, then with shoulder do a pressing movement followed by side laterals (isolation exercise). On day 4 I may do mostly compound lifts for shoulders and then do a compound lift for chest followed by flyes. So I mainly do compounds but definitely don't remove isolation lifts completely.

Anyway, if you do try twice per week training, tinker with volumes till you find what's working. Start low and gradually increase if you have to. Just keep in mind that too much is far worse than too little.