Bench Training, Rants, lectures, Q&A, and general lifting education

AmateurStrong said:
Hey everyone

I want to throw in a fat burner soon, haven’t decided.

This week is deload then I start my next training cycle. Pretty excited about it

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Looking jacked... Still living in West Palm? You own a gym there?
 
Godstrength said:
Looking jacked... Still living in West Palm? You own a gym there?
Click to expand...

Yes sir, still in west palm but unfortunately haven’t found a way to break into the gym scene here

I train at busy body up in Northlake
 
AmateurStrong said:
Yes sir, still in west palm but unfortunately haven’t found a way to break into the gym scene here

I train at busy body up in Northlake
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Oh ok cool... I live in Stuart and am going to palm beach Atlantic currently for my masters... I know Northlake not sure where the gym is tho.

I remember you as K Brown..... Anyway bro how you digging WP? I been down here most of my life
 
Godstrength said:
Oh ok cool... I live in Stuart and am going to palm beach Atlantic currently for my masters... I know Northlake not sure where the gym is tho.

I remember you as K Brown..... Anyway bro how you digging WP? I been down here most of my life
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Hit me on Insta: kylebrown84_

You should definitely check out busybody
The gym is pretty legit and is getting more strength training equipment too
 
Godstrength said:
Not much of a social media guy I don't have IG. I may check the gym out one day.
Click to expand...

See ya there
I train upper body
Saturday 10:00am sometimes 10:30 (not this Saturday we’re traveling)

Wednesday 5:45pm
Except this Wednesday, it’s deload week
 
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Threw a little extra supplementation in over the next ten weeks
Let’s see how it goes
 
Completed mesocycle 1 and started mesocycle 2 yesterday
Who would be interested in me writing out all the details ?

Don’t want to bore people with details there is no audience for
 
Godstrength said:
What you running?
Click to expand...

200mg rest
30-40 Winni
This stack ended 3 days before this photo

Have switched to
200 test guaranteed good
100 mg Tren (50mg hex twice a week) unknown if its good
30mg anavar unknown if it’s good
 
AmateurStrong said:
Completed mesocycle 1 and started mesocycle 2 yesterday
Who would be interested in me writing out all the details ?

Don’t want to bore people with details there is no audience for
Click to expand...
I'm down to hearing the details.
How long are your mesocycles?
 
AmateurStrong said:
200mg rest
30-40 Winni
This stack ended 3 days before this photo

Have switched to
200 test guaranteed good
100 mg Tren (50mg hex twice a week) unknown if its good
30mg anavar unknown if it’s good
Click to expand...
How long did u run the first stack? Are switching every mesocycle?
 
Jeremyk1 said:
I’m not convinced on this. I don’t think bar travel would equate to elastic energy. The elastic energy would be coming from the muscle, so the degree of flexion would be the more significant factor there. Assuming two lifters used the same form, they should have essentially the same angles of movement at each joint, and thus more or less the exact same amount of elastic energy. At least, that all seems logical to me.

Also, is that sweet potato you’re having for dinner?
Click to expand...

From my understanding, the increased distance the bar travels with longer limbed athletes the more elastic energy is stored as you descend the bar.
That being said if you properly pause a bench press you should minimize elastic energy (which is why competitions require a pause) however, practically speaking it generally takes longer for elastic energy to dissipate than a .5-2 second pause, so some latent elastic energy remains.

Anyway its kinda moot debate, nobody cares. The best benchers in the world are big boys with big arms and large ROMs. Some are short ROMs, and there are outliers all over the place. Not worth arguing over.
If someone thinks elastic energy matters, good for them.
If someone thinks elastic energy doesn't matter, I think they are wrong and we can happily do pin presses to demonstrate this fact.

Set the pins in a proper rack (which has 1 inch spaces) and set the bar at the bottom of the chest right off the chest. press with no eccentric motion.
Do the same lift with an eccentric motion and no pause or slight pause. Boom, there is your elastic energy argument out the window.
You will NOT press the same amount of weight off pins as you will a regular bench press.
 
Team,

First of all I want to say thank you for the recent participation in the thread. I am going to update everyone on the training cycle and whys behind what I do.
However, I want to preface what's to come by saying that my training is heavily influenced by Swede Burns 5th set methodology and the Scientific Principles of Strength Training. Attached is a screenshot of Mesocycle2, I am currently on Mesocycle 3 and will be completing this cycle next week. At which time I will post Meso3 and begin starting meso 4

A note on weights, sets, and loads.
I start at a point where I am 98% confident I can add weight to the bar at 5lbs per week for the entire meso (4 weeks).
If I start too light I simply slow the reps down or increase the pause
I write all my attempts down and I try to improve on them mesocycle to mesocycle (either increasing weight, speed, technique, etc).
If a weight is too heavy and I am not ready to progress (referring to accessory movements [whatever comes after squat,bench,deadlift] then I simply keep the weight/sets/reps the same and try harder next week.
The 4x2 protocol uses the AMRAP as the dictator of progress. Once you can no longer get 3+ reps you have essentially failed and there is no point (from a fatigue point of view) to continue loading weight on the bar. If you fail out too soon, you need to lower the weight.

Meso2
I have two bench days, one emphasizing my strength component and the other working my speed (acceleration is important for a good bench).

Speed bench: 9x3 vs bands.
These are all about being fast and explosive. 9x3 takes me less than 9 minutes if I am alone (11-12 minutes with a training partner).

Wide Grip: These have been my bread and butter of hypertrophy for Meso 1-3 and my progress is really starting to stall out here so I will be shifting to more traditional hypertrophy on Meso4 and this will be changed to 4x10.
2x25 is a lot of fun, challenging, and the pump is actually really nice. I see quite a bit of people doing these high rep training sets, but I often see them doing a lot of sloppy work. Do NOT bounce the weight.

10minute sets - These are brutal and used for metabolite training. 10 minutes, as many sets as you can within those 10 minutes. All with 25 reps.
Yes, you can sacrifice technique here. But these shouldn't be sensitive to injury. Think in terms of constant tension machines and limit swinging


Always document your journey, and don't let anomalies freak you out. For example, week 3 on squat day I only got 4 reps on my barbell squat. Despite the previous week I got 10 with 5lbs lighter! Anomalies happen, bad days happen. Write your data down so you can distinguish between overwork and just a bad damn day.

Meso3
A few notes and pain points that I will need to considering going into Meso4
Wide grip, these are becoming very hard. Today I will go for 255lbs for 2x25. I will be happy if I can finish out this meso with 5lbs jumps over the next two weeks and end at 265lbs, however... seems unlikely. Next Mesocycle I will transition to 4x10 for this particular movement and get some more traditional hypertrophy volume. Probably around 295lbs starting weight, however this is not yet set in stone.

Skull Crushers: These are going bye bye, my right elbow tendonitis is getting awful and I can't bench big all banged up

Close Grip Incline: whew I overshot this and started at 275lbs. I hope to improve on this number and at least end week 4 with an improvement.
Next meso I am going to increase the reps, slightly increasing the volume here.

Bicep AMRAP - These gotta go too. I pushed the metabolite training a bit too far with 8 weeks of metabolite training.

Heel Squat: Whew these babies aren't going anywhere. Grow quads grow! Next meso we will drop a set and increase reps.

Deadlifts: This will stay 4x2 with the AMRAP. Deadlifts are my worse lift, I will keep these bad boys

Finer Details

Notice on my bench training on Meso2 I started at 370lbs for 5 reps on the amrap and then ended week 3 with 3 reps and week 4 I didn't dare do any amrap. This in my opinion is a classic example of overloading. I couldn't maintain a base level of strength with the 5lbs increases and my performance declined each week.
Lets look at the lowest part and highest point of volume
4x2 = 8 reps
+5 reps on my week 1 - 13 reps
+ 3 reps on week 3 so 11 reps

My goal is to provide an overloading stimulus, but I obviously could not continue to increase weight. Decreasing weight (I determined) wasn't quite necessary so the question then is... how can I beat those volume markers, then recover (my week off) and beat those markers in turn.

The answer is the 5x3 method for Mesocycle3
5x3 = 15 reps, all of which would be an overload in terms of volume over what is done in meso 2. I did not use any lighter loads.

Then for Meso4 the goal will be to resume 4x2 and over that mesocycle beat, on average, the volume/load done in mesocycle 2.

This is how you put together long term training plans.


As for supplements:
Currently I am still on the following
100mg test - 2x/week
50mg trenHex - 2x/week
30mg anavar - 2x/day

Starting March 15th I begin another cut, so I will likely see a plummet in strength in Meso 4 (maybe not, depending on what extra supplements I take lol)
April 15th I intend to take progress photos and assess how likely a bodybuilding show is in the future. I plan to even attempt a "bodybuilding peaking plan" for the last week into April 15th

Meso 5 as I will be in a severe calorie depletion will likely feature 5x3 on all lifts (no 4x2 amraps) with the goal of just maintaining strength, then I will push accessories and reps very high on non strength movements
Strength movements as defined by: Squat, Bench: Deadlift (4x2+amrap or 5x3 protocols)

Meso2 is first pic
Meso3 second pic (this cycle actually started on a Saturday. This is why you see some for week 2 and not others.
 

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Not really sure, I think I ran the 200mg Test and 30-40 winni for a while. I had 100 winni tabs and I used em all.
3-4 tabs a day
maybe some days 5 so probably 30 days on winni. I cruise on 200mg test that's my TRT dose.

Today marks the 3rd week on 100mg tren Hex
 
A video for everyone, tonight went surprisingly well despite the awful tendinitis. My heavy days I won’t be so fortunate.
Ordered some elbow sleeves, they came wayyyy too small. Gotta send back and get a 3x or 4x STRong sleeves

Tonight’s main component
Speed work 9x3 vs 135 and red band- about 45 seconds between sets.
Raw weight volume
2x25 250lbs
Then cable flyes and back movements

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AmateurStrong said:
From my understanding, the increased distance the bar travels with longer limbed athletes the more elastic energy is stored as you descend the bar.
That being said if you properly pause a bench press you should minimize elastic energy (which is why competitions require a pause) however, practically speaking it generally takes longer for elastic energy to dissipate than a .5-2 second pause, so some latent elastic energy remains.

Anyway its kinda moot debate, nobody cares. The best benchers in the world are big boys with big arms and large ROMs. Some are short ROMs, and there are outliers all over the place. Not worth arguing over.
If someone thinks elastic energy matters, good for them.
If someone thinks elastic energy doesn't matter, I think they are wrong and we can happily do pin presses to demonstrate this fact.

Set the pins in a proper rack (which has 1 inch spaces) and set the bar at the bottom of the chest right off the chest. press with no eccentric motion.
Do the same lift with an eccentric motion and no pause or slight pause. Boom, there is your elastic energy argument out the window.
You will NOT press the same amount of weight off pins as you will a regular bench press.
Click to expand...
Word
 
AmateurStrong said:
Team,

First of all I want to say thank you for the recent participation in the thread. I am going to update everyone on the training cycle and whys behind what I do.
However, I want to preface what's to come by saying that my training is heavily influenced by Swede Burns 5th set methodology and the Scientific Principles of Strength Training. Attached is a screenshot of Mesocycle2, I am currently on Mesocycle 3 and will be completing this cycle next week. At which time I will post Meso3 and begin starting meso 4

A note on weights, sets, and loads.
I start at a point where I am 98% confident I can add weight to the bar at 5lbs per week for the entire meso (4 weeks).
If I start too light I simply slow the reps down or increase the pause
I write all my attempts down and I try to improve on them mesocycle to mesocycle (either increasing weight, speed, technique, etc).
If a weight is too heavy and I am not ready to progress (referring to accessory movements [whatever comes after squat,bench,deadlift] then I simply keep the weight/sets/reps the same and try harder next week.
The 4x2 protocol uses the AMRAP as the dictator of progress. Once you can no longer get 3+ reps you have essentially failed and there is no point (from a fatigue point of view) to continue loading weight on the bar. If you fail out too soon, you need to lower the weight.

Meso2
I have two bench days, one emphasizing my strength component and the other working my speed (acceleration is important for a good bench).

Speed bench: 9x3 vs bands.
These are all about being fast and explosive. 9x3 takes me less than 9 minutes if I am alone (11-12 minutes with a training partner).

Wide Grip: These have been my bread and butter of hypertrophy for Meso 1-3 and my progress is really starting to stall out here so I will be shifting to more traditional hypertrophy on Meso4 and this will be changed to 4x10.
2x25 is a lot of fun, challenging, and the pump is actually really nice. I see quite a bit of people doing these high rep training sets, but I often see them doing a lot of sloppy work. Do NOT bounce the weight.

10minute sets - These are brutal and used for metabolite training. 10 minutes, as many sets as you can within those 10 minutes. All with 25 reps.
Yes, you can sacrifice technique here. But these shouldn't be sensitive to injury. Think in terms of constant tension machines and limit swinging


Always document your journey, and don't let anomalies freak you out. For example, week 3 on squat day I only got 4 reps on my barbell squat. Despite the previous week I got 10 with 5lbs lighter! Anomalies happen, bad days happen. Write your data down so you can distinguish between overwork and just a bad damn day.

Meso3
A few notes and pain points that I will need to considering going into Meso4
Wide grip, these are becoming very hard. Today I will go for 255lbs for 2x25. I will be happy if I can finish out this meso with 5lbs jumps over the next two weeks and end at 265lbs, however... seems unlikely. Next Mesocycle I will transition to 4x10 for this particular movement and get some more traditional hypertrophy volume. Probably around 295lbs starting weight, however this is not yet set in stone.

Skull Crushers: These are going bye bye, my right elbow tendonitis is getting awful and I can't bench big all banged up

Close Grip Incline: whew I overshot this and started at 275lbs. I hope to improve on this number and at least end week 4 with an improvement.
Next meso I am going to increase the reps, slightly increasing the volume here.

Bicep AMRAP - These gotta go too. I pushed the metabolite training a bit too far with 8 weeks of metabolite training.

Heel Squat: Whew these babies aren't going anywhere. Grow quads grow! Next meso we will drop a set and increase reps.

Deadlifts: This will stay 4x2 with the AMRAP. Deadlifts are my worse lift, I will keep these bad boys

Finer Details

Notice on my bench training on Meso2 I started at 370lbs for 5 reps on the amrap and then ended week 3 with 3 reps and week 4 I didn't dare do any amrap. This in my opinion is a classic example of overloading. I couldn't maintain a base level of strength with the 5lbs increases and my performance declined each week.
Lets look at the lowest part and highest point of volume
4x2 = 8 reps
+5 reps on my week 1 - 13 reps
+ 3 reps on week 3 so 11 reps

My goal is to provide an overloading stimulus, but I obviously could not continue to increase weight. Decreasing weight (I determined) wasn't quite necessary so the question then is... how can I beat those volume markers, then recover (my week off) and beat those markers in turn.

The answer is the 5x3 method for Mesocycle3
5x3 = 15 reps, all of which would be an overload in terms of volume over what is done in meso 2. I did not use any lighter loads.

Then for Meso4 the goal will be to resume 4x2 and over that mesocycle beat, on average, the volume/load done in mesocycle 2.

This is how you put together long term training plans.


As for supplements:
Currently I am still on the following
100mg test - 2x/week
50mg trenHex - 2x/week
30mg anavar - 2x/day

Starting March 15th I begin another cut, so I will likely see a plummet in strength in Meso 4 (maybe not, depending on what extra supplements I take lol)
April 15th I intend to take progress photos and assess how likely a bodybuilding show is in the future. I plan to even attempt a "bodybuilding peaking plan" for the last week into April 15th

Meso 5 as I will be in a severe calorie depletion will likely feature 5x3 on all lifts (no 4x2 amraps) with the goal of just maintaining strength, then I will push accessories and reps very high on non strength movements
Strength movements as defined by: Squat, Bench: Deadlift (4x2+amrap or 5x3 protocols)

Meso2 is first pic
Meso3 second pic (this cycle actually started on a Saturday. This is why you see some for week 2 and not others.
Click to expand...
This is gold.
 
Cool log looking jacked brotha keep it up p.s. just started following you on I.g .
 
Heck of a bench session today, will definitely move up next week. Remember last week 5x3 with 380 was a bit rough, this week... smoke show.


Stay tuned for next week


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Little rep action
Looks like I am competing June 1st

Awful timing considering March and April is my cut lol, but I got suckered and the bench is calling my name

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4A75AD2B-C394-4815-B74A-879098B05746.jpg
 
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Little photo update
Am going to be training for a bench competition in June
 
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