My bench has been stagnant for ages. It’s not so far along, 90 is my RM1, and I can work to get to that shaoe, but I can never surpass it. I am not really too bothered, as bench I don’t find particularly specific to sprinting, so I would rather that was down that my squat or hang cleans!
Well, if a lifter has been on a plateau, it’s time to change up training.
Some of our biggest gains have been made in the weight room when I finally convince the athletes to stop doing the same bench workout over and over and over and expecting different results. It takes a great leap of faith, but sometimes the key to flat benching more is to take “a break” and cease heavy flat benching - for now.
Find new full exercises - incline, close grip, and work them hard instead of flat bench. Work on the speed of your bench - and the technique. Which part of the lift is your weakness? The lift off, a sticking point, or perhaps the lockout? We’ll have to attack that weakness.
I could post a basic athlete (football, basketball, etc.) program here, if you are at all interested…
I would be very interested in a simple, basic program that would be suitable for 16-18 year old girl sprinters with no prior weight training experience. I have been thinking of doing the Starting Strength 5 X 5 program. What do you think?
I agree with devils. Drop flat bench for 3-4 weeks and replace with heavy dips and incline bench or dumbell incline presses. Then when you come back to flat bench, pyramid 5 x 3 (pyramid the weight up to or near a 3RM, but keep your reps for all sets at 3. After two weeks of 5 x 3, you’ll be ready for a PR.
Well you can’t fall into the trap of thinking a trainee should approach each lift the same. If bench is well trained and squat isn’t, we can assume that squat form needs to be improved and that more basic work needs to be done. Basic work meaning 5x5 with focus on form and not getting complicated like you may want to do to keep progress coming with bench.
I see no reason to go away from their “good” lift. In a nutshell, you can keep training the good lift but don’t think you can train the new movement the same way as the one where you’ve already used the beginner gains and form is decent.
Or am I as off-topic from your question as everyone else?
Yeah, I would be interested to see a basic programme please. I think the only potential exercises I could use instead would be dips, incline DB press or close grip bench. Would you agree with star61 by changing it for 3-4 weeks??
