Re: Misc. progress thread
 

lol if everyone expected you to pause at the bottom for your 1RM bench every guy's claimed bench would go down 50lb if not 100lb

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

Pausing is required in competition though isn't it?

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

Kind of.

The exact rules are murky.

You're given commands. You unrack and then hold the bar until you're given the first command to Start.

You press when you're given the press command, which is usually shortly after the bar touches your chest. It's supposed to reach essentially a paused state because you're not supposed to get a press command until the bar is motionless.

However, in reality that doesn't necessarily mean you have to pause though.

Watch someone like Dan Green press and you'll see what I mean. He lets the bar fall into his chest a bit so that he doesn't lose the bars elastic energy at the bottom.

It's still worth doing a lot of paused bench if you plan to compete, with exaggerated pauses, but in most competitions the pause isn't very long and many people get around it.


Great bench though.

My best benches ever are 275 flat @ 200 lbs and 245 on the incline.

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

Thanks for the clarifications Reach!

I've never tried doing an incline or decline bench so my numbers there would probably be very low.

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

Good numbers. The OHP was a clean and press though, which is harder to perform.

Only thing I noticed was on the bench, try to keep your wrists straight. you'll prevent a lot of damage to your wrists as well as give you more control over the bar. Also that weight is far under your potential. I feel that if you clean up the form a little bit, you could easily nail 275.

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

can you show me what you mean about the straight wrists? my wrists always hurt when i bench and i dont do that much weight.


finals kicked my training regimens ass. i had sooo much shit this finals week it was INSANE way more than I've ever had, but today was my first day back in a week and I killed my legs =] i feel so good

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

If you watch Shouka's bench vid that SCWolf quoted you can see his wrists are bent backwards a bit. Basically don't do that

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

I'll make a video of me benching or something next time I go to the gym with Northstrong

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

already have pics of chris benching in the wild

http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/i.../1500lbs-1.jpg

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

oh perf thxx

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

so I'm not sure if this is 'progress' but I strongly suspect my shoulders are limiting my progress at bench press.

triceps are my strong point. I weigh 190lb and can do 12, if not 15 or more bodyweight dips easily after benching and a variety of other accessories. if I went in fresh, I have no idea, but it'd probably be over 20.

I thought pecs were my weak area, but I suspect they're in the middle.

my shoulders are garbage. my OHP is 25lb plates on each side, for reps of 8-10. adding to this, I usually feel shoulder strain after I bench.

going to add way more shoulder volume to my workouts from now on.

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

fuck my shoulders, they're naturally loose to the point where i can partially dislocate them, sort of like this

I feel like they're holding back my bench, they hurt like hell when i plank etc.

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

190.8 lbs

edit:

magically 189.8 the next day

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

Average 7 day weight down from 188.9 to 186.9 since May 10th. Getting solidly back on the cut train, haven't lost any strength.

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

marcus keep it up! how much more do you want to go before you try adding mass?

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

Not sure at this point. I'm experiencing major difficulties with my lifts in terms of form (I fucking hate squats because I just can't get the form right no matter what I try). It's really demotivating. I haven't been able to progress past 115 without my right knee feeling like it's going to blow out, so I know I'm leaning too far forward... but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to "sit back more" without falling over or screwing up 10 additional things. Frustrating.

Other than that, I was thinking maybe 170 lbs -- or whenever the man boobs go away.

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

I recommend you give box squats a try.

I've trained a lot of people at this point, and I've gotten them all to squat properly except one. Honestly, I don't think she can. I've measured her and her leg to torso ratio is...ridiculous. She has really long femurs. It makes squatting hilariously awkward for her and I feel like what you're complaining about is what she went through. We tried pretty much everything for over a year and ...I still couldn't get her to squat properly.

I introduced box squats and now she loves squatting.

Set the box at a good height, around parallel, and enjoy. You can sit back into your squats and keep your back upright without ever losing your balance. It makes keeping perfect form extremely easy, and because of the nice pause at the bottom, it actually smashes your quads, hammies and glutes REALLY well (IMO maybe better than regular squats).

The biggest disadvantage is simply...it won't transition linearly to regular squat gains, which is only relevant if you plan to powerlift. Hip flexors are not very relevant when box squatting (which is also nice if you ever injure them), and you won't train your myotatic reflex.

Also, don't come down on the box too hard, can hurt you back. Slowly come onto the box.

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

@marcus

Don't stress about something like man boobs. I had them for a while until my pectoral muscle just developed under the boob and diminished the significance of any fat there.

Try doing wide stance squat and see if that feels better.

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

I think most people tend to have that one muscle group that just doesn't wanna grow. For me it's the chest. My father is actually built the same way. But I've been working my chest a bit harder lately. It seems like my arms have little to no problem growing though.

Also I can't do much to work my legs because of knee pain :c so I've done mostly upper body workouts.

Re: Misc. progress thread
 

Generally speaking though, it's a form problem, not that the 'muscle doesn't want to grow'. That's not really a thing. Muscles don't have minds of their own, you're just not activating them properly when you workout.

A legitimate problem would be a narrow frame and or bad pec insertions, which would make your chest appear to be small even if it was big. Not much you can do about bad insertions.

I had chest growth problems in my first year that are long gone now.

Tips:

Paused pressing motions. Paused bench. Paused everything, even your accessories. By pausing at the bottom of your pressing movements, you're forcing your body to activate the pecs. You'll find you're weak as hell on paused movements until your chest gets stronger.

Use wider grips for pressing motions. For flyes, use a larger ROM.

Push your chest out! I see a lot of guys doing cable flyes and other pressing motions with no chest, and their shoulders are rounded forward and chests caved in. First of all, that's bad posture, and second, your chest won't grow that way. Learn to keep your shoulders back, back straight, chest out. Good posture during all exercises.