PowerlifterJay

[solidj55]

Hey man we talked earlier last week or week before in PM land and you told me about your workout for bench. Well I am going to gear my workouts a lot like yours. I wanted to ask some questions though. Number one, I have a good lockout but my sticking point is about 1 or 2 inches off of my chest. Now using the same type of workout you do what would be a good exercise to help bring that up. I know a good bench shirt takes all of that out the equation but I only use those in meets lol and there are still 364 more days in the year that I dont use it. I was thinking maybe a 1 board on Thursday as well as getting my back stronger. What do you think??? Also on your MOnday, or real bench day do you still always go for sets of five like you used to or what??? I was wondering how I should go up each week on my bench day. Im a natty and scared to death of over training or getting my body used to going heavy all of the time and then starting to degress instead of progress. Anyway, On my thursday workouts I was going to alternate every on or two weeks or so using 1 board, 2board, 3 board, and 4 boards. WHat do you think??? Thanks in advance for all of your help.

 

[powerlifterjay]

First off anyting you rotate in the equasion is for the best. So good idead for thurs! On bench day NUmber 1 i bench alot on feel. Meaning i fi go in and everyting is freakin light iam going to PR something! Usually a double or triple. I rarely hit singles raw. As far as going up in weight, after your warmups and you begin set 1 if your going to stay at reps of 5 do set 1 then go up 10 or so lbs and attempt 5 again. If you barely get the 5 but do get it go up to a triple (if you feel strong). Or go for another 5 with the same weight. Or drop back 10lbs and go for as many as you can. Then when you bench again whatever you get on the burnout set , say 6 or 7 try to beat that on your first set next time. Dude sets of 5 are a basis but you dont hav eto stay at that number. Say you come in and set 1 is so light you could get 8 or so when you expected 5, dude take advantage of your adrenaline and PR a triple. For example last week (mon i did)

after warmups i did 405 for 8
500 for 3...but they were light! So i went down to 455 455 for 8 my best of all time was like 6 or 7. But i knwo last week was a PR for me. So see i am diverse in my reps iam hitting reps of 8 and really had one heavy set with 500. Depending on my atttitude i might have went up to 525 for a double. BUt i hav edone 500 for more then 3 in the past so i stopped cause i didnt want to wear out when i could smell a PR! Basically you hav eto listen to your body. Sometimes i knwo i am good for reps othere times i may suck leading to my heavy set but PR a double on my last set. If you dont follow me let me know. Basically what i am saying is you dont have to hav exact reps of 5 to gain strength. If the floowoing week you barely got 5 reps and the next week your on rep 5 and you smell 2 more then do it. But to find your starting point with this style you need a weight to begin with that you can get 5 reps with. Got me? Then lift accordingly. I am very complexed so i know iam hard to follow so if i lost ya jsut tell me. But thurs is good for ya.

 

[solidj55]

Thanks Jay youve been a lot of help. I follow what your saying. I have one more question, when do you work your back and what do you usually do for your back???

 

[solidj55]

OH yea, I lied lol, I have one more question. Do you think I should only use one type of board on my Thursday bench day or should I use different boards in the same workout. I was thinking of using 1 boards by themselves for a week or two since Im weak about an inch or two off of the chest. then on to two or three boards for a week, maybe two weeks, then back to one board for a week, and then to four or five board, and then go from there. DO you think I should use different boards in the same day or is what I said ok?? I was going to work up to triples and possibly doubles or singles off of the boards. Do you think this is too heavy every single week???

 

[SouthPawSE]

I am by no means in the same class with PLJ, but increasing my back work(more rows) and speed bench(50% of max, 8 sets of 3) once a wk helped me off the chest.

PLJ 455 for 8, what's your raw max about 575?? Friggin awesome man!!!

 

[solidj55]

Thanks Southpaw I agree about the Rows helping thats why I asked Jay about his back workout. Rows have helped me a lot. I am with Jay though when it comes to speed work, ITS OVER RATED lol. Maybe I didnt do it the way its meant to be done but I hated it, I got little to no results from it. I dont know if Jay got any help from it but I know he is like me and responds well to board work and just plain old fashioned benching. I wish I did respond to speed work better because the idea behind it is great.

 

[CytoMel]

Thanks Southpaw I agree about the Rows helping thats why I asked Jay about his back workout. Rows have helped me a lot. I am with Jay though when it comes to speed work, ITS OVER RATED lol. Maybe I didnt do it the way its meant to be done but I hated it, I got little to no results from it. I dont know if Jay got any help from it but I know he is like me and responds well to board work and just plain old fashioned benching. I wish I did respond to speed work better because the idea behind it is great.

I wonder why speed benching didnt work well for you. It seems like myself and my training partners are getting stronger doing this. It could be because of the weight. A lot of people try to use to much weight each set and they end up doing it improperly. It should take 3 seconds or less from unracking to lockout of the third rep. Also chains have been a great benefit for this. Short rest periods like 1 minute work well too.

 

[powerlifterjay]

I do back on tuesday. I do my low back firist. Refer to my post on my missing link to deadlift. But after that i do various rows. Usually chest supported. Then i do pull ups or pull downs on the machine. But basically i do two execise for low back then right into the row. One week its chest supported, next could be hammer rows (hammer strength) , next time it could be one arm rows. Then pulls up or downs.

As far as your boards do them how you want. If you use a different one each week that is fine. YOu won tget burned out. If you decide to implement speed we do it before the board on thurs. Yes its different but regardless of any opinions it works. I have me over 600, three others over 500, 1 in which is 181 lbs. And a few in the 400's. So the program does work.

One question ? what do you do after bench on monday? I went over that right? If i did cool, no need to explain, just wandering if we crossed all bases.

 

[solidj55]

I believe it was straight to tris, like jm press then to some extensions and pushdowns then some shoulder raises all directions, is that correct?

 

[powerlifterjay]

Yes it is.

And in regard to speed. Like i have said before i push everyting as fast as possiable. And if i followed westside 100% as far as no benching and speed work and all , then i think speed would help. Cause the boards work as does everyhting, but if your not raw flat benching then speed work would be your only raw if you will session. So if I just did speed work on Mon and no benching and keep thurs day the same then i would be with the rest of ya'll. And speed would help. But my raw benching is where your speed benching is as far as were it stands on my lists of things to do. Maybe the raw flat benching along with speed is why my joints ach when i do them. So for me to implement speed100% i would need to cut out raw flat. Maybe one day but not right now!