Tried Max Bench Test went terrible, 1 Dawg, The Mann I train Westside What Happened

[dirtydawg]

one more thing if you are not listening to metallica when you work out you are cheating yourself out of about 10lbs on the bench and if you want 20lbs go with the "tough enough" CD that shit rocks!!!!!!
dd

 

[Stor Mand]

This doesn't wok for everyone, but I usually only do 4 sets for bench - 10 - 8 - 6 then try to get 20 heavy reps on the last set. For example 135x10 or 12 (warmup) - 225x8 - 265x6 or 8. Then do a heavy burn set, something that you can barely do for 20 reps. I was doing a burnout set, 20 reps with 230 or 235 ("was" being the key word, starting over after a couple years of very sporadic lifting). As soon as you reach 20 reps, increase by 5 or 10 pounds the next time. I found this to help my bench a lot but this is only a small part. Also, you might do heavy incline and flat flys, 3 to 5 sets, 8 to 12 reps. Again, heavy is releative. I usually used 75 to 85 pound dumbells. Try it for a change of pace.

 

[powerlifterjay]

I would say that if your slow at the bottom it could be two things. One your weak area is the bottom. And also did you pause your raw max. When i max out raw its down and up. The only time the bar is on my chest is just quick enough for it to change directions. So if your slowly lower thing the bar and then trying to gain speed on the way up forget it. You bring down kinda slow when your shirt is on, other then that its balistic. when i bench i am mainly focusing on my lockout. if your slow down your slow up. Speed day is fast down fast up. But on a positive not if your shirt is on you will do fine out of the hole and that is were your board presses will have come in handy for ya. Your right i dont follow westside as far as speed day goes. I think (my opinion) its over rated. It fuckin kills my joints when i have tried speed work. And i push faster then anyone i know or compete with. You should push fast up with all weight you use all the time. Now i know a few people will diss agree, but when i am clean my work load has to be cut way down. If i go hard twice a week on tris (bench and med tris mon, heavy boards and tris thurs) when clean i am over trained in about 3 weeks with this. I have to either cut back my work load or do tris twice a week every other week. Ya know you westsiders will diss agree i know but truly how many natural powerlifters do well with 100% westside. You have no time to recover. And i from experience have felt this. When i am not clean i am fuckin unstoppable. So the mann or 1 dawg , or hell flapwlftr please tell me one big bencher who lives in FL, or Ohio who is clean and with a sizeable bench. I love westside lifters there fuckin awesome but so is ronnie coleman in BB and george Halbert is equal to ronnie as far as genitic and other. Both guys recover fast so george builds incredible strength and ronnie size. I am going to Westside every week in dec to get ready for my next meet in early jan i talked to dave tate and he told me some shit George does in the gym. And he is truly the best out there and i dont think anyone will ever break is recent record. With that said i still havent committed 100% westside cause it doesnt work for me. I am not sayoing it wont for you but you need to give it a few months before you come to that conclusion. Sorrry this was so long but that was my 2 cents.

 

[solidj55]

Im on week seven of strictly Westside training. As far as recovery goes Jay is right somewhat. I had to cut back my tricep work on mondays because it was too much come thursday. But on thursday i can destroy them. I do my Dynamic day on Monday and my ME day on Thursday. All I know is that my ME days are going up, my speed is increasing each week on my DE days and everything else looks good. I wont max out without a shirt and I probably wont max out at all until I have my meet in march so ill tell you guys more then. Oh yea and the reason im telling you guys all of this is because Im all natural. I believe that this will work well for me but since Im all natural Ill just have to make a few adjustments to keep from overtraining and such. i just plan to continue on training westside up until my meet and then decide how good westside works. but like i said i have been healing fine since i cut back that extra bit of triceps on my monday. But I too am weak at the bottom so I will be throwing in some illegal wides, close grip benches, dumbell bench every so often to keep things up to par. This is what the mini cycle im doing now looks like mike:
weeks1-2-2board press
weeks3-4-floor press
weeks5-6-4board press
weeks7-8-incline press
then I will start this one directly after
weeks9-10-illegal wides
weeks11-12-floor press
weeks13-14-2board press(i like these a lot)
weeks15-16-either 4 board press or lockouts
weeks17-18-either dumbell benches or closegrip bench press
I feel weeks 9-18 will be the best for my sticking point. Sorry for the long post but this was just my 2 cents.

 

[natural-mike]

GUys, these are some very informative responses, obviously you can see a trend forming that Westsiders at least all natural one's can easily over-train and it seems we are weak at the bottom, which kind of makes sense since Loui says that they mostly train where the bench shirt stops helping.

Powerlifterjay, I did not plan on pausing when I tried my raw max but I went down slow I admit that, however when I took the pussy ass bullshit weak 315 I took it down fast and popped it up fast so you may be right about that as far as moving fast on a raw max with no shirt. One thing I noticed is after the completion of the mini cycle my chest is sore today , my pecs that it, they have not been sore throughout my Westside training, everything else gets sore bu tnot my chest, I think what happened is I completely neglected my chest by taking all lifts close grip for triceps , my next mini cycle will look exactly like your solidj I MUST MUST MUST incorporate lower board work like 2 board press, I always did 4 and sometimes 3 board. Also illegal wides too, and I may even start doing my speed day with competition grip, many may disagree but when I tried my raw max and took my comfortable competition grip it felt wierd and different because my entire mini cycle consisted of close grip work which well thats what Westside training is close grip work for tri's. So when I took a normal grip I was not comfortable and also like I said when I look back on my mini cycle almost no work was done for the lower portion of the bench, now with a shirt I'm sure thats no biggie but raw it matters. After hearing everyone respond and studying my problem I realize I have to attack the lower portion of the bench, as my tri's and lockout strength is going very well.

 

[solidj55]

I agree with you mike, thats exactly why Im not maxing yet because I know my lower portion is probably not up to par, thats why I set my mini cycle up the way i did. Ill be able to still work my tris and lockouts hard but at the same time Ill be able to bring my bottom up to par. Im going to start doing at least two of my eight sets with my comp grip as well. Ive done all grips inside of the power ring so far and my real grip is index finger on the power ring. I tried it on speed day this Monday and it felt weird as hell because of all the close grip. I think that when I change it up this coming minicycle I will be better off. But still dont completely rule out the closer grips in training. This is how I do it as far as grips. On speed bench day I do two sets competition grip(index finger on the power ring for me), two sets with my palm directly inside the power ring, two sets with my index finger on the smooth of the bar, and then I take my thumbs and stick them out to where the end of the rough part and the begining of the smooth part are and measure in between the smooth and the power ring. Those grips will work all angles well. As far as my ME days I do two and three board presses placing my palm right inside the powerring, 4 board presses with my index finger on the smooth, floor presses using the inbetween the power ring and smooth of the bar, inclines with index on the smooth, illegal wides for me are my index on the power ring. I havent done lockouts yet to know what grip to use nor have I dont declines. But anyway thats how I grip on the different exercises so far. Hope that may help you some.

 

[dirtydawg]

being drug free i have not had a problem with my tris being overtrained on the WS routine. I do ME on monday and D-Day on friday so there is plenty of time for my tris to recover but my chest never recovers go figure. but once i start the workout everything is good to go. the only thing that i see for me that could become a problem of overtraining is my wrist and forearms from going heavy. well heavy for me anyway. they are starting to take some abuse but nothing a week off might not fix.

dd

 

[1-dawg]

Mike -- I didn't thru all of the posts but here is what I think. If you ahve to combine 2 workouts into 1 thebest way is to combine the 2 speed workouts. Dyn squat and bp's. Do not do any extra assistancce work on those days -- just bench and squat, and abs of course.

With that said -- if your me days are not resulting in pr's then your speed weight is probably too much. or loose the chains for now. You don't need them. I went 6 months of startight westsdie training before I even touched the bands or chains. Break into them slowly. If you must test your bench in the gym(which I never reccomend) don't do it often. Every 8 weeks is ok. Testing in teh gym just ends up in disappointment too often.

LOL -- yes I have been at work. I am active duty air force -- things get a little crazy right now.

 

[natural-mike]

Dawg, that sounds like a pretty good plan of attack you have mapped out, I am going to combine the Squat and Bench Dynamic days and I changed some of the ME Bench exercises for my upcoming mini cycle, I threw in illegal wides, 2 board press and I am probably going to lose the chains for now, I think the weight I am using for speed day is just right however when I add the weight of the chains it becomes a bit much. And last of all, I have definately recognized that my low portion is weak so I must attack that portion of my bench and of course I will keep up the lockout and tri work. And oh yeah, I actually waited 8 weeks exactly before I maxed my bench, like you said Dawg, I was dissappointed and I also dont plant o do this alot, I might even try it every 16 weeks.

Thanks guys,
appreciate all the help, I'm starting to really get educated here especially learning my body and how it is repsonding to Westside, the goods the bads and of course how to tweak the rouotine to work for me.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[I'D RATHER BE DEADLIFTING]

I think you just hit it right there Mike. We all have to experiment with it and tweak it so it works with our own bodies. Good luck with it and I too am learning a ton from you guys.