bench plateau

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firehorse

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So I have been stuck at this bench max plateau of around 265-270 1 rm for quite awhile now...My diet is good, get plenty of protein and the right amount of carbs. Cals are right where they should be with a small surplus everyday yet I have been stuck here for a good month and a half..I am only 150 pounds so I don't think I need more cals (I'm at 2500 a day which for my weight that is quite a bit, I'm constantly full eating 4-6 times daily).
I do all supporting lifts vigorously and religously but is there anything inherintly(sp?) wrong with my bench sets?

they follow this pattern
set 1: 205 pounds 9 reps
set 2: 225 pounds 6 reps
set 3: 215 pounds 7 reps
set 4: 205 pounds 8 reps
set 5: 195 pounds 8 reps
set 6: 185 pounds 9 reps
set 7: 185 pounds until fail..
 
why go down in weight after:confused: all you are doing is using up more cals,and why do the last set to faliure you are asking for CNS fatigue if you do this every workout.
just do it like this and try to increase the weight when you get stronger.
set 1: 205 pounds 9 reps
set 4: 205 pounds 8 reps
set 3: 215 pounds 7 reps
set 2: 225 pounds 6 reps
 
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Too many sets of bench press. Do some support exercise like dips and work on your tricep strength. A strong back is needed as well.
 
thanks for the advance guys...so is pyramidding (lack of real word) the weight generally a bad thing? I thought I was informed it was the best way to gain? I will try doing the heavier sets last it just seemed that I would want a lighter set first to get the blood going, do the heavy weight while I still got energy and then the last sets I would want to do a lot of reps to fatigue the muscles..that was my thought process...any explanation why this may have been flawed thinking??
 
I only do 3 sets and I've progressed ok. Going for 240 tonight.
Bigtom is wet just thinking about it.

I might suggest doing the lower weight first to warm up, rest for a minute then lift heavy.
 
Kraken said:
I only do 3 sets and I've progressed ok. Going for 240 tonight.
Bigtom is wet just thinking about it.

I might suggest doing the lower weight first to warm up, rest for a minute then lift heavy.
Click to expand...

Woohooooo, i wanna know how your yeti physique copes wi this ^^^^
 
firehorse said:
So I have been stuck at this bench max plateau of around 265-270 1 rm for quite awhile now...My diet is good, get plenty of protein and the right amount of carbs. Cals are right where they should be with a small surplus everyday yet I have been stuck here for a good month and a half..I am only 150 pounds so I don't think I need more cals (I'm at 2500 a day which for my weight that is quite a bit, I'm constantly full eating 4-6 times daily).
I do all supporting lifts vigorously and religously but is there anything inherintly(sp?) wrong with my bench sets?

they follow this pattern
set 1: 205 pounds 9 reps
set 2: 225 pounds 6 reps
set 3: 215 pounds 7 reps
set 4: 205 pounds 8 reps
set 5: 195 pounds 8 reps
set 6: 185 pounds 9 reps
set 7: 185 pounds until fail..
Click to expand...

I would do a warm up with the bar and then 135. Then I would do something along the lines of
185X5, 205X3, 225X3, 245X3, then hit a heavier single or two.

How's your form? How much back training do you do? What other pressing movements do you do and how often do you press through the week?
 
You just to change s hit up a bit. Look into stuff like Matrix's, drop sets, supersets, trisets, pyramids, reverse pyramids....Look into different time on your lifts, change the lifts you are doing etc.
 
what really seemed to work for me in increasing all of my maxes was just starting with a weight I knew I could do, and just keep improving every week.

Here is what I did..

When I started my 1RM was 225, so I started doing my sets as follows (excluding 3 warm up sets):

170 X 8-10
190 X 4-6
170 X 8-10
170 X 8-10
150 X 12-15

Training one rep short of failure on each set.

I started with a weight I knew I could do, and then every week (I only benched once per week...) I would increase the weight by 5 pounds, so the next week would look like :

175 X 8-10
195 X 4-6
175 X 8-10
175 X 8-10
155 X 12-15

I kept going just like that until I got to this point:

200 X 8-10
220 X 4-6
200 X 8-10
200 X 8-10
180 X 8-10


Well, then my program ended ..... but yeah, my 1RM went up a lot... I did the same thing for squats and deadlifts too, you should try that..

I think one problem that a lot of people do is they go for a number of reps before you even start the set... keep going until you are about to fail IMO (on work sets).
 
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