More problems!

T

THBench

0
What would be better for my chest workout? I seriously need to change that because in march i maxed out at 185, in april-may 175, and yesterday i maxed out at 165. Yes, I do variations of barbell press, incline press, butterflys, chest press. I just recently got dumbbells and attempted a dumbbell press but couldnt figure out how to get the weights up with any weight past 33.2 (i have mini barbell dumbells, where u add weight and the bar is 13.2)

Anyways my main question is could someone actually give me an idea of what i should be doing for reps. I dont wanna hear this 2-4 maximal strength, 8-12 hypertrophy, and 12-15 endurance because it doesn't seem to work for me, although its mostl ikely true. I went on a program with all 1-6 reps and I maintained a max of 175 through 8 weeks, i've tried doing 4 sets of 10 and 3 sets of 10 for a while and actually lost 5 lbs on max. I might try the pyramid scheme:
100 x 15 (60%)
110 x 12 (65%)
120 x 10 (73%)
130 x 8 (80%)
140 x 6 (85%)

or anything else that might be better. I just don't think I can keep doign what I'm doing if i'm decreasing.

Also, what exactly do romanian deadlifts do? Do they do your erector, your glutes, hamstrings, calves? Should they be on my back or leg day? Same goes for SLDL and regular deadlifts.
 
How often do you train your chest? If your bench press is going down, you may be overtraining. Have you changed your diet ?? Yes RDL's stimulate your hammy's, glutes and lower back. I personally do them on leg days. SLDL would be done on leg day also, but I don't think you'd have to do both RDL's and SLDL's. But that's up to you. Deads would probably be done on back day. You could do them on leg day, but if you're doing squats on leg day, following them with deads is gonna be a chore. JMO
 
I would put a lot of money on saying that if you gained weight, your strength would go up as well.

The strength and size repa are true, but I'm guessing that you didn't give them enough time, it's not a day by day thing. You need to be doing it AT LEAST 8 weeks in order to fully evaluate.

So if you had lifted for ten weeks at low reps at not gained any strength, or at high reps for the same amount of weeks and hadnt gained any size, then you are doing something wrong.

You cannot maintain or gain much strength if you switch over to high reps from low reps, so when you did the 4 sets of 10 and 3 sets of 10, of course you lost strength, that happens to everyone.

If you are going purely for strength, I would go with (after you are most definitely warmed up...however many stretches and warm up sets that takes) 3 work sets. So those 3 sets are going to be at low reps obviously, of course keep in mind that is very hard on your body to be doing this though, it is pretty easy to overtrain when working at low reps often.
 
Looking at your schedule in the other thread, you may not have the frequency needed.

You should look into a 3-day full body, a 3-day alternating split or a 4-day push/pull or antogonistic split so you're hitting the same muscles more than once a week.
 
Last edited:
I definitely do not want to bulk up for the summer and look fat, so I'm going to maintain until about august, and then begin a longg bulking period.

If you want to see my workouts you can view them here http://www.fitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13895

i did about 4 weeks of low rep high weight and I was sore, but it had failure tests and progression and I just wasn't progressing and failing all the tests that you're suppose to pass. I'll give it a try agaim. It's 14 workouts long, but I want to be sure it works. http://www.eas.com/training/benchpress/index.asp I will only be doing the bench press part of this workout. Is this ok to do, or should I try something else? My goal is actually to get a bigger chest, but also get my max up to 200. Suggestions?
 
Last edited:
You gotta realize that the bigger part comes from food.

With that said, I think you should start a routine soon, a new one however you wish, and stick to it for 10 weeks or so. That will take you to the end of august, where you can evaluate that program and then start another for the bulk you wanna do.
 
this is my chest/tricep day. Ive used it for about 20 weeks and I've gone from about 185-215 1R max. The only plateau I've had was for about a month after I got bronchitis. My buddy I lift with uses the same routine and has gone from 185-235 1R max, and he hasn't had a plateau yet.

I hit my chest once a week with this routine. give it a shot

barbell flat bench press: 3sets 3-5 reps

barbell incline/decline bench (rotate weekly): 3 sets 3-5 reps

dumbell flat bench press: 3 sets 8-10

dumbell incline/decline bench press (whichever you did for BB press): 3 sets 8-10 reps (I sometimes use the hammer strength machines for these, the point is that the pecs work seperately)

Flys (machine, DB, cables, whatever sounds good that day): 2-3sets: 15+

Skull crushers: 3sets: 5-7 reps

cable pull downs: 3sets: 12-15 reps

for all the presses, I go to failure. So if I get 6 reps on any set of the first 2 excercises, I will add 10 lbs the next time I do that excercise (not the same day). same thing if I get 11 reps on the next 2 excercises.

Also, when you do DB press, make sure your bringing the weights down so they are about even with your nipples, not your shoulders.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top