Power Lifting

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seansb455

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Hi i'm 16 years old and i weigh 178 pounds. I just recently started training for powerlifting about 2 months ago. Before that I justed messed around in the gym benching and doing all of that, but I never got seresous about it until recently. I want to increase my lifts, mainly my bench. I have been stuck at a pathetic 220 lb. bench for 3 months now. I have tried just about everything to increase it, but it just wont budge.

Bench- 220
Squat-385
Deadlift-415

Any advice or tips on how to help increase my lifts would be helpfull. As you can see my bench is pathetic and I hate when i go into the gym and all of my friends are increasing and i'm stuck at the same weight, week in and week out. ANY advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
 
first of all, i think those numbers are pretty nice, the bench is falling behind, but the squat and deadlift numbers are impressive, spechally for a 16 year-old of 178 pounds!

About the bench, make sure you are getting enough back work, to balance it, with a weak upper back, your body wont let your bench press increase because it wants to prevent injury.

And i suppose you have tried to change the set/rep scheme you use for the bench? Another trick is to reset the weight a bit down. So if your doing 220 for 5 reps (just an example) and your stuck and cant improve it, try going down to maybe 210 or 205, then add 5lbs a week. Often thats all it takes to bust through it.

You could post your routine so we could see if maybe you are training the bench too much, or if your workout is imbalanced.
 
I have a pretty strong upper back, I probally train it a little more often then chest. Would you recomend doing the 5x5 bench routine? Soo lets just say i was doing 185 for 5 reps. I should take it down to 175 or so and then just add 5 pounds every week? I have been training with my friend for about 8 weeks now, soo our body part split changes weekly. A typicall routine for me is as follows:
Week # 1 (Example)
Monday- Chest, Shoulder, Abs
Tuesday-Back (Deadlift)
Wednesday-Legs, Abs
Thursday- Triceps, Biceps, Forearms
Friday- Off
Saturday- Chest,Triceps, Abs (Not sure if the tri's got enough rest from the previous workout
Sunday-Off
Wee # 2
Monday-Legs, Abs
Tuesday-Off
Wednesday-Chest, Tri's, Bi's
Thursday-Back, Shoulders, Traps,
Friday- Off
Saturday-Olympic Training (Clean and Jerk and Snatch)
Sunday-Chest, Triceps, Abs

I used to train by myself, and I would workout 7 days a week. A trainer at my gym told me I was deffinetly overtraining and to take a few days off a week, it is hard for me to do, but my body most likely wasnt getting enough rest and recovery time. I used to train each body part twice a week with the splits like this:

Monday- Chest, Triceps, abs
Tuesday-Shoulders
Wednesday-Back, Biceps, Forearms
Thursday-Legs, Calves
Friday-Chest, Triceps, Abs
Saturday-Back, Biceps
Sunday-Legs, shoulders
 
you're a powerlifter who trains like a bodybuilder. Look into full body training, upper lower split or push pull split. Im pretty sure it will smash you through your plateau. Just search full body workout/training here on this forum and you should find lots of info about it.
 
Also want to add that alot of people never target there middle trap area. You can gain an advantage by working out your middle back.

Dumbbell Trap Raise

Frequency: 3x/week
Reps: 6-12
Load: 6-12RM

Description: Lie face down on a 45-60 degree incline bench. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and lift your arms up to 10 and 2 o'clock. Hold the top position for 1-2 seconds before you lower the dumbbells. Keep your elbows locked throughout the movement. It's important to not drop your arms all the way down, thus keeping tension on your traps.

image019.jpg

image021.jpg
 
like i said. either a full body workout, which is no split, work the entire body every training day 3-4 times a week. Do a push pull, which means all pulling on 2 days and all pushing on 2 days, or an upper lower, which means all upper on one day and all lower on one day.

Jmans advice is a good one! Middle and lower traps are extremly importaint, and usually dont get enough work with rowing, if you want to keep your shoulders happy they are importaint!

Google "Westside barbell training". Its a pretty darn good training method for powerlifters. If you follow it, it will get you strong.
 
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