Best way to increase bench?

[MANOWAR]

Whats a good way to blast your bench week by week?

I had a couple of weeks where my flat bench went up 20 pounds each week from just doing extremely lengthy workouts, but after reading on the boards I found out that I overtrained like crazy and my routines were'nt really good.

I used to do 12+ sets of 1 rep, going up in weight then down like a pyramid. My old chest workouts went something like this:

Flat barbell bench
135x10 (warmup)
150x1
175x1
185x1
200x1
205x1
225x1
230x1
230x1
185x1
175x1
150x1
115x10 (cooldown)

Incline Dumbell presses
55x10
60x8
65x3

Dips with 25lbs strapped on


Pushups with 25lbs on back

When doing those forced bench reps I took long breaks in between sets, and sometimes stayed on the bench for 45 minutes to an hour, leaving my whole workout almost 2 hours long. Is this bad? It seemed to me like overtraining but I had significant gains.

What are some reccomendations if I want to build my bench up? Thanks.

 

[roccodart440]

Do triples. At least 4 working sets.

 

[MANOWAR]

So 4x3 for flat bench then move to dumbells?

 

[Vennom96]

Holy balls! Thats gotta be the worst chest workout I've ever seen. What was the point in doing all those 1 rep sets? And at that you only jumped 10lbs and sometimes only even 5 lbs per set! If you wanted to do singles like that I think a more reasonable approach would be
135x10 warmup
185x1
205x1
225x1
240x1 (your highest was 230 but if you cut out all those extra sets you'd prob have more in you to hit 10 more lbs.) And also IMO no need to cool down like you did especially since you're still doing singles at that point. If you were repping 275 and up for around 5 or so and wanted to drop to 225 for a "cooldown" and repped that out for 10 plus then maybe thats a different story.

Was this when you first started lifting? If so thats probably why you grew and got bigger and stronger. When you're new to lifting just about anything you do will make you get bigger and stronger b/c you're applying new stress to the body that it does not normally undergo.

 

[blackbeard]

not sure what your goal is
doing sngles will not yield the best results if you area bodybuilder stik with higher reps..

if you want to increase ur bench try close grip pause presses as wel as regular grip pause presses

work your lats and shoulders hard as well with reps

 

[MANOWAR]

Was this when you first started lifting? If so thats probably why you grew and got bigger and stronger. When you're new to lifting just about anything you do will make you get bigger and stronger b/c you're applying new stress to the body that it does not normally undergo.

This was about a year into lifting, but I'll try what you told me.

BlackBeard, thanks for the advice

 

[joshbeam1]

u gained 20lbs a wk!!??!! how much gear were u taking??
anyways...u wanna gain on bench...get your diet in check. Eat ALOT of quality foods. NExt don't overtrain. Next...try switching up.. Reverse grip bench, close grip flat bench, flat bench, incline bench, decline bench, dumbell hammer grip, etc. etc. Another thing....make sure ure doing other heavy compound movements like squats and deadlifts. U want overall strength and size not just a big bench
G'luck

 

[AngryMuscles]

umm...do major tricep workouts???

 

[Mudge]

I can do the whole upper body in under 2 hours if I went straight, but 2 hours for just chest is ridiculous. The chest is a small bodypart and does not require high volume (if you want to do Metal Militia thats fine, but you aren't obviously).

Why are you trying to reinvent the wheel? There are plenty of routines that work, and your routine doesn't resemble anything I've seen for either a powerlifter or a bodybuilder.

 

[slyfalcon]

definitetly could get more out of it if you tried another method. I mix bb w db mixing flats inclines and declines mixing in flys also cables and db always jumping 20lbs no less. usually 3-4 exercises with one to failure. using this method i went from pressing 205lb to 365max in 13 mos. Proper diet important! I was out of gym for a while due to business so whatever strength i had dwindled plus diet was total shit working 15hr days. Dont burn yourself out on light weight when you can burn after heavy to failure with lighter weight youll see much better results.

 

[Winter]

u gained 20lbs a wk!!??!! how much gear were u taking??

He was talkin about his bench going up 20lbs a week lol.

 

[joshbeam1]

He was talkin about his bench going up 20lbs a week lol.
Yeah... i know... thats a LOT. If u consistantly gained 20lbs on your bench ea. wk. u'd have gained 240lbs on your bench in just 3 months
thats y i said BS

 

[Mulligan]

Do triples. At least 4 working sets.

Ditto. Try Triples. I am doing that now on my way to 315

 

[MANOWAR]

u gained 20lbs a wk!!??!! how much gear were u taking??
anyways...u wanna gain on bench...get your diet in check. Eat ALOT of quality foods. NExt don't overtrain. Next...try switching up.. Reverse grip bench, close grip flat bench, flat bench, incline bench, decline bench, dumbell hammer grip, etc. etc. Another thing....make sure ure doing other heavy compound movements like squats and deadlifts. U want overall strength and size not just a big bench
G'luck

If you want to be specefic my 1rm went from 170 to 185 to 205 to 225, in consecetive weeks. Same thing with my friend Bernard who I lifted with, but he's just genetically huge and probably could've gone for more. Then football started, lost size, injured myself, and been recovering since then.

Anyway I always eat a lot thats no problem. And I'll shorten up my workouts a lot.

 

[MANOWAR]

He was talkin about his bench going up 20lbs a week lol.

Hah I didn't even see that, thanks for clearing it up

 

[jocktheglide]

He was talkin about his bench going up 20lbs a week lol.

maybe he holds back on max benches? I once lied about my bench I told some folks I can 135lbs then next week i came in and did 185lbs then next week after that I maxed out at 225 then next week did 275lbs then the week after I did 295lbs all in those weeks I was pretending to be super week then I kept increasing and I got folks attention and they asked me how I did it increasding my bench so fast it was kwel

 

[roccodart440]

u gained 20lbs a wk!!??!! how much gear were u taking??

Ha ha, LOL!

I added 45 pounds on to my bench in 2 days. Check my training log...

500 last tuesday and 545 on thursday.....hmmm, gotta love those tailors...

 

[Mudge]

Looking at his workout I'd guess he was very new to lifting, where 20 pounds a week is high but not unreasonable. You have to figure if he was adding 20 a week and is at 230, he didn't start out too high.

Figured that woulda been obvious.

 

[joshbeam1]

Looking at his workout I'd guess he was very new to lifting, where 20 pounds a week is high but not unreasonable. You have to figure if he was adding 20 a week and is at 230, he didn't start out too high.

Figured that woulda been obvious.

gotcha...i was thinking more experieceneced lifters adding 20lbs a wk thats y i said bs
my bad
guess its poss. for a newbie

 

[roccodart440]

gotcha...i was thinking more experieceneced lifters adding 20lbs a wk thats y i said bs
my bad
guess its poss. for a newbie

Maybe it's possible but doing singles more tha one week in a row is a dumb idea.