Its Monday which can only mean one thing, CHEST DAY!!! All the benches will be rammed with other gym goers, all with the same goal, to get a huge chest!! I will be one of these people trying to improve my bench press.
Now recently I’ve really been trying to focus on going a lot heavier than I normally would with all movements, with new goals in mind for the big three.
Bench Press - 1 rep at 1.5 BW = 145kg
Squat - 1 rep at 2 BW = 180kg
Deadlift - 1 reps at = 230kg.
You may as why? Well certainly Deadlifts and Bench Press I have neglected recently, focusing more on the body building way of training in the hypertrophy range, with more isolated exercises. Recently however I was inspired when scrolling through youtube by a video with Mike O’Hearn and Rob Riches, two people who have totally different ways and ethos to training. See the link below:
Now both guys are huge in the fitness world, with Mike being of this new way of training through the use of powerlifting. Rob adopts more of a bodybuilding based programme. This video however totally changes his way of thinking. It thus inspired me to look more into this type of training and include it more into my programme, always great to mix things up to.
I shall leave the Deadlift and squat for now and focus on the bench press. Now points that I picked up which really helped me in the following session are as follows:
- Keep feet planted at all times, attempting to push through these on the movement.
- Try and bend the bar, keeping your elbows tucked in. (This also prevents shoulder injury).
- Thumbs around the bar!!!!
- Think of the chest pulling together on the concentric, (pushing) phase of the movement.
- Lower the bar under control, breathing in. Explode up, breathing out.
- Keep you body tight!! Your breathing will aid this.
I put this all into practice and it aided me so much. Bench is one of my weaker areas so I really want to focus on this into the future. I warmed up all my shoulder area and slowly worked my way up to 130kg where I managed to get two reps out, the second one needing a slight assistance. I then attempted 140kg, but just didn’t have the power to get a clean rep out. Below is a video of me doing 130kg for one after as I decided to work in a slight pyramid fashion. Here hopefully you can see everything I have listed above put into practice.
So there you have it, have a look at the video I have linked and check this new way of training through the use of powerlifting. Lets face it if Mike O’Hearn uses it in his programmes it must be good!!!
Jack
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