Help me with my second bench day to compliment PPP

Hi Guys,

I'm going to add a second bench day to my week in prep for the October bench comp in Brisbane. I'll stick with Markos' PPP for one day but need to do a second session to compliment PPP.

Any ideas?

Markos suggested speed, lockout and assistance work for the second day but I have no idea what that would look like. At present I get stuck in the middle, OK off the chest and the top is OK too.

I train in a commercial gym at present so no bands or boxes or any of that sort of stuff. Just barbells, dumbells and benches.

Any help appreciated. I'm targeting 100kg for my 1rm with my current PPP 1rm just hit of 92.5kg

Thanks,
Mike

If you havent got boards, bands and chains, and train in a normal gym, I would concentrate on repetition work.

Wide grip bench, 3" wider each side, 5 x 10
Close grip bench, middle finger on knurling/smooth, 5 x 10
DB incline press 3 x 10 or seated DB press 3 x 10
DB rows 3 x 10 or BB rows 3 x 10
bent laterals 3 x 10
Skull crushers 3 x 10

AS Marcos has alluded to by those suggestions there is more than chest for a good bench. Tris, lats, delts and a strong core. Marcos knows what you are doing for PPP, and what assistance work you are already doing.

I have also uped it to a two day a week bench
first day is heavy benching, >90%max for paused singles or 3-5 reps sets all paused
with incline db press, front raises, and rows and weighted dips as assistance, wg weighted pullups.

also do a military press day, with pullups,

I am now adding a higher rep / speed day, also playing with grip widths, usually 3 sets of 3 reps as fast as possible, with a few seconds pause between sets, not racking the bar,and starting on the chest I do this 3 times, (so 9 reps of 3 all up) plus a few big 10-20 reps sets, for assistance I am doing flies / pec dec, and speed dips ( 20 reps <18 secs at bw) french press, will do a few sets of incline from time to time aswell, and wg pullups. ( this is also my deadlift day)

Hopefully see you there!

I found benching once a week wasnt enough for me. Coming up to nats I was benching a minimum 3 x a week. All over 80% and up to 110% of the old 1rm. I got good results like this.
Now that the comp is over, Ill be going back to some volume, and benching 3x a week MAX. Ill also run that hepburn press course.

This post helps you in no way lol, but re-enforcing whats been said latley, everybody is different .

Scott,

Do you train nights? I work, so time my workouts for about 5:30pm weekdays then Sat morning around 10:30 or 11:00am. I was figuring I'd stick with commercial gym (FF) through the week doing PPP Bench one day and alternate PPP deads/squats each week for the second day then save Sats for Jeff's Bench work as day three.

Happy to come to your place for a bench session any weekday if you're keen. PPP or some assistance stuff and I'll ditch the alternate PPP that week. I typically do Tue/Thu/Sat.

You're always welcome to come train at FF Toowong too. I've got the odd guest pass but I think your setup is sweeter.

Either way, I'll be the short old bloke...

Cheers,
Mike

I train at 4pm M,W,F with the 1st wave of blokes, then the second set of blokes come at 6pm. I then train with jeff on saturdays, the time varies.
I really wouldnt have time to come out to toowong during the week mate, I dont get upstairs till 8pm m,w,f, and then I have the PT school work on tues,thurs.
Your more than welcome to come around on a m,w or f, or anytime over the weekends really.

Thought i would throw my 2 cents in here. Like anything guys, there is no right or wrong way to set up your training volume, sets, reps, exercises etc. everyone is different. what i will emphasise is TECHNIQUE! No good pushing reps, bands, boards etc. if the technique is wrong from the start, it will just mean that you will be lifting with bad habits. Get someone who is knowledgable to look at your technique and improve from there, same applies to squat deadlifts, everything!

Lamy said:

Thought i would throw my 2 cents in here. Like anything guys, there is no right or wrong way to set up your training volume, sets, reps, exercises etc. everyone is different. what i will emphasise is TECHNIQUE! No good pushing reps, bands, boards etc. if the technique is wrong from the start, it will just mean that you will be lifting with bad habits. Get someone who is knowledgable to look at your technique and improve from there, same applies to squat deadlifts, everything!

Click to expand...

Good comment there Lamy, I'm suffering big time in the technique dept with squats and bench and I'm gonna start hunting around for a knowledgeable coach here in Sydney to get it sorted. Might check out Sutherland Shire & Speed, I've heard good reports on them.

Good luck with prepping for the bench comp MikeW. Should be a fun adventure ahead for you mate.

Speed bench and dips helped me the most.

I was benching 4 times per week but that put a lot of stress on my shoulder joints so I have dropped it down to 1 heavy session and 1 speed bench session. See how we go.
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i would go for more practice over anything. i wouldn't do speed bench, or lockouts. i would just do similar to what sticky did for a while 4-7 sets of 2-3 at 70-80%. just working on form and set up. practice makes perfect.

What would be reccomended to fix a weekness in mid-section of rep? I seem to press off chest well and lock out well, though the middle third i stall hard. Chains? Any suggestions?
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Btw sorry to hijak thread, thought this was a good place too seek a soluton rather than starting new thread.
Cheers, macca.

haz said:

i would go for more practice over anything. i wouldn't do speed bench, or lockouts. i would just do similar to what sticky did for a while 4-7 sets of 2-3 at 70-80%. just working on form and set up. practice makes perfect.

Click to expand...

Speed was one of the main things I was working on during that time also. It has come up a bit, but looking at jeff/jase/al today, Im still a very, very, very slow bencher. Even at around 70% 1rm, Ive still got alot of work to do.
Form, set up, speed, arms in, hips, feet, breathing.............. Its not as simple as I first thought thats for sure.

just some food for thought that i read in power to the people professional. that you should do your reps like you would do a max attempt, so if you maxes a slow and grindy then you should do 70-90% reps the same way. the reason for this is that doing a rep at different speed fires different muscles (and motor units) in different ways. ed coans deadlifts would all look the same from 70% onwards.
i know a max attempt wont look perfect but yeh.

for example my max is pretty slow, and if i train at 80% and do them as fast as possible, by the time it hits my lockout momentum is moving the bar and the lockout doesn't have to move the weight much. but then when i hit 90%+ my lockout has to come into things, but i haven't been training my lockout. so i may miss the lift at the top.

just some thoughts. there are many positives to doing reps as fast a possible, such as acceleration of the chest and maximum motor unit recruitment.

you could use chains and bands to train both equally, or do board press.

2 board press Macca or floor press

Ok, cheers for advice. I son't have boards at my gym so ive started floor pressing. Is this good to do after bench? And what reps/weight % is reccomended?
Also any word on the ppp iphone app?
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