Plateau

Cindy Love

hey,

I feel like im hitting a bit of a wall at the moment on my benchpress. Workouts going good but i was wondering do any of you have suggestions . On bench press im begining to struggle with the weight-should i drop down the weight by a few k's ( in an effort to increase reps) even though im aiming to actually lift more weight as a medium to long term goal?

any advice appreciated on how you folk overcome this problem or when you feel like your workout is begining to plateau.

thanks

ronbyrne2005

maybe your overtraining, how many times a week are you hitting your chest?
maybe your diet isnt good enough?
to increase your bench press only do it once a week
keep your protein intake high and make sure your not losing weight other than fat.

pwd

"Supplemental exercise to improve the bench press include triceps extensions and hammer curls (to strengthen the forearm, shich is used to stabilise the motion) as well as chest exercises."

http://www.wtwiki.com/Main/BenchPress

Check your technique if you don't already know it is good.
Also, you can tell which muscles need to be strengthened the most by where in the motion you experience difficulty, and do appropriate supplemental exercises for those muscles.

I have the same problem at the moment, although I'm pretty sure it is simply from not training or eating enough.

padraigcarroll

i found doing a 1 rep max at the end of a banching session helps me increase the weight i can lift.

i read an article on forced negatives other day, gonna give that a go too see if it helps.

RPGGAMER

Cindy Love wrote:

hey,

I feel like im hitting a bit of a wall at the moment on my benchpress. Workouts going good but i was wondering do any of you have suggestions . On bench press im begining to struggle with the weight-should i drop down the weight by a few k's ( in an effort to increase reps) even though im aiming to actually lift more weight as a medium to long term goal?

any advice appreciated on how you folk overcome this problem or when you feel like your workout is begining to plateau.

thanks

try the westside system. based on conjugated periodisation. worked well for me. i think the 'eight keys' article in t-nation.com summaries it well. (this is assuming your goal is to get stronger. ) or hook up with some powerlifters at your gym. the benchpress is one of our lifts after all.

Cindy Love

hey

Yet again I received some great advice and its really paid off-thanks!
Yesterday after reading some of the above techniques i decided to utilise them into my chest routine (which i only do once a week). And I achieved a personal best...again.Im delighted because for the last6-8 weeks ive increased the weight (increments of 5 kilos) on my personal best on the bench. Im now a month a head of my targets(roughly) so im well chuffed.:)

thanks again