Flat bench skinny struggles

[mrRuckus]

I've taken off 35 lbs of weight since January. Strength is up. omgz muscle gain and fat loss same time.

Anyway, my bench is giving me problems. It really hasn't improved anywhere near as much as every other lift. I don't think it's a form issue either because if anything my form is better than it used to be.

Could my struggles just involve the weight i've lost? I just don't have the base to push off of that i had before?

My max 1rm has improved though. But any reps higher than that is fairly stagnant or increase at a snail's pace. I row for reps well above my bench now.

shrug.. i should probably just stop this recomp and eat more.

 

[Warboss Alex]

Your deadlift didn't suffer at all did it though mate ..

Bodyweight is an issue with benching and squatting, loss of bodyweight can lead to loss of strength, correct. Deadlifts aren't particularly affected. But with the other two definitely.

Just work your way back up again at this new leaner, meaner bodyweight.. are you failing the lift anywhere specific or just not progressing in general? Might want to switch out flat bench for a while.

The fastest strength gains from bench comes from pausing, so you may want to do pause bench instead of touch and go.

 

[mrRuckus]

Well that's what the problem is with bench now. It's less for reps than it used to be and won't really go anywhere. BUT my 1rm is up. From week to week my bench is bouncing up and down. Nothing else does this. Everything else goes up 2.5 - 5 lbs a week.

The weak point is the middle. I did some pause benching at 1-3 reps and that did explode the weights up and eliminate the sticking point at the bottom. 6 rep sets are another story. You know I used to do the 5x5. Well my 6 rep max is about 15-20 lbs less than my old 5RM from a year ago. The 1rm is 20-30 lbs more, heh... strange huh?

I really don't think i'm built too well for benching. It's never been my favorite. I'm a good dipper and can move some dumbbells though. And deadlifts have always been cake.

 

[Warboss Alex]

1RM is a lot more to do with neural ability as well as actual contractile protein, otherwise we wouldn't have so many lightweight powerlifters with big benches. When you go into reps then it's less neural and a lot more to do with the actual muscle fibres.

Pausing helps out the bottom point as you correctly discovered.

The mid point is where the triceps start doing the work (about 4-6" off the chest). Dips do not necessarily have a good carryover to bench; you'll see that the elite powerlifters on the whole rarely do dips as a bench auxiliary move (bodybuilders are a different story) but instead do floor, board and close grip presses (from chest level or above) instead.

Don't worry about your 6RM vs your old 5x5RM, totally different animals and bodyweights.

I would go for these, one of these press variations in a moderate rep range. Build up to a 5-6RM; no point training singles if you want to improve the 5-6 rep range (which is the 'powerbuilding' range as a balance between neural adaptions and hypertrophy).

I'd do these on your bench day as your main movement, either cycled or exhaust one movement and then on, however you like.

Then for some more 'chest' work (as the above variations are heavily tricep oriented) you can do a dumbbell press or something similar.

This is assuming of course you want to improve the 5-6 rep range.

 

[mrRuckus]

I've been doing the 1-3 range for a while now and for the past 6 weeks have bumped the range up to give the joints a break and in general just to improve more than one range.

Since i haven't done higher reps on bench for a while, i figured things should just naturally climb up smoothly as my muscles/cns got used to doing it again, but no dice.. and i thought generally low rep increases carried over to higher rep ranges (as compared to vice versa).

It's not so much that my 6rm is less than my old 5rm, but that i thought it should catch up back to that at a fairly consistent pace. Because when i built that 5rm the first time it was a fairly linear 2.5-5 lbs a week thing. Muscle memory where are you?!

I am in more of a strength/powerbuilding mode than hypertrophy since i'm not eating enough for much mass. And i figure a good strength base is needed before i start to worry about a crapload of growth.

I did the same thing with deadlifts. Been doing 3 reps for a while now and changed to 8 six weeks ago. That's going great. 5 lbs a week. Doing some good mornings during my knee injury worked great for strengthening my lower back to hit the deadlifts again.

 

[Warboss Alex]

Yeah, there's carryover between rep ranges but it depends how long you've been doing them. If you train with 1-3reps for a year your muscles will be deconditioned for the 5-6RM range.

You have a good plan there, just stick at it. Start doing board presses maybe.

 

[mrRuckus]

Yay I saw this post by Iron Addict today by pure coincidence:

I don't care what anyone says, for benching and squatting, being fat is a huge advantage. But.......endo's ares usually strong mo fo's anyway, but when I was 270 and um....not so lean, thats when I was strongest in almost every lift except deads. My best dead was pulled while kind of lean and about 240.

IA

That sure explains why squats and bench feel harder than ever and my deadlift/hamstrings/abs are still way up. And db presses and dips are up too so it's not like my chest went to hell.

Gotta get me some muscle poundages now that i have some nice shiny abs.