I have a 4-day pressing rotation of the Strict Press, Floor Press, Extended ROM Weighted Push-ups, and Dips, so I should be good for strength off the chest if/when I work the bench in again.
Books you'd recommend regarding strength training? I've heard that Mark Rippatoe's Practical Programming for strength training is a good read and also Science and Practice of Strength Training 2nd edition. I'd like to learn more about managing volume and intensity etc. Thanks Greg! P.s side question do you get annoyed sometimes being identified by your beard?
+Soulshacazulu the Scientific Principles of Strength Training by Mike Israetel is very good. And not really. I think it's funny. All men in my family have beards; I never really thought anything of it until people started making a big deal about it.
Thanks so much for all the info, I have two questions: 1) As a 6'6 sedentary dude I need to put a LOT of effort to keep my back straight when I setup for the deadlift. However, this seems to prevent me to keeping my core tight so my low back hurts when I deadlift. Question is, how to keep core tightness when trying to straighten the back? 2) How to breathe during OHP? Do I rest the bar on my upper chest before each rep, or just brace abs and pump out all reps?
Are you aiming to compete? If not, you could just do rack pulls with the largest comfortable ROM. No need to DL from the floor. Usually if I need to get another breath during a set of OHP, I get it when the bar is at the top.
***** Thanks for answering. Yes, eventually I would like to compete. Would it work if I start with rack pulls w/ high pins then gradually lower them, let's say every 2 weeks or more?
Milos Vlasotince Yep. Not necessarily super high. Start a bit below your knee, then work down from there. You don't have to dictate that it'll be every 2 weeks, though. Just move down as you can. Something else that helps is deadlifts from the top. Pick the bar up off pins, take a small step forward, and then just lower the bar as low as you can keep form, then come back up.
***** Greg great video, and Milos actually asked the question I wanted to ask - at 6'1'' I also have a hard time keeping a straight back when deadlifting. I already compete and need to practice full ROM deadlifts. I can deadlift from blocks no problem keeping my back flat, but it's the last few inches that screws up my lower back. I feel like when I'm at the bottom position, in order to keep my back flat, I have to have my hips MUCH lower than I would like to have optimal leverage. I also wonder if my belt is a hindrance. Any tips there?
Hi Greg. I've enjoyed your website for some time now, so I was delighted to discover this channel. Subscribed immediately. I'm implementing my bench, both regular and close grip, with a short pause at the bottom. What is the effect of using a longer pause? Is it just a matter of inducing greater fatigue, or is there a more specific training effect? Thanks for the great content.
+ngachachaable If you can make progress on all three simultaneously, I'm not sure why you wouldn't. But if you can't, then obviously just focus on one or two at a time.
This may be a silly question, but is there any way to provide accommodating resistance in the exact reverse strength curve of bands/chains (ie: heavier at the bottom, lighter at the top)? I havent had a chance to watch the video yet, so if you answered it in the video then just ignore the question!
Don't laugh if this sounds ridiculous. When I was 15 and just really getting into powerlifting, I tried to make a contraption to do that involving magnets (below the plates, so as the plates were closer to the magnet, there was a greater magnetic attraction, that would weaken as the bar was lifted). However, I didn't have the materials on hand or the money to invest in magnets that would be sufficiently strong to do the job. However, when you think about it, that really doesn't matter since the lift is already hardest at the bottom anyways. All you'd really be accomplishing would be making the lift relatively easier at the top (since the total resistance of load + magnetism that you could handle at the bottom of the lift would basically just be your bench press max anyways) which wouldn't serve much of a purpose.
***** I know that a strength curve like that wouldn't have much use in general training, but I was thinking that it would be really good as a mental stimulus. I've had times where I'm not feeling on point and I bring the bar down and get an "oh shit, this is really heavy" moment in the bottom of the hole, and I was just thinking that some setup like that would help train my mind to handle that reaction. You would definitely need some strong magnets though ;)
Bench press question, what's the difference between full range motion vs short? I've heard people saying full range is the way to go but then I watch a video of Ronnie Coleman doing very short movements.
Greg excellent video. Thanks. Question: when planning for annual training how would you program daily lifts in? Would you put them as a strength block building up to a meet say 30-60 days prior?
Do you get all these informations from searching studies (not only this video. strengtheory in general) or do you work in that (are you a person that makes studies, excuse my poor english)? Great Video though, woth my subscription
hey Greg I know you're an advocate of adding more volume but how much is too much volume? there was a guy on a forum recommending 70+ total reps per exercise for an advanced lifter for building size
Honestly if I can dip with my bench max for 5 reps, then my chest and triceps are strong enough. If (as mentioned by Charles Poliquin) my behind the neck press max is 60% of my bench then my anterior delts are strong enough.
Greg i have a lagging chest and im following jason blaha's 5x5. In the second day he has paused close grip bench press as the only chest exercise on one day and regular paused bench on the other day. Should i switch out the close grip with a dumbbell bench or would just doing paused close grip bench be enough for my chest to catch up?
Hey Greg, I didnt know where to ask this, so Ill do it here. Been going through some of the older stuff on strengtheory, and the article "An extremely effective diet tip" brought up alot of questions. When you say you could be as aggressive as necessary to lose that 1-2lbs, did that mean you would have some sort of crazy calorie deficit until you lost it? Do you still recommend this sort of thing for dieting?
***** AND ANOTHER QUESTION, would having a large deficit with high protein, moderate carb, and low fat yield the same results? As long as the deficit was large enough?
***** It would be best to keep your carb intake as low as possible as carbs are directly used for energy, while proteins and fats are used for other things rather than being broken down for metabolic purposes. So, go for High protein, moderate/low fat and little/no carbs.
i'm weak off the chest and you recommended floor press, i can floor press 30 pounds more than on a regular bench, does that mean i'm wrong about my weakness when it comes to benching?
+Serban It could be that your sticking point (at floor press level presumably) is a result of not accelerating off the chest fast enough, so you lose momentum. Long pause presses should help with this (could be close grip, as Greg mentioned, although I find wider-than-normal grip long pause presses to also be quite effective). It could also be a technique issue: I would use paused benching to practice staying super tight and exploding hard off the chest. If you can floor press more than you can bench then maybe you aren't using as much leg drive as you could be?
Get a lot of elbow pain when floor pressing, clicks a lot aswell, same with spotto press any ideas what the problem is? I've been releasing my tricep tendon which is really tight but it's not getting better, cheers
Hi Greg, I`m verry serious about my training but i also like to go out drinking with my friends on the weekends. Does this impact my progress at all ? i havent seen any regression in my training but was wondering if progress would be any quicker if i didnt get drunk once a week :P? Also is it bad do get drunk the same day i work out ? would really appreciate some inputts on this from anybody :D
It's a matter of degrees. There's some very limited evidence that 1 drink per day may be actually be healthy (though I wouldn't extrapolate that to muscle/strength gains). Getting actually drunk impairs protein synthesis www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18369928. But I mean, you have to make a judgement between progress in the gym and quality of life. If going out drinking with your friends is something you're really miss if you gave it up (and drinking more moderately on those nights would ruin the experience for you), then I'm not going to tell you to stop, but it *will* probably slow down your progress to some degree.
out of all the options u mentioned, which one or two do you feel is more efficient to help a bench er like my self to get from 275 to 315 on the bench? how often should it be done? how heavy and how many reps and sets?
Greg, would these methods work for increasing your incline bench press? reason I ask,due to a cyst on the distal end of my clavicle and a subsequent shoulder arthroscopy, I get an extreme amount of pain in my ac joint when flat benching, even at lighter loads. However, I can bench Incline with little discomfort. Which of these methods that you spoke of would be best to increase my incline bench? or would they be exactly the same?. Thanks in advance
Wear your favorite tapout shirt, put on some killswitch engage, hatebreed, or nickelback, and then just do what feels natural. The bro inside you will resurface.
Paused bench press helped my bench go up. Doing close grip paused, also helped.
heavy weighted dips make my bench press explode
That is a serious beard, sir.
Mucho gracias. :D
Really liking all the information in these videos. Nice hat too.
Thanks man
that hat is like +15 russian pts (which translates to +15 kg increase in all lifts)
I'll take all the help I can get.
Hey Greg! Just found your channel, love your videos! great informations. Thank you
I have a 4-day pressing rotation of the Strict Press, Floor Press, Extended ROM Weighted Push-ups, and Dips, so I should be good for strength off the chest if/when I work the bench in again.
Great video!
My shoulder is completely ruined, I'm going to try all these variations and let you know what works best for me :P
Number 5 is something that is done in Finland as competition.
Books you'd recommend regarding strength training?
I've heard that Mark Rippatoe's Practical Programming for strength training is a good read and also Science and Practice of Strength Training 2nd edition.
I'd like to learn more about managing volume and intensity etc.
Thanks Greg!
P.s side question do you get annoyed sometimes being identified by your beard?
+Soulshacazulu the Scientific Principles of Strength Training by Mike Israetel is very good.
And not really. I think it's funny. All men in my family have beards; I never really thought anything of it until people started making a big deal about it.
great video
Thanks so much for all the info, I have two questions:
1) As a 6'6 sedentary dude I need to put a LOT of effort to keep my back straight when I setup for the deadlift. However, this seems to prevent me to keeping my core tight so my low back hurts when I deadlift. Question is, how to keep core tightness when trying to straighten the back?
2) How to breathe during OHP? Do I rest the bar on my upper chest before each rep, or just brace abs and pump out all reps?
Are you aiming to compete? If not, you could just do rack pulls with the largest comfortable ROM. No need to DL from the floor. Usually if I need to get another breath during a set of OHP, I get it when the bar is at the top.
***** Thanks for answering. Yes, eventually I would like to compete. Would it work if I start with rack pulls w/ high pins then gradually lower them, let's say every 2 weeks or more?
Milos Vlasotince
Yep. Not necessarily super high. Start a bit below your knee, then work down from there. You don't have to dictate that it'll be every 2 weeks, though. Just move down as you can.
Something else that helps is deadlifts from the top. Pick the bar up off pins, take a small step forward, and then just lower the bar as low as you can keep form, then come back up.
***** Much appreciated, thank you, I'll get to work.
***** Greg great video, and Milos actually asked the question I wanted to ask - at 6'1'' I also have a hard time keeping a straight back when deadlifting. I already compete and need to practice full ROM deadlifts. I can deadlift from blocks no problem keeping my back flat, but it's the last few inches that screws up my lower back. I feel like when I'm at the bottom position, in order to keep my back flat, I have to have my hips MUCH lower than I would like to have optimal leverage. I also wonder if my belt is a hindrance. Any tips there?
Not even one Um! Lol awesome content. Looking forward to more Q and As
Lyndsey Nuckols edited them out for me. haha
Nice tips! But I would be hesitant to advice for benching with the feet up. More than once I've seen someone lose their balance. (love the dog btw)
bench with feet on bench? Should give a similar effect, but allows for cheating.
SerratusBrah Kevflar Big thumbs up for feet on bench. Or if you have balance issues, just try one of the other options.
I recently implemented floor presses into my training , however I can't find a proper setup. Should I get in the same position as my BP ?
Yeah. Or just try one of the other options
Hi Greg. I've enjoyed your website for some time now, so I was delighted to discover this channel. Subscribed immediately.
I'm implementing my bench, both regular and close grip, with a short pause at the bottom. What is the effect of using a longer pause? Is it just a matter of inducing greater fatigue, or is there a more specific training effect? Thanks for the great content.
Greater dissipation of the stretch reflex.
***** Are there any resources that correlate length of the pause with % of stretch reflex lost?
I know they talk about it in supertraining...but I haven't seen any primary lit.
Is it ideal to try to improve all 3 lifts at the same time, or should one focus on one lift or 2 when designing a program?
+ngachachaable If you can make progress on all three simultaneously, I'm not sure why you wouldn't. But if you can't, then obviously just focus on one or two at a time.
+Strengtheory Thanks G. Nucks! You & Omarisuf rock. Just finished reading Art & Science of Lifting. Fantastic book. Keep up the good work!
ngachachaable Thanks! Glad you liked it
This may be a silly question, but is there any way to provide accommodating resistance in the exact reverse strength curve of bands/chains (ie: heavier at the bottom, lighter at the top)? I havent had a chance to watch the video yet, so if you answered it in the video then just ignore the question!
Don't laugh if this sounds ridiculous. When I was 15 and just really getting into powerlifting, I tried to make a contraption to do that involving magnets (below the plates, so as the plates were closer to the magnet, there was a greater magnetic attraction, that would weaken as the bar was lifted). However, I didn't have the materials on hand or the money to invest in magnets that would be sufficiently strong to do the job. However, when you think about it, that really doesn't matter since the lift is already hardest at the bottom anyways. All you'd really be accomplishing would be making the lift relatively easier at the top (since the total resistance of load + magnetism that you could handle at the bottom of the lift would basically just be your bench press max anyways) which wouldn't serve much of a purpose.
***** I know that a strength curve like that wouldn't have much use in general training, but I was thinking that it would be really good as a mental stimulus. I've had times where I'm not feeling on point and I bring the bar down and get an "oh shit, this is really heavy" moment in the bottom of the hole, and I was just thinking that some setup like that would help train my mind to handle that reaction. You would definitely need some strong magnets though ;)
Bench press question, what's the difference between full range motion vs short? I've heard people saying full range is the way to go but then I watch a video of Ronnie Coleman doing very short movements.
In almost every study where full ROM and short ROM are compared, full ROM produces more strength and mass.
Greg excellent video. Thanks. Question: when planning for annual training how would you program daily lifts in? Would you put them as a strength block building up to a meet say 30-60 days prior?
Working on a manual covering that exact topic now. Too in-depth to answer in a comment.
Hey Greg, lol.
Do you get all these informations from searching studies (not only this video. strengtheory in general) or do you work in that (are you a person that makes studies, excuse my poor english)? Great Video though, woth my subscription
Reading, mainly. Going through at least a Masters (probably PhD) and setting up my own lab is the plan, but not there yet.
hey Greg I know you're an advocate of adding more volume but how much is too much volume? there was a guy on a forum recommending 70+ total reps per exercise for an advanced lifter for building size
+Geraldo Rivera too much is more than you can recover from. It varies considerably person to person
Honestly if I can dip with my bench max for 5 reps, then my chest and triceps are strong enough. If (as mentioned by Charles Poliquin) my behind the neck press max is 60% of my bench then my anterior delts are strong enough.
*66% of the close grip bench= 1 rm behind the neck press
Greg i have a lagging chest and im following jason blaha's 5x5. In the second day he has paused close grip bench press as the only chest exercise on one day and regular paused bench on the other day. Should i switch out the close grip with a dumbbell bench or would just doing paused close grip bench be enough for my chest to catch up?
Hey Greg, I didnt know where to ask this, so Ill do it here. Been going through some of the older stuff on strengtheory, and the article "An extremely effective diet tip" brought up alot of questions. When you say you could be as aggressive as necessary to lose that 1-2lbs, did that mean you would have some sort of crazy calorie deficit until you lost it? Do you still recommend this sort of thing for dieting?
Nah, I'd don't really recommend that anymore. But basically I'd do a PSMF for 3-4 days, lose a couple pounds, feast for a day, then repeat.
***** Do you ever have a goal deficit in mind with the PSMF or just sort of hit whatever you end up hitting with high protein, low carbs and fat?
***** AND ANOTHER QUESTION, would having a large deficit with high protein, moderate carb, and low fat yield the same results? As long as the deficit was large enough?
***** It would be best to keep your carb intake as low as possible as carbs are directly used for energy, while proteins and fats are used for other things rather than being broken down for metabolic purposes. So, go for High protein, moderate/low fat and little/no carbs.
i'm weak off the chest and you recommended floor press, i can floor press 30 pounds more than on a regular bench, does that mean i'm wrong about my weakness when it comes to benching?
+Serban It could be that your sticking point (at floor press level presumably) is a result of not accelerating off the chest fast enough, so you lose momentum. Long pause presses should help with this (could be close grip, as Greg mentioned, although I find wider-than-normal grip long pause presses to also be quite effective).
It could also be a technique issue: I would use paused benching to practice staying super tight and exploding hard off the chest.
If you can floor press more than you can bench then maybe you aren't using as much leg drive as you could be?
i don't know how to leg drive yet, thanks for the tips though, i'm sure they will help me :D
Get a lot of elbow pain when floor pressing, clicks a lot aswell, same with spotto press any ideas what the problem is? I've been releasing my tricep tendon which is really tight but it's not getting better, cheers
+LHudson ART/LIFTS that's something to ask a physical therapist about
Hi Greg, I`m verry serious about my training but i also like to go out drinking with my friends on the weekends. Does this impact my progress at all ? i havent seen any regression in my training but was wondering if progress would be any quicker if i didnt get drunk once a week :P?
Also is it bad do get drunk the same day i work out ? would really appreciate some inputts on this from anybody :D
It's a matter of degrees. There's some very limited evidence that 1 drink per day may be actually be healthy (though I wouldn't extrapolate that to muscle/strength gains). Getting actually drunk impairs protein synthesis www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18369928. But I mean, you have to make a judgement between progress in the gym and quality of life. If going out drinking with your friends is something you're really miss if you gave it up (and drinking more moderately on those nights would ruin the experience for you), then I'm not going to tell you to stop, but it *will* probably slow down your progress to some degree.
***** Thanks for the reply Greg :)
no problem!
out of all the options u mentioned, which one or two do you feel is more efficient to help a bench er like my self to get from 275 to 315 on the bench? how often should it be done? how heavy and how many reps and sets?
Greg, would these methods work for increasing your incline bench press? reason I ask,due to a cyst on the distal end of my clavicle and a subsequent shoulder arthroscopy, I get an extreme amount of pain in my ac joint when flat benching, even at lighter loads. However, I can bench Incline with little discomfort. Which of these methods that you spoke of would be best to increase my incline bench? or would they be exactly the same?. Thanks in advance
Matthew Burns Do you have the option of just doing incline bench at different angles (rolling a DB bench into a squat rack)?
Hi Greg, yes absolutely... So your suggesting to hit at different incline angles?
yep
I'm on it...Thanks Greg, appreciate the help!
How does one actually train like a smart bodybuilder? I've forgotten how to bro.
Wear your favorite tapout shirt, put on some killswitch engage, hatebreed, or nickelback, and then just do what feels natural. The bro inside you will resurface.