Martinshuter

Guys,

im stuck in a rea rut. i have reached a plateau in my training and cannot get past it and im really getting frustrated with myself. my flat bench sits at 185kg and incline sits at 140kg but for love nor money it wont go past there. im looking for the magical 200kg on flat bench but cant see myself getting there. Can anyone help????

ballin

iTrader: (1)

when did you last take a break?

Paul Eggleton

HOw's your diet and rest?

Have you tried alternating with Heavy weights one week and light(ish) the next. Again it gives the chest a break without having a complete rest.

Also what weight increments are you using? If you jump in too big a step this often leads to stagnation as you can't do it again the following week.

And where is the sticking point, actually getting it off your chest or further up during the lockout phase.

How is your shoulder and tricep training coming along? as this obviously has a big impact on your benching too.

What other chest exercises do you do?

Heavy weighted dips can be very good to help with tricep and chest strength.

Paul

Kieron

I would have thought at 185kg benching you would have been able to teach us a thing or two.

A Paul has said I would personally lower the weight and up the reps. Or even do a couple of heavy sets then drop the weight down and burn your chest out. Try doing drop sets.

Martinshuter

thanks for the help guys,

last time i had a break was 3 months ago when i took a week off just to let myself recover.

my diet is really strict. 6-7 meals a day all good food like brown rice, brown bread, steamed veg, chicken. And good protein supplements.

the increments usually go 60kg warm up. 100kg, 140 kg, 180kg, 185kg. the main problem is keeping the weight ona constant movement to avoid locking out to save my joints. i do bench press like powerlifters do.

shoulders and triceps are very strong at the moment. although last night my bench press moved up again to 200kg!!!!!!!!!! i cant understand myself. one week im stuck and the next i feel like incredible hulk.

dexterc

Sometimes it happens mate. Sometimes you're a god of steel, other times you're a bitch that needs to be flogged with a phone cord for being so weak. Important thing is to stick to the program, and you'll come back.

Can I ask, out of interest, whats your routine for Bench?

Martinshuter

i do chest once a week.

week one consists of incline bench of 4 sets, flat bench of 5 sets then flys of 3 sets and im done.

week 2 is dumbell press, decline bench and cable flys.

i felt like a god last night but not this morning.

dexterc

You never do the morning after though, do you.

If you rotate your assistance exercises regularly, it can help avoid stagnation and burnout. Say, switch them up every 4-6 weeks.

Martinshuter

im not a "natural" weightlifter so i dont suffer from fatigue or aching. that is a really good idea about switching round. variation never hurt did it?

Paul Eggleton

Yep, a change is good as a rest - but ultimately you will have to return to the week in - week out process of slowly adding more weight.

When I referred to weight increments I meant the little extra you add to try and increase your lift. Basically you want to add no more than 2.5kg each time. 5,10kg jumps work for beginners but us old timers need to take smaller steps, unless we are piling on the pounds food wise.

I always remember an article saying that you shouldn't be afraid of piling on a few extra pounds(bodyweight) temporarily to help boost your strength (the extra weight around the joints adds support etc). Maybe you could go for a diet boost for a few weeks too.

Paul.

dexterc

To be honest mate, if youre still progressing, I would leave it for the time being. There are a shedload of exercises you can do, and you can select them based on your sticking point, if you feel you want to change up because youre stagnating, or just because you feel like it.

Paul Eggleton

Dexter, he's not progressing and stuck in the dreaded plateau

dexterc

In a later post he said.....

If I could stick 15kg on my bench in a session, I would not consider myself to be plateau'd.

Paul Eggleton

If its unsustainable though, I would call it a plateau. You can spend weeks and months yo-yoing around like this and still not gain anything long term = Plateau IMO

I've been like this for a few months but put a lot of it on having a new baby. WIll hopefully snap out of it as the sleep comes back

Martinshuter

it was a surreal session for me,

i had my jab as normal then had 1 ephadrine tab to boost my energy and i felt like superman. weird how you can explode from 1 day to the next