+ 2 My informational guide on how to develop a strong bench press and building chest/triceps/shoulders.
The key to building more muscle mass is progression.
You need to progress in one of these 3 key areas:
Weight
Reps
Sets
One of these must increase every workout to continue making gains. You can also make gains by way of metabolic fatigue. (aka doing 5 exercises and 10 sets per muscle with light weight to exhaust)
My routine consists of 2 bench days with very little accesory work.
One day will consist of touch and go bench press and the other will be a paused bench.
TNG developing shoulders and triceps while a paused bench will dramatically increase the chest fibers recruited for the press.
I do at most 3 exercises for one workout. Always starting with flat bench, then into incline smith and one hammer strength press.
Depending on what you are lacking you can focus more on touch and go bench or paused reps with different grip widths.
With a twice a week bench routine and some serious weight you will no longer need tons of accesory work like tricep pressdowns and cables and whatnot.
I prefer to do low volume like 2-3 warmup sets and 1 extreme working set with a burnout set.
Some will go for the regular 5x5 without going to failure.
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I guess Im just a natural a year ago I did 405 flat bench hit my chest with my as down and back down and pushed it up. I only weighed 190... Now I can barely do 365 because I go for reps and build more muscle.
bigmurphWhats touch and go bench i use progression and fatigue in my workout also I always mix it up never the same workout over and over.
But what is touch and go bench
pewpcakewhen you bring the bar to your chest touch and then press right back up.
bigmurphThats a normal bench press
I like slow drops and pause for two count then blast.
bigmurphMe to I like feeling my chest stretch then push up and feel it hit hard that little hold at the bottom i think really helps
Absolutely, slow eccentric, pause and then blast the concentric works on so many different lifts. Squats are a great example as well. In particular if you are having issues going heavy, that 2-3 count drop, 2 count pause and then blast will cripple you up good in no time,lol.
I picture it as lighting the fuse on dynamite. The negative is the fuse lit, slowly burning its way to the explosion, then BLAST!...the press...tweaking tempo, grip placement, locking and not locking out, pausing etc makes a lift multi dimensional.
That's a great way to put it... booming that bar back up!
Get in there and blow shit up brother!
+3............... thats verging into the negatives principles without even thinking about it.
Body-builder techniques for maximising stimulation.... the neg aspect hits the deeper slow twitch fibres whilst the upward explosion utilises the faster twitch type mitochondria on the outer muscle.