Close Grip strength relative to Comp Bench

[ionRod]

I am on week 2 of the Bridge and enjoying it so far. Before I did SS LP until I got stuck on my lifts and decided to move to The Bridge instead of deloading.

My Bench is pretty poor - 150 for 5 reps @9. But what suprised me was that my Close Grip Bench is almost the same - 150 for 4 reps @9. So basically just one rep difference. Does this indicate that I am doing something wrong with my regular Bench? I thought that since the regular Bench is using more muscle mass, it should be stronger and the difference between the two should be larger?

Also, similarly, is it normal that my Rack Pulls for 7 reps are lighter than my Deadlifts for 5? I deadlifted on Friday 275 for 5 @8.5, but today was absolutely crushed by 245 for 7 @9.

[Leah Lutz]

I won't assume anything is wrong with your comp bench, really. First you're going to have a bit more training fatigue on some days here with the Bridge that might affect a lift or two. Meaning-if the overall training volume is going up for you, even if the intensity is currently lower on than on the SSLP, you need to adapt to that a bit. It's also very possible that your grip width just isn't too different. You can try widening your comp bench grip is this points out that it's fairly narrow. And with the rack pulls, since we program them mid-shin, it's very normal for them to be less than your DL.

[ionRod]

Thank you, Leah! I will experiment with grip width

[Michelle1]

My close grip bench started stronger than my comp bench, as my triceps were doing most of the work. After 7 week hypertrophy program my chest grew and now my wider grip bench is much stronger - it took off! Lol
I also practiced pausing the comp bench press for 1sec every session instead of touch and go. At first the weight went down a bit but after a week the weight was backup and then the next week PR
you have many awesome PRs ahead of you good luck!