Upper Body Lagging

[BobbyD]

Anyone else have some issues with their upper body strength being significantly behind their lower body strength? I'm in my second round of Hypertrophy I because I think all my previous programming for years before BBM way probably preferential to lower body volume and I may have some training sensitivity differences between upper and lower body musculature. I feel like it also may be part of why my Deadlift is pretty much in line eight wise with my Squat instead of being ahead.

Deadlift right now is 6 x 290lbs @ 9, Squat is 285 x 8 @ 9 but OHP is an anemic 8 x 90 @ 9 and bench is 8 x 150 @ 9.

Just wondering if anyone has been through similar frustrations and maybe what helped them make some progress. I know part of it is I have to be patient and that it will probably take a few more years to keep building volume during times of surplus and adding on some upper body LBM but being patient isn't always easy or fun.

[Flandaneran]

I've always made the most improvements in upper body lifts working in a lower rep range (usually 5's but sometimes 3's or 4's). as far as programming I think running the bridge and then running the bridge 3 is excellent.

[Millzners]

Have you run the bridge yet?

For me increasing frequency and therefore total weekly volume was the answer. Instead of benching just twice I now bench (including variants) around 5 times a week. The bridge is a great introduction to how to do this.

[BobbyD]

Thanks for the responses!

I ran the Bridge 1.0 twice before starting my two times through on Hypertrophy I I'm going through right now. Probably going to switch to Powerbuilding I next while I keep going through my bulking phase to give me some higher intensity work mixed in with the higher rep work. I'm still physically somewhat small in the chest and shoulders so I definitely need to keep packing on more LBM.

[Joshuawholifts]

I second the comment about frequency and volume. Personally, my upper body lifts and the resultant strength and hypertrophy effects all seem to be better with more frequent exposures to the upper body lifts throughout the week. And this rings even more for press than for bench.

[Serack]

The Bridge does not have much press volume, and it is not uncommon for those running it to stall out compared to bench. My personal fix was to program out a 4 day version that had an extra slot for Press.