Disappointed about my bench progress, how to stay more positive and not overshoot rpe

Hi.

Last year my bench was the best it has been, I did 92,5 kg for 6@8 and I also did 110 kg for a single. My bench was also progressing quite well. However, I had a pec injury after I attempted 120 kg (not the best idea to attempt it). After the injury, even benching an empty bar hurt. So I was not able to bench normally for about 5 months. Now I am able to bench normally. I have now done 105 kg for a single and last week I did 87,5 kg for 6 reps@9,5. I also think that the previous set of 6 with 85 kg was @8, @8,5 at most.

But the problem is that I am not happy with my current bench numbers as I benched more last year than I do now. This causes me to overshoot rpe: I want to do 92,5 for 6@8 like I was able to do last year but I am not able to do it now. Today bench wasn’t feeling that great and I was supposed to do 85 kg for 6@8 as my top set but I only got 5@10 and that was disappointing. I am trying to convince myself that it was an anomaly, I am stonger than that.

I am now doing the old pb 1 template as I have it. I also realised that I can get the new version too from the link, I might do that program after I am done with this. I am on week 4 now so there is still room for bench progress. But I am not patient enough and I overshoot my top sets. I want the results now, even though it is not possible.

My squat, dl and press have improved in this time period as I have squated 145kg@9, strict pressed 75 kg and sumo deadlifted 205 kg. That is good at least.
Background info: 22 year old male, height 185 cm, bw around 83-85 kg, been training regularly for about 5 years.

What are your thoughts on this?

Jask558,

Thanks for the post and I hope you’re having a good week so far. It sounds like you know that overshooting is not a great strategy for building strength as much as testing strength in the moment. My question to you then is, what is going through your mind when you’re deciding on what weight to lift for your top sets? Maybe we can intervene here.

-Jordan

On bench, I usually do empty bar x 10, 60 kg x 6 and then I do 80 kg x 6 (should be at @6-7). So 80 kg should give me info about my top set. But the thing is that if 80 feels like @8 I can be like “Well, maybe I am not warmed up enough, maybe I can focus on form more so more weight should feel better.” I know that this is an issue on bench, not so much with other lifts. So I think that just bringing this up might help a bit.

I overshoot less on dl than I do on bench for example: Yesterday I did 180 kg x 6@8,5 (PR) on sumo deadlift which was nice.

I would probably do more warm ups to eliminate some of the guess work. Something like:

Bar x whatever x whatever
50kg x 6
70kg x 6
80kg x 6 (rate RPE)
85-95 kg x 6 based on previous set

I think that if you believe, as I do, that 85 x 6 and 90 x 6 will drive the same type and amount of adaptations, you’ll be less apt to overshoot due to FOMO on gains.

I will try that. With my current bench strenght, I think that I should cap 6@8 at 85 kg max for now, that could avoid doing 4-5@10 with 90 kg. And if I get stronger in a couple of weeks, then I can consider using 90 kg for 6 reps. Also, next week is the final week of high(er) volume in PB1, I don’t usually perform well when the volume is high and I overshoot sets. But if I don’t overshoot next week and then the 1@8 phase begins, I think that I could see some bench improvements there.

I agree with all. Let me know how it turns out!

So the 1@8 phase begun this week. On bench, I did 100 kg for my single and I do think that it was @8 single. Because it went up relatively fast, it wasn’t grindy and it felt smooth. However, I had bar path issues with 87,5 kg after the single and I hit the rack with every rep! So I called it a set and racked the bar after the 3rd rep. After that I did 82,5 kg for 6 reps@9. I didn’t hit the rack this time but I was obviously tired from the previous set. I think that these bar path issues could be due to not doing enough bench. I picked incline as my 2nd variation for phase 1 and I think that close grip bench would have been a better choice. Well, in phase 2 it has 2ct paused bench as the 2nd variation. I also think that I am currently better at bench singles than with reps, as I didn’t hit the rack with 100 kg and the rep felt good overall. My current plan is to repeat 100 kg next week and try to not hit the rack on the sets of 6.

Btw on the previous day, I did 1@7 with 140 kg on squat and I had to ramp the weight to 150 kg. I rated it as @9 but it was a squat PR. My dl single could very well be over 200 kg this week too.

Well, today I managed to fail 100 kg on bench, I don’t even know how this is possible. For context: I did 105 kg for a single in late August. So my bench has stalled for 4 months now. Even my press has improved a bit in 4 months, as I did 62,5 kg x 6@9 (pr). I have been able to bench normally since April.

Thoughts:

  1. Press does nothing for my bench. When I did 110 kg on bench last year, my best press was 67,5 kg. Well, now my bench is 105 kg and my press is 75 kg. My bench did go down due to a pec injury, not due to increasing my press but it seems that press is almost useless. Press should probably be done for sets of 8+.

  2. Benching 2x/week might not be enough. When I did 110 kg, I benched 4x/week as I was doing Untamed Method type program at that time. I would have less bar path issues too. However, 4x/week could cause overuse injuries (like my pec injury) due to overshooting too much.

  3. 2x/week seems to be enough for squat and dl progress. Even press has been doing well with 2x/week.