5’11" 240lbs (down from fat 247 1.5 months ago; tracking calories to around 2600–2800)
Running advanced Novice with the last working sets at
Squat: 230 3x5 without knee slide. Using TUBOW.
275 3x5 with bad knee slide at my highest
Deadlift: 330 1x5@8ish alternating it with RDLs (last at 215 3x5)
Press: 125 5sets of 3 (did 122.5 3x5 but badly failed next jump so switched to 5x3)
Bench: 152.5 3x5@ really hard feeling
1.) My bench has always been my hardest lift and I’m getting really frustrated. Saw a SSC coach who corrected my form and thought it was fine. But every time I get around 155 it gets stuck with multiple failure. In the last three weeks I have started benching twice a week at 4 sets of 5 to see if that helps but got to the 152.5 at 3x5 that felt really hard. I’ve been pressing once a week. I feel like the weight is too light for more advanced programming, or am I mistaken? Is there other programming worth trying to get it to catch up to my other lifts? Or maybe I need to just really revisit my form.
2.) Is 5 sets of 3 on the press a reasonable way to keep it going up or should I try something different?
It sounds like you are performing the lifts correctly, have followed the program, and are stalling on the upper body lifts. You are actively losing weight, which will limit how far you can go on this.
We are obviously not assessing you in person so there are details we may be missing, but if the “usual” things are being addressed (appropriate weight jumps, appropriate rest between sets, etc.), your two options are:
Continue to spin your wheels, resetting, getting nowhere, and beating yourself up because of your perception that “the weights are too light for intermediate programming”
Realize that progress is better than no progress, and start benching more. Like … a lot more. Like … every training session.
I don’t know how old you are, or if that even factors in, but I can tell you my experience. I HAVE to do my upper body lifts at least 2x a week to make any steady progress. I make the best progress doing them 3x a week with a “light” day in the middle. (I now am dubbing this day “hypertrophy day” based on the new tricks Austin and Jordan are teaching this old dog).
I also did 5 reps on all my warm up sets when they were lighter.
So in my case more was definitely more. I hope that helps.
I appreciate the advice and I think option 2 it is. My squat and deadlift feel like they have a good amount of LP left but I agree that’s it’s tiring circling the wheel on upper body.
As far as adding benching every workout, I saw the below advice in another thread. Do you think this is a good place to start versus trying to add an extra day of benching to the bridge (for which I wouldn’t even be sure how to exactly incorporate)? Or any other thoughts on how to bench on a 3day/week schedule
Workout A
Bench x 5 x 5 (sets across, start at -12% from previous 3x5)
Press x 8 x 3 @ RPE 7- 8
Workout B
Press x 5 x 5 (sets across @ -12% from previous 3 x 5)
Bench x 8 x 3 @ 7-8
Thanks and hope this thread helps anyone else in a similar situation.
I made exactly this mistake. I thought my bench weights were too light for intermediate programming and stayed at about 155 for sets of 5 for a YEAR. Now I have a 550 deadlift, 402 squat, and 192 bench to show for this mistake. At the recommendations of Austin I’ve cranked up the hell out of pressing volume finally. We will see what happens.