Stronger Bench

[mwell]

Want to be able to bench 225 for 10 or more reps. What's a good program i could follow? 5x5 or higher reps light weight?! What program do the college guys do to get those high reps at 225/ receiver's & Db's...

 

[ForemanRules]

You have to train for the reps...so If you want 10 reps then do 10 reps.

 

[mwell]

So u r saying do 10 sets of 10 reps? With what weight?

 

[BRICK]

Make sure you also work tri's heavy. Headbangers and close grip bench press are great for increasing strength for bench press. Do reps of 6-8. Don't work bench press more than twice per week.

 

[ForemanRules]

So u r saying do 10 sets of 10 reps? With what weight?

I never said that...
If you want to train for a 1 rep max then do 1-5 reps in training....esp 1-3 reps
If you want to do a max set of 10 reps then train in the rep range of 8-12....esp 10.

 

[Bob Smith]

Don't work bench press more than twice per week.

Why not? Ive gotten my best results benching 2-3x/wk.

 

[Bob Smith]

As for the original question, IMO, the fastest way to increase your 10RM is to really increase your 4-6RM. If you can get really strong on say your 5RM, then doing a set of 10 will be cake. It make take a few workouts to get used to the higher reps, but building your overall strength will get you to your goal quicker than simply pounding out sets of 10.

Strong triceps are also key. Dips and close-grip bench are great for tricep strength and size. BTW, I consider close-grip to be slightly inside shoulder width (~18-12 inches between your index fingers). Any closer than that and you lose your ability to really control the bar since the load is so far away from the fulcrum/pivot point (ie your hands). Plus, you simply dont get any better results by having your hands nearly touching than you do with a slightly wider hand position and youre more likely to incur a hand/wrist injury with them close to touching.

 

[mwell]

Thanks for the advice!

 

[BRICK]

Why not? Ive gotten my best results benching 2-3x/wk.

In my experience, training bench 3x's/wk doesn't allow enough recovery time, although each person's recovery ability varies.

 

[Bob Smith]

In my experience, training bench 3x's/wk doesn't allow enough recovery time, although each person's recovery ability varies.

IMO, the vast majority of people will experience better results by more frequent workouts for a given muscle group/movement. In other words, 2-3x/wk for chest will produce better results than 1x/wk. The problem that people run into, and the reason why they think more frequent workouts dont work, is because what they do is perform the workout they were doing 2-3x/wk (ie, 10-20 sets for chest each workotu). You cant do that. You have to adjust your volume when you go to more frequent workouts. So rather than doing 10-20 sets in one workout, you split that volume into 2-3 workouts of 3-6 sets. The same volume over more frequent workouts will produce superior results.

So to actually address your comment, its not so much about a person's recovery ability as it is about making the small correcting adjustments when performing frequent workouts.