Saturday, April 11, 2009

Bench Accessory

Wanted to go in today and work my overhead pressing. It is weak, and my DE days have kind of stagnated at 135 for all of my sets, so I figure switching it up for 3 weeks may do me some good.

Strict Military Press: 95x5x5

Standing Pin Press: 135x5x3

Pull-ups: 8, 8, 8, 5

HS High Row: 2p+25x10x3

Pushdowns: Stack x 15, 15

GHR Situps: 15, 15, 15

My lower back didn't feel too bad on all of these. I probably just wont do too much squatting/deadlifting this week and just work lowback/hamstrings/abs with special exercises on Monday & Friday.

Since I had no lower back issues, I will go with my plan of replacing the 8x3 Bench with 8x3 Standing Press, and then the usual workout applying from then on.

8 comments:

Jake Ceccarelli said...

How can DE bench stagnate? It's a percent of your 1RM.

Kyle said...

I meant stagnate in terms of speed. I am probably fast enough at 135, but when I bump the weight, I slow down a lot. I've pretty much been using 135 as my speed weight for the past couple of months. I figure it's time for a little change.

Jake Ceccarelli said...

How can you tell how much you slow down with an extra 10 pounds on the bar?

Kyle said...

It's noticeable. The general rule of thumb is that it should take about 3 seconds for the 3 reps. It takes probably closer to 8 seconds for anything above 135.

Jake Ceccarelli said...

So, let me get this straight: 3 seconds for 3 reps with 135, 8 seconds for 3 reps with 140. That's impossible. Just increase the weight and then keep doing it until you get down to 3 seconds for 3 reps.

Kyle said...

I will go with that plan after these couple of weeks. The way I see it, there is no downside to trying this out - if it doesn't work, fine I only wasted 3 weeks, but if it works I will be stronger.

I will still be doing the regular accessory exercises, just the difference will be the substitution of standing press for bench.

Jake Ceccarelli said...

You shouldn't stop doing bench press when you make this switch. Do it as an accessory lift for like 5x5.

Kyle said...

I was planning to do close-grips as my tricep movement on Saturdays for 4x8.