Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Bench

Bench (2 second pause)
175 x 2
165 x 3, 3
155 x 5, 4

Floor press
165 x 5
175 x 4
135 x 8 -little too easy
155 x 7

With my floor press being stronger than my bench, the problem with my bench I guess is the first half of the movement off of the chest. I might start doing some dumbbell presses or if anyone else knows exercises that have helped their bench off the chest, I'm all ears.

Standing overhead press
95 x 7, 6, 4, 4

Rope pushdowns
130 x 10
100 x 15, 15

The past 4 weeks I've been resting on Saturdays instead of doing another bench workout and I think this extra recovery time has helped my bench improve slightly.

6 comments:

Jake Ceccarelli said...

Higher volume straight benching, super wide grip bench. Also, do you pause on the floor press or just touch and go? Unless you're pausing it's just a board press, which actually should be higher than your regular bench (correct me if I'm wrong guys).

Juggernaut, the said...

@Jake - Floor Press actually has two big differences from a board press: no legs and no arch. We generally pause on these, though sometimes just enough to be motionless.

If find that my floor press is significantly weaker than my board press. For example, on my last board press day (I think we used a 2 board), I was working with 80lbs more.

Jake Ceccarelli said...

@Dave: Good points. Is it common for someone's floor press to be higher than their bench?

I still stand by my two exercise recommendations in my first sentence, and if it's unusual that floor press is higher than bench I say just switch it out. It's a pretty significant strength if you ask me.

Nathan Beckmann said...

I've read in several places and believe from my own experience that: floor press > bench press ==> bad bench setup. QED.

Juggernaut, the said...

@Jake: no, not really. It largely depends on your normal bench style. I have a high arch, so it's significantly different movement for me. Phil has a flat-style bench, which means his floor press is much closer to his actual bench.

@Nathans: I wouldn't say "bad", but definitely a flatter bench. Also, bad.

Vit said...

My bench setup does still need a lot of work so that's probably why my floor press is higher. I still don't consistently have a good arch or leg drive.