This had to come... Is there anyone else there like myself who wants to bench 300 raw?

The closest that I came was 280@225. Now, while I am on the anabolic diet, my weight swings between 187 and 180 at the moment.

The best program that worked for me was WSB, so I am back on that. I am just about to finish the very last workout of a 9 week cycle and try for a new max this weekend. My max at the start of the 9 week cycle was 265. I am a lifetime natural lifter and 36 years old. I have lifted since I was 19 off and on, but didn't start lifting on a shitty bench that was too narrow when I was 27 or so; before that all that I had was a barbell set in my old apartment.

When I joined a gym and started benching on a decent bench, my bench immediately went up. Most bench presses that they sell in sporting goods stores are awful; it makes you wonder if they were even designed by people who have ever lifted a weight to begin with. Nowadays I lift on a flat bench that I got from NY Barbell in a power rack. It works pretty well.

I don't have any real moral problems with a bench shirt, but I think that gear in general is uncomfortable and a pain in the ass to get on and take off.


The bench press is by far my weakest lift, but I have to stay away from squatting and pulling for a few months so I am going to focus everything on upper body strength now.

I will post some of my logs. I would like to see what others are doing who also want to bench 300 raw.

I was stuck around 260 to 275 for the longest time (a couple of years, sad huh?).

I used to do Westside, then made my own routine. I am now full time Sheiko.

My best gym lift is 137.5 kg (303 lbs) on bench, raw @ 187 lbs. Took about 4 months to go from a 265 lbs pause to a 303.

Just curious, why are you backing off from squatting & deadlifting?

Been there. Took the longest time to get to and I'm still not that far past it yet.

I'd take 350 sometime next year if it was offered to me right now....

I've been there as well, I started off pressing 125 when I was 14, shot up to 275 at 16 and was stuck there for almost a year and when I finally changed up my routine to 5x5 extra tricep and delt work and a few other tweeks, my bench went up to 315 in a few months. Got stuck at 315 for 2 months I'm 17 now, and finally my bench has started to increas again about 325 now all Raw and natural.

Synthetickiller wrote:
I was stuck around 260 to 275 for the longest time (a couple of years, sad huh?).

I used to do Westside, then made my own routine. I am now full time Sheiko.

My best gym lift is 137.5 kg (303 lbs) on bench, raw @ 187 lbs. Took about 4 months to go from a 265 lbs pause to a 303.

Just curious, why are you backing off from squatting & deadlifting?

I just acquired a few nagging injuries and want to let them heal. I had to do it before and it worked.

I seem to be stuck in pretty much the same boat you were, with the exception that when my weight went down my bench plummeted, so it kind of has been going up in a way.

When it went way down, like down to 240 or something like that, I did a 5*5 routine and built it back up. A few months back I decided to give WSB another shot, but modified a bit.

The first time that I tried it I did too much with the boards and it made me weaker at the bottom.

The sheiko stuff has intrigued me. Do they have a version just for benching?

I am at 300 (@160) now but I really want 315. I have done great the last 5 months with no injuries but now I have some issue near my right trap causing me some problems. I want 315 so bad!!. I am sure many guys here passed it a long time ago but for me it would be my first major milestone in my book. Good luck to all!

For those of you benching 300+, how easy was it for you? It was by far the hardest lift for me to achieve of the 3/4/5 combo.

The squat came easily, but has barely friggin moved since in the last 9 months, it's starting to go up now.

Deadlift was hard but once I put my head into it and started to work hard it came.

Bench just hasn't co-operated tho. By far the hardest of the lifts for me. But funnily enough my shirted bench has gone up like 60lbs in since january and is hovering around 400 now.

Hanley wrote:
For those of you benching 300+, how easy was it for you? It was by far the hardest lift for me to achieve of the 3/4/5 combo.




It took me 2 1/2 years to go from 125 to 325. Although it took awhile I'd say bench press along with my deadlift are the easiest lifts for me to raise increasing weight almost every w/o. I started seriously squatting a 1/2 a year ago and i add 5 pounds to my triples every w/o.

I plateued for awhile on bench and until i learned about serious tricep training and the fact that doing max singles every w/o would not help me, it was until then that my bench has really grown. At this rate, hopefully i'll hit 405 raw by summer.

For me bench pressing has always been the slowest to go up. I did 335 at about 220 as my all time best, unfortunately I jacked up my shoulder in judo a year ago and haven't done much pressing until recently. I hit 5 singles at 275 and a 285 the other day so hopefully I'll be back over that barrier again soon.

My squat and deadlift have always gone up quickly.

Ever since I've started using sheiko, all of my lifts have gone up... Bench, CG Bench, Squat, GMs, but not deadlift. I have a lot of work to do on that.

Hanley, I found the 303 VERY easy oddly enough. I always seem to have a little extra gas in the tank when I max on bench and squat in conjunction with sheiko.

Caesar, there is a bench only routine, but I can't for the life of me remember the site. Maybe someone else here will. it also has the other sheiko routines and some other stuff on it.

Caesar: there is a sheiko bench only program on elitefts' site: http://asp.elitefts.com/...=54819&tid=

I did this exact program and it worked wonders for my bench. The only change I did was to replaced the "lockouts" with three board presses. Good luck. Let me know if you have any questions

I remember when I hit 300, it was cool for like a day and then I was off to a new max. If your at 265+ one well placed bench program can take you to 300. It dosent have to be 6 months or a year.

If anyone has the time I might suggest a program, mostly because I love typeing programs....




10 weeks long, 2 bench workouts per week. Start off with 100lbs under your bench max, do 1 set to failure, we are talking all out max reps realy pushing your self.

So for a 275 bencher it would look like this

Bench: 175x?
Shoulderpress: 10rm realy pushing your self
Close grip: 10rm realy pushing your self


Bench: 180x?
Different kind of shoulderpress: 10rm +5-10lbs
Dips: 10rm realy pushing your self


2-3 workouts a week of back, traps, rear delts, rotator cuffs and hammer curls always useing more weight.




Basicaly repeat this while adding 5lbs to your bench set every workout, and adding 5-10lbs to your shoulderpress, dips and close grip every workout. I would think this could easily turn your 1rm into a 3rm which would = a 300lb bench.

Try to gain 10-20lbs over the 10 weeks and keep squat work to a minimum, couple sets of 10 to maintain strength and maybe pack on some mass, no need to put any unneeded stress on the CNS.



Just a thought.

Hanley wrote:
For those of you benching 300+, how easy was it for you? It was by far the hardest lift for me to achieve of the 3/4/5 combo.

The squat came easily, but has barely friggin moved since in the last 9 months, it's starting to go up now.

Deadlift was hard but once I put my head into it and started to work hard it came.

Bench just hasn't co-operated tho. By far the hardest of the lifts for me. But funnily enough my shirted bench has gone up like 60lbs in since january and is hovering around 400 now.


I am with you man. My squat has been 400+ for a couple months. I just hit 500 on deadlift, but I not quite there yet with the 300 bench. I am getting close. I am pretty confident I'll have it in 2 months.

Hanley wrote:
For those of you benching 300+, how easy was it for you? It was by far the hardest lift for me to achieve of the 3/4/5 combo.

The squat came easily, but has barely friggin moved since in the last 9 months, it's starting to go up now.

Deadlift was hard but once I put my head into it and started to work hard it came.

Bench just hasn't co-operated tho. By far the hardest of the lifts for me. But funnily enough my shirted bench has gone up like 60lbs in since january and is hovering around 400 now.

Want to trade squat for bench? That is my weak point for 3/4/5.

The bench is my strongest (relatively) lift. It wasn't super hard to reach but I did have to work for it. I did a lot of dumbbell work, floor presses, chains, but for me some reason weighted dips help the most. I accredit that to me being mostly tricep dominant when I press. I went touch and go 335 in the gym. So in a raw meet I would put myself barely over 300 with a pause.

Uber N3wb wrote:
I remember when I hit 300, it was cool for like a day and then I was off to a new max. If your at 265+ one well placed bench program can take you to 300. It dosent have to be 6 months or a year.

If anyone has the time I might suggest a program, mostly because I love typeing programs....




10 weeks long, 2 bench workouts per week. Start off with 100lbs under your bench max, do 1 set to failure, we are talking all out max reps realy pushing your self.

So for a 275 bencher it would look like this

Bench: 175x?
Shoulderpress: 10rm realy pushing your self
Close grip: 10rm realy pushing your self


Bench: 180x?
Different kind of shoulderpress: 10rm +5-10lbs
Dips: 10rm realy pushing your self


2-3 workouts a week of back, traps, rear delts, rotator cuffs and hammer curls always useing more weight.




Basicaly repeat this while adding 5lbs to your bench set every workout, and adding 5-10lbs to your shoulderpress, dips and close grip every workout. I would think this could easily turn your 1rm into a 3rm which would = a 300lb bench.

Try to gain 10-20lbs over the 10 weeks and keep squat work to a minimum, couple sets of 10 to maintain strength and maybe pack on some mass, no need to put any unneeded stress on the CNS.



Just a thought.

Currently I am benching 250 at 220.

I hope to get to 300 by april.

Hanley wrote:
For those of you benching 300+, how easy was it for you? It was by far the hardest lift for me to achieve of the 3/4/5 combo.

The squat came easily, but has barely friggin moved since in the last 9 months, it's starting to go up now.

Deadlift was hard but once I put my head into it and started to work hard it came.

Bench just hasn't co-operated tho. By far the hardest of the lifts for me. But funnily enough my shirted bench has gone up like 60lbs in since january and is hovering around 400 now.

Squat was the biggest pain for me. I got a 300lb touch and go bench without really even training for it when I was a sophomore in college @185lbs, and have built up to a 345lb bench (gym lift) recently @202, whereas I just barely managed a 405lb squat a week ago. Deadlift isn't too tough for me either.

I don't really have any secrets. Anything you can read from Pavel or Westside will prolly do the trick.

Bench is my best lift I think. I got 325 @ ~230 a couple of months ago, but my squat and dead are still lagging so I'm not at 3/4/5 yet (getting closer). I was at 225 about 7 months ago. My bench went up a good 40 pounds doing Waterbury's TBT if you can believe it. I then made really solid gains switching to westside at the end of the summer. I think switching to triples and then singles really shocked my body into getting stronger. I had never lifted like that in my life. I also did lots of dumbbell work.

It took me what seemed like forever and a day to get past 225 though.

It was all mental for me I did 295 for reps for years did 310 for 1 but could never do 315. Then 2 years ago I decided to just try to look good for the beach with a light 10x10 using 185-225. Walked in the gym at the end of the summer to test my max to change my routine and pushed it up no problem. Went up to 330 that day.

Hanley wrote:
For those of you benching 300+, how easy was it for you?

By far the hardest lift to win progress on for me too. Always has been.

Squat and deadlift were always easier for me then bench. I have big strong legs and a strong lower and upper back. My chest was always a weak link and it has taken along time to bring it up. I can currently put up 310 raw at 205.

The weird thing is I can put up 275 six or seven reps and 250 for ten to twelve on any given day. If you go by the one rep estimate charts that would be an estimated 320 to 330 one rep max. I know they aren't the most accurate thing, but still there is something amiss there.

I know it's a weak link somewhere once the weight gets up beyond 300 and I believe it's right off the chest and coming down to slow and burning out since the weights heavy. I will be correcting this over the next few months and my goal is 320 to 30 by summer.

D

Getting 225 up the first time was much harder for me than 300 was...I'm convinced it was a psychological wall I created because no other bench goal has been as hard to overcome.

I think making big gains on your deadlift is harder because it takes so much out of you....550 was my magic number on the deadlift I had to overcome then everything else felt easier to improve upon

I hit 300 a little over a year ago. Next time I benched heavy, 305 if memory serves, I tore a rotator cuff. After 5 months of no pressing, my bench tanked to 185. It's back up to 265 now, and I'm hoping to get back over 300 by mid 2008 (training smarter this time).

And to answer Hanley's question - it was definately the hardest lift for me to get. My squat and dead can come up fairly quickly when I train them, but my bench seems to take forever. It's all good though, cuz I'd rather have big squats and DLs versus a big bench (not that anything I do is big yet).

Steve-O-68 wrote:
I hit 300 a little over a year ago. Next time I benched heavy, 305 if memory serves, I tore a rotator cuff. After 5 months of no pressing, my bench tanked to 185. It's back up to 265 now, and I'm hoping to get back over 300 by mid 2008 (training smarter this time).

And to answer Hanley's question - it was definately the hardest lift for me to get. My squat and dead can come up fairly quickly when I train them, but my bench seems to take forever. It's all good though, cuz I'd rather have big squats and DLs versus a big bench (not that anything I do is big yet).

How did you manage to tear your rotator cuff?

My bench is ass. I mean it's horrible. I'm not sure what my max is, probably about 250, but that's complete ass because I'm about 260. I was stuck at 225 for about two years. My upper back and delts are pretty weak. My delts are comin along pretty good lately but still tryin' to fill out the upper back.

A lot of band pull aparts because my school doesn't have a cable pulley to do face pulls or a chest-supported row to do horizontal shrugs on it. Tryin' ro find some new upper back ideas. I feel I'm making progress though so I'm slightly happy.