January Q and A thread

sijomial

sijomial wrote: »

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SideSteel wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

SideSteel wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

SideSteel wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

Happy New Year.
I have a goal of bench pressing BW x 1.5 but have been stuck shy of that for all of 2016 - advice/guidance on how to break my plateau would be appreciated as I'm very goal driven and it frustrates the hell out of me!
Me: Age 56, maintaining weight at c. 77kg, bench goal 115.5kg, stuck at 3RM 100kg.
My technique is based on the Jennifer Thompson bench tutorial these days (used to bench flat backed) highest lifetime bench (decades ago) was 130kg.

My strength training is x3 a week and typically bench press twice a week with a barbell and once a week on a machine at my work gym which allegedly goes to 100kg but feels more like 90kg with a slight decline (but at least I can fail without pinning myself to the bench, my lift tends to fail at the bottom of the movement...).
I also have access to a plate loaded incline bench machine (TechnoGym) but rarely use it.

I train in a pyramid style and don't go lower than 3RM as that seems to help prevent injury. I know that's not ideal for hitting maximums but have an old supraspinatus tendon injury I need to avoid aggravating.

"Typical" barbell session would be:
50kg x 12 (warmup)
60kg x 10
70kg x 8
80kg x 6
90kg x 4
100kg x 3 very shaky reps

Any help appreciated.

Great post.

I have a lot of thoughts on this and I'm just leaving for the gym now but I'll reply a few times here as I chew on this, so to speak.

One criticism I have of pyramid training is that often times there's too much fatigue accumulation in the lower intensity sets and it negatively effect performance in the top set or sets.

I can't say for certain whether that's going on here, but I'd like to know the following from you:

a) Can you approximate the RPE or the number of reps in reserve (either language is fine) starting with the 60kg set and going all the way to the end?

b) Do you always do that set and rep scheme and then do you evaluate your progress based on the number of reps of the 100kg set?


What you've basically got here when we look at this in %rm is:

1x8@65%
1x6@75%
1x4@85%
1x3@92.5 to 95%

Anyway, I have some initial ideas here but I'd like to first hear your answers to my two questions about before suggesting how to modify the layout.

One criticism I have of pyramid training is that often times there's too much fatigue accumulation in the lower intensity sets and it negatively effect performance in the top set or sets.
Agree.
I seem to tolerate high volume quite well and my recovery between sets is good (high level cardio fitness probably helps). I increase the recovery time between sets as the weight progresses from virtually none to 3 mins before last set.

a ) Can you approximate the RPE or the number of reps in reserve (either language is fine) starting with the 60kg set and going all the way to the end?
Reps in reserve on a good day, I stop early on a bad gym day if I feel I've hit that day's max:

60kg x 10 - still warming up, 10 left?
70kg x 8 - 6 or 7
80kg x 6 - 4 or 5
90kg x 4 - 2 maybe 3.
100kg - nothing, safety bars in danger of being used (OK - I admit I have done the "wiggle of shame" a couple of times...)

b) Do you always do that set and rep scheme and then do you evaluate your progress based on the number of reps of the 100kg set?
It's not unusual to add a second 100kg set if I feel there's something left in the tank.
That's my most frequent style of strength work (workout typically is heavy compounds 2 push/2 pull upper body as the foundation then add either core work or accessory work or leg work).
I train in a circuit training style sometimes (still mostly compounds but alternating push/pull/upper/lower) and the bench component may be 10 x 10 but still ascending weight.

I am really looking for ultimate strength as my progress metric for bench and other upper body compounds.
Core work is all about strength endurance for me (I'm a long distance cyclist.)
Leg strength work is injury limited for weight and also limited to allow recovery from cycle training.

So here's one way you could attempt to set this up. Consider this as somewhat of napkin programming but I think this is likely to work well for you.

I'm going to list this in lbs instead of kg, hopefully that''s not too annoying. I'll assume 3 training days per week, I'll assume you're benching first as your main press movement (meaning, if you squat before that, fine, but I'm assuming you're not doing things like a tricep extension before benching which I doubt you would because you know better)


I'm going to outline this such that the TOP LINE is week 1 and each line below that is the next WEEK.

Day 1
4 x 8 @ 165
4 x 7 @ 170
4 x 6 @ 175
5 x 5 @ 180
5 x 4 @ 185
6 x 3 @ 195


Day 3
4 x 5 @ 180
5 x 4 @ 190
6 x 3 @ 200
6 x 2 @ 210
8 x 1 @ 220
Test AMRAP at 220 week 6


Skip all pressing movements on day 2 week 6 -- so basically whatever you do at your non benching gym in that middle session, skip pressing entirely for recovery and maybe take it easy on other stuff as well.

I would expect the first few weeks to be pretty easy although it's possible that even at the lower intensities you may still feel like this is a good amount of volume since you're doing straight sets across

For warmups I'll just list 1 example of how you could do this, lets assume it's Day 3 @ 180lbs

Empty bar 1 to 2 sets of 10+
95 x 8 (optional if you can go straight to 135)
135 x 6 - 8
155 x 4
170 x 1 to 2
180 working sets


Example for 220
Empty Bar 1 to 2 sets of 10+
95 x 8 (optional if you can go straight to 135)
135 x 6 - 8
155 x 4
175 x 1 to 2
190 x 1
205 x 1
220 working sets


The other thing I'd add to the above is that I'd expect the following things, or I'd recommend them:

1) On the middle day where you're at your non benching gym I'd keep rep ranges in the 6 to 15 range depending on the exercise and I'd make sure you're limiting it to about RPE 8 on most sets. Don't take pressing movements to failure and don't do an assload of volume.

2) On the main benching days I would expect your RPE on working sets to range between about 6 and 8 for most sets with the final sets being slightly more challenging, but I wouldn't expect you to be flirting with failure at all.

Let me know if you have questions, you're not obligated to run this just because I took the time to lay it out. I found this question interesting and I've been doing a lot of thinking about programming in the past few weeks so I felt compelled to crank this out -- no guarantees to others in this thread that I'll always do this to this level of detail but you're of course always welcome to ask.

End of week one feedback......
Your estimated loading ranges for the working sets were excellent!

Week one Day 1
4 x 8 @ 165lbs suggested - actual was 4 x 7 @ 165

Week one Day 3
4 x 5 @ 180lbs suggested - actual was 4 x 5 @ 176

Knocked it back slightly as shoulder grumbling a bit and also realised I had been a bit lazy on form recently on my lighter lifts (just pumping them out because I could....). Concentrating on a plan rather than doing things by feel sharpened me up a bit.

Kept the RPE down this first week by lifting without safety bars to ensure I kept a couple of reps in the bank.

Excellent. Yeah you're definitely going to be better off keeping RPE a tad conservative in the beginning.

I would expect strength to go up and ALSO RPE to go up slightly as it gets heavier.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Feedback - just started week 5 of the bench press program. January seems to have flown by....

Still sticking to the program although last week was a challenge as I was away on holiday and the hotel gym equipment was a little cranky and peculiar.

Weight progression is working fine with the day 1 higher volume / lower weight workout feeling easier than the day 3 low volume / higher weight workout.

Bench Press AMRAP test today. Quite pleased with 7 good reps @100kg/220lbs. That's an improvement on my usual 2 or 3 (on a good day) so it's progress.

Thinking ahead - the first two easy weeks in the 6 week cycle were useful to lose some accumulated fatigue and let shoulder recover a bit but was thinking of next cycle repeating weeks 3 to 6 patterns but 5kg/11lbs higher weight.
Feeling that the lower volume is keeping me feeling fresher and with less recovery issues.

Thoughts or advice?

And thank you again BTW!

SideSteel

sijomial wrote: »

show previous quotes

sijomial wrote: »

SideSteel wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

SideSteel wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

SideSteel wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

Happy New Year.
I have a goal of bench pressing BW x 1.5 but have been stuck shy of that for all of 2016 - advice/guidance on how to break my plateau would be appreciated as I'm very goal driven and it frustrates the hell out of me!
Me: Age 56, maintaining weight at c. 77kg, bench goal 115.5kg, stuck at 3RM 100kg.
My technique is based on the Jennifer Thompson bench tutorial these days (used to bench flat backed) highest lifetime bench (decades ago) was 130kg.

My strength training is x3 a week and typically bench press twice a week with a barbell and once a week on a machine at my work gym which allegedly goes to 100kg but feels more like 90kg with a slight decline (but at least I can fail without pinning myself to the bench, my lift tends to fail at the bottom of the movement...).
I also have access to a plate loaded incline bench machine (TechnoGym) but rarely use it.

I train in a pyramid style and don't go lower than 3RM as that seems to help prevent injury. I know that's not ideal for hitting maximums but have an old supraspinatus tendon injury I need to avoid aggravating.

"Typical" barbell session would be:
50kg x 12 (warmup)
60kg x 10
70kg x 8
80kg x 6
90kg x 4
100kg x 3 very shaky reps

Any help appreciated.

Great post.

I have a lot of thoughts on this and I'm just leaving for the gym now but I'll reply a few times here as I chew on this, so to speak.

One criticism I have of pyramid training is that often times there's too much fatigue accumulation in the lower intensity sets and it negatively effect performance in the top set or sets.

I can't say for certain whether that's going on here, but I'd like to know the following from you:

a) Can you approximate the RPE or the number of reps in reserve (either language is fine) starting with the 60kg set and going all the way to the end?

b) Do you always do that set and rep scheme and then do you evaluate your progress based on the number of reps of the 100kg set?


What you've basically got here when we look at this in %rm is:

1x8@65%
1x6@75%
1x4@85%
1x3@92.5 to 95%

Anyway, I have some initial ideas here but I'd like to first hear your answers to my two questions about before suggesting how to modify the layout.

One criticism I have of pyramid training is that often times there's too much fatigue accumulation in the lower intensity sets and it negatively effect performance in the top set or sets.
Agree.
I seem to tolerate high volume quite well and my recovery between sets is good (high level cardio fitness probably helps). I increase the recovery time between sets as the weight progresses from virtually none to 3 mins before last set.

a ) Can you approximate the RPE or the number of reps in reserve (either language is fine) starting with the 60kg set and going all the way to the end?
Reps in reserve on a good day, I stop early on a bad gym day if I feel I've hit that day's max:

60kg x 10 - still warming up, 10 left?
70kg x 8 - 6 or 7
80kg x 6 - 4 or 5
90kg x 4 - 2 maybe 3.
100kg - nothing, safety bars in danger of being used (OK - I admit I have done the "wiggle of shame" a couple of times...)

b) Do you always do that set and rep scheme and then do you evaluate your progress based on the number of reps of the 100kg set?
It's not unusual to add a second 100kg set if I feel there's something left in the tank.
That's my most frequent style of strength work (workout typically is heavy compounds 2 push/2 pull upper body as the foundation then add either core work or accessory work or leg work).
I train in a circuit training style sometimes (still mostly compounds but alternating push/pull/upper/lower) and the bench component may be 10 x 10 but still ascending weight.

I am really looking for ultimate strength as my progress metric for bench and other upper body compounds.
Core work is all about strength endurance for me (I'm a long distance cyclist.)
Leg strength work is injury limited for weight and also limited to allow recovery from cycle training.

So here's one way you could attempt to set this up. Consider this as somewhat of napkin programming but I think this is likely to work well for you.

I'm going to list this in lbs instead of kg, hopefully that''s not too annoying. I'll assume 3 training days per week, I'll assume you're benching first as your main press movement (meaning, if you squat before that, fine, but I'm assuming you're not doing things like a tricep extension before benching which I doubt you would because you know better)


I'm going to outline this such that the TOP LINE is week 1 and each line below that is the next WEEK.

Day 1
4 x 8 @ 165
4 x 7 @ 170
4 x 6 @ 175
5 x 5 @ 180
5 x 4 @ 185
6 x 3 @ 195


Day 3
4 x 5 @ 180
5 x 4 @ 190
6 x 3 @ 200
6 x 2 @ 210
8 x 1 @ 220
Test AMRAP at 220 week 6


Skip all pressing movements on day 2 week 6 -- so basically whatever you do at your non benching gym in that middle session, skip pressing entirely for recovery and maybe take it easy on other stuff as well.

I would expect the first few weeks to be pretty easy although it's possible that even at the lower intensities you may still feel like this is a good amount of volume since you're doing straight sets across

For warmups I'll just list 1 example of how you could do this, lets assume it's Day 3 @ 180lbs

Empty bar 1 to 2 sets of 10+
95 x 8 (optional if you can go straight to 135)
135 x 6 - 8
155 x 4
170 x 1 to 2
180 working sets


Example for 220
Empty Bar 1 to 2 sets of 10+
95 x 8 (optional if you can go straight to 135)
135 x 6 - 8
155 x 4
175 x 1 to 2
190 x 1
205 x 1
220 working sets


The other thing I'd add to the above is that I'd expect the following things, or I'd recommend them:

1) On the middle day where you're at your non benching gym I'd keep rep ranges in the 6 to 15 range depending on the exercise and I'd make sure you're limiting it to about RPE 8 on most sets. Don't take pressing movements to failure and don't do an assload of volume.

2) On the main benching days I would expect your RPE on working sets to range between about 6 and 8 for most sets with the final sets being slightly more challenging, but I wouldn't expect you to be flirting with failure at all.

Let me know if you have questions, you're not obligated to run this just because I took the time to lay it out. I found this question interesting and I've been doing a lot of thinking about programming in the past few weeks so I felt compelled to crank this out -- no guarantees to others in this thread that I'll always do this to this level of detail but you're of course always welcome to ask.

End of week one feedback......
Your estimated loading ranges for the working sets were excellent!

Week one Day 1
4 x 8 @ 165lbs suggested - actual was 4 x 7 @ 165

Week one Day 3
4 x 5 @ 180lbs suggested - actual was 4 x 5 @ 176

Knocked it back slightly as shoulder grumbling a bit and also realised I had been a bit lazy on form recently on my lighter lifts (just pumping them out because I could....). Concentrating on a plan rather than doing things by feel sharpened me up a bit.

Kept the RPE down this first week by lifting without safety bars to ensure I kept a couple of reps in the bank.

Excellent. Yeah you're definitely going to be better off keeping RPE a tad conservative in the beginning.

I would expect strength to go up and ALSO RPE to go up slightly as it gets heavier.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Feedback - just started week 5 of the bench press program. January seems to have flown by....

Still sticking to the program although last week was a challenge as I was away on holiday and the hotel gym equipment was a little cranky and peculiar.

Weight progression is working fine with the day 1 higher volume / lower weight workout feeling easier than the day 3 low volume / higher weight workout.

Bench Press AMRAP test today. Quite pleased with 7 good reps @100kg/220lbs. That's an improvement on my usual 2 or 3 (on a good day) so it's progress.

Thinking ahead - the first two easy weeks in the 6 week cycle were useful to lose some accumulated fatigue and let shoulder recover a bit but was thinking of next cycle repeating weeks 3 to 6 patterns but 5kg/11lbs higher weight.
Feeling that the lower volume is keeping me feeling fresher and with less recovery issues.

Thoughts or advice?

And thank you again BTW!

I would just add 5 pounds to day one and 10 pounds to day 2 (heavy day) and repeat the cycle.

SideSteel

And on day two if you don't have at least one rep in the tank on any given sent I would drop 5 pounds off

sijomial

Hadn't thought of that - nice idea.

Cheers!

SideSteel

Was this a PR for you as far as number of reps at that load?

sijomial

SideSteel wrote: »

Was this a PR for you as far as number of reps at that load?

A recent PR at 100kg is probably best description (last 20 years anyway).
I have hit a few reps at 105kg/231lbs from time to time in last few years but never managed to sustain that level.

sijomial

OK, OK - you were right and I was wrong!

5kg was a bit too much of a jump, too close to failure. 'Day 1' lighter weight/higher reps workout was fine (mostly) but struggled with the heavier weight/lower reps on 'Day 3'.

Also hit a whole load of front of shoulder pain.
I have a bit of a pushed forward shoulder position (desk job and many hours cycling don't help). So my other workout of the week has morphed into shoulder mobility and stretching rather than any pressing - that plus a wider grip have helped reduce/manage the pain.

AMRAP test today was at 105kg/231lbs - 3 reps. Which is progress.

Got a feeling I would get to BW x 1.5 a lot quicker by dieting rather than by lifting heavier.

PS - bit of an unexpected bonus is that upper arms and chest have grown a little, every half inch counts!

SideSteel

sijomial wrote: »

OK, OK - you were right and I was wrong!

5kg was a bit too much of a jump, too close to failure. 'Day 1' lighter weight/higher reps workout was fine (mostly) but struggled with the heavier weight/lower reps on 'Day 3'.

Also hit a whole load of front of shoulder pain.
I have a bit of a pushed forward shoulder position (desk job and many hours cycling don't help). So my other workout of the week has morphed into shoulder mobility and stretching rather than any pressing - that plus a wider grip have helped reduce/manage the pain.

AMRAP test today was at 105kg/231lbs - 3 reps. Which is progress.

Got a feeling I would get to BW x 1.5 a lot quicker by dieting rather than by lifting heavier.

PS - bit of an unexpected bonus is that upper arms and chest have grown a little, every half inch counts!

The front shoulder pain is no good =(

But, it sounds like you're making progress, so that's a good thing!

nossmf

sijomial wrote: »

Got a feeling I would get to BW x 1.5 a lot quicker by dieting rather than by lifting heavier.

ROFLMAO, that's how I made it to 1.5x BW a couple summers ago. I was sitting at Bench 265, BW 190, needed 20# to get to 1.5x. Instead I added 10# to my bench and dropped 10# off BW, so now I was at Bench 275, BW 180.

Alas, shortly after I hurt my shoulder going after 285, finished the lift but missed the next few months of workouts, and my bench has never been the same since. In fact I barely eeked out a 245 just the other day, which is barely 1.25x my current BW of 197. (I think I'll count it as just a bad day, though, since I got 235x5 the week before which should be a 1RM of 265.)