Bench Speed

TR0berts

I'm not sure why, but it my speed in lowering the bar during bench has gotten slooooooooooow. At least, for the first rep at heavier weights. Any additional reps are fine. I've tried changing my breathing; I've tried counting (which made it worse); and I've tried forcing myself to go faster, but I tend to lose tightness at the bottom if I go faster on the first rep.

I could post a video, but I have one from about 2 months ago Here, p 48 if it doesn't go there automatically. This one wasn't too bad, but it feels like I'm just getting slower.

Any ideas on how else to try to fix it, so I don't waste energy on the eccentric?

SideSteel

TR0berts wrote: »

I'm not sure why, but it my speed in lowering the bar during bench has gotten slooooooooooow. At least, for the first rep at heavier weights. Any additional reps are fine. I've tried changing my breathing; I've tried counting (which made it worse); and I've tried forcing myself to go faster, but I tend to lose tightness at the bottom if I go faster on the first rep.

I could post a video, but I have one from about 2 months ago Here, p 48 if it doesn't go there automatically. This one wasn't too bad, but it feels like I'm just getting slower.

Any ideas on how else to try to fix it, so I don't waste energy on the eccentric?

I'm curious if this only happens on heavier loads?

I'm not convinced it's a problem based on the 315 attempt I saw, but I realize that doesn't help you since I'm not answering your question.

For what it's worth I notice the same with me. I can go faster on lighter loads but when it gets super heavy I control the eccentric a bit more. Mine is WAY slower than yours.

DopeItUp

Meh, you look fine dude. It's only natural that it's going to be harder to control a heavier weight on the eccentric. I recently did my 1RM attempts so I'm very familiar with it. Same as you said, if you try to go fast you lose tightness and/or get out of the groove. I think rushing a heavy bench press is probably the worst thing you can do.

Personally, I don't think a slow eccentric necessarily even wastes energy (or enough to matter). There are world record holders whose eccentric is incredibly slow but it's like they're coiling a spring and they just launch out of the hole. Same with squats. Watch Stan Efferding's world record squats sometime. I doubt he was wasting energy since he set 4 world records in the same year if I remember.

nossmf

I worry less about my lowering speed, and worry more about how slowly I push the weights back up.

TR0berts

SideSteel wrote: »

TR0berts wrote: »

I'm not sure why, but it my speed in lowering the bar during bench has gotten slooooooooooow. At least, for the first rep at heavier weights. Any additional reps are fine. I've tried changing my breathing; I've tried counting (which made it worse); and I've tried forcing myself to go faster, but I tend to lose tightness at the bottom if I go faster on the first rep.

I could post a video, but I have one from about 2 months ago Here, p 48 if it doesn't go there automatically. This one wasn't too bad, but it feels like I'm just getting slower.

Any ideas on how else to try to fix it, so I don't waste energy on the eccentric?

I'm curious if this only happens on heavier loads?

I'm not convinced it's a problem based on the 315 attempt I saw, but I realize that doesn't help you since I'm not answering your question.

Not only on heavier, but always heavier and often on lighter. I think that's because even if I lose a little tightness or whatever on lighter loads, it's not a big deal to move it. FWIW - that 315 moved rather quickly for me. So much so that I wasn't sure if that would give anything away. The guys I bench with tell me that the concentric is also slow on my first, but much quicker on 2nd/3rd...

But, as it sounds, it doesn't seem like it's nearly as big a deal as it might seem. Thanks.