Question about bench press improvements.

HOSED49

your question kinda reminds me of the old pyramid chart

your 1 rep max was absed on being able to do a percentage a set amount of times

a 300 lb max would look like this

60% 12 reps with 180 lbs
80% 7 reps with 240 lbs
90% 2 reps with 270lbs
80% 5 reps with 240 lbs
70% 10 reps at 210 lbs

this in no way says that by doing those reps means you can bench 300 lbs but its building you up to it
plus for me it was a challenge every bench day
once you complete that max you bump up using the same percentages with your next max goal

Other things to work on with bench are speed drills and floor presses or board presses

Am I supposed to do all those sets in one session?

yes, that would be your bench work
its a very old method
lots of different ways to improve technique also

Jeff92se

I'm on 5/3/1 so my reps change from week to week and I get a heavy lift (around 95%) once a month.

But for estimation purposes there is a 1 rep max formula based on your reps with a lighter weight



(weight x reps x .0333333) + weight = projected 1 rep max

so if you're repping 185 x8


185x8x.0333 = 48.84 +185 puts you in the 230-235 range for a projected max.
Granted you might have trouble hitting that if you don't normally take heavy singles, it should be fairly close.

That's pretty close. My best lift in my power lifting days was about 230lbs. Sucks!

Mercenary1914

number 2 works well for a while.
that's basically just progressive overload.
once you can't add 5 pounds, you microload with 1-2 pounds and continue on until you get stuck.

yea...that's what he does...I forgot to mention..another one...my cousin improved his bench by going to incline for a month straight then went back to flat bench....He swears by that technique...

5x5 was the one that worked best for me lately.

UponThisRock

Pick a target rep range and work within it. When you get to the top of the rep range, add 5-10 lbs.

So if your're doing 3 sets of 4-6 reps. When you complete all 3 sets of 6 reps @200 lbs, do 210 the next workout.

HeidiMightyRawr

From my experience (just something I've observed in my own training), when I can hit 5 reps on a certain weight, in the first set, I can usually do a 1RM of 7.5kg (16.5lbs) heavier. At that point in time I was training to failure with every rep so it was quite easy to tell when I was getting stronger, and once I got 5 reps, I'd test a new max weight.

Obviously the higher weights you use, the greater that difference may be (5 reps on 110lbs for me, meant I could do 126.5 for 1, but if a person is doing 5 reps on 220lbs, they'd probably be able to do more than 236.5 as a max, as the % difference is smaller.

To me it's just trial and error, test your max every now and again when your reps are increasing and you should be able to tell fairly soon. There are 1RM calculators around, but I've always found them to be a bit of an overestimate for me.