It's been about a month and a half since my last post, at which time my lower body was feeling pretty beat up, but my upper body was feeling strong. So much so that I could feel a new 1 rep max on the bench on the horizon (and normally there's nothing I feel less confident in than my bench). And about 4 days after I wrote that, taadaa! I joined the 245 lb. club. Kiddy weights for serious lifters, but for a skinny jabroni like me who seemed to be stuck on a decade long plateau of 225 lb., no small feat.
So, how did I add 20 lb. to my bench in almost exactly a year? StrongLifts 5x5 was a big reason for my most recent gains, but it started with a more bench press focused program I found last year called the Six Week Bench Press Solution. This was the lifting program that 1st got me hooked on parametric strength building programs like StrongLifts. Based on your previous 1 rep max, calculate your working sets throughout the program, complete the program, test/set your new 1 rep max. It sounds so simple, right? So simple that I ran through it a 2nd time last year just a few weeks after completing it the 1st time...and it worked again. Wash, rinse, repeat. So amazed was I that I wondered how many times I could complete this program and improve my max before tapping out.
Well, it turns out the 3rd time wasn't a charm. My attempt at 250 lb. a couple of weeks ago failed spectacularly! In hindsight, there were a couple of things working against me. 1st, I had just beat my 1 rep max prior to starting this program over again. It's not like I had been stuck on a plateau and needed help getting over some hump. Any strength building program is going to have its limits. Otherwise, everyone could just do StrongLifts or Smolov or any of a number of different things, and our strength and personal bests would just keep rising and rising to infinity, right? (That would be an odd universe where everyone could bench 700 lb. and squat 1,000 lb.) Also, one of the main reasons I went back to this program was because I was taking a break from StronLifts, and admittedly I didn't really want to go back to just having an arm day, back day, chest day, etc. and sort of mindlessly going about some made up routine. I now love having a piece of paper or app or chart tell me what I have to accomplish on a specific day with all the guess-work taken out. I guess in that sense it's good to take a break from these programs to make your brain build your own routines again.
Also-also, this was intended to be a 6 week program (hence the title...duh) with 2 chest days per week. Because I was bored and taking a break from StrongLifts, squats in general, and deadlifts in general, that left a lot of time to fill. Let's just say I finished a 6 week program in 4 and a half weeks...probably not the rest and recovery time that was intended for success. And finally, the program was updated since the 1st couple of times I went through it. It was edited to include some incline bench work as well. At 1st, I loved this idea just for the pure sake of changing things up from what I had previously done (and I always felt I was neglecting my incline work in this program before). But whereas the original program was spelled-out in a way that was crystal clear, the inclusion of the incline work left some ambiguity in the program, and things weren't clarified as well as they could have been. (Ok, so 5 sets of 3 reps of incline bench press at 85% of my 1 rep max...my 1 rep max on flat bench? Incline?) Throughout the program, I assumed it meant the % of my 1 rep max for flat bench, but do it on the incline. This made for some not-so-productive (albeit very difficult) sets. I should probably follow up with the author for clarification if I'm being honest. In the end, for the 1st time I didn't see any gains at the conclusion of the program.
Still, I'd recommend the Six Week Bench Press Solution to anyone who is looking to get a bigger bench. The original program increased my bench 10 lb. in 6 months...when doing my own thing increased my bench 5 lb. in 3 years. I think I will tuck it away for a bit and try some other stuff for a while, but I could see myself going back to it when I get stuck in a rut. Hopefully, I'll be able to be more disciplined with my recovery time, and not rush things. In the mean time, I'm going to go back to StrongLifts for a 2nd round. I'm starting basically back at ground zero in terns of weight, so it will be at least 8 weeks or so before I start to approach the heavier weights I ended up at last time. Adios.
