Bench Press More – Give Me 12 Days And I Will Make You Stronger

Have you ever noticed how when you first join a gym it is easy to get stronger, add weight and do more reps on each subsequent workout? But a few weeks or a few months later, your progress comes to a halt. You keep pushing the same amount of weight and keep struggling at the same number of repetitions.

This is what I experienced when I first became serious about working out 8 years ago. I wouldn’t miss workouts and yet I seemed to be stuck. In fact, I keep seeing the guys at the gym struggling to change their bodies OR get stronger.

Truth is, I see this at most of the gyms I visit when I have to workout somewhere else. The cost of all this is not only that people fail to get their dream bodies, you know, the type of physiques that inspired them to start training, but also quit working out altogether.

You Don’t Have to Quit


You see, it is not your fault that you fail to progress in the gym. The mainstream advice in bodybuilding mags just plain sucks. There is a solution. Most of the guys that have respectable bodies at the local gym have found a way to get there. Unfortunately their way is not something approve of.

It involves pumping yourself full of drugs meant to make animals produce more meat. I against steroids. For me that’s cheating. But there is a way to progress up to a certain point without compromising your health and integrity. It involves two things – perfecting your form on most exercises and training smart.

Bench Press Technique

Lets look at the bench press as an example. The goal here is two make your muscles work in the most natural and efficient position.

  • Lowering the weight. First, you need to take care of the way you lower the weight. Do it by pulling the bar towards you with your armpit muscles – the lats.
  • Primal mover. Second, the primal mover on a bench press done right is the triceps. In order to progress you need to make your triceps bigger and stronger.
  • Sticking points Third, if you have sticking point in the movement – that is a place where you seem to not be able to push through time and again, this signifies that a certain muscle is weak.
  • Stuck at the bottom If you get stuck at the bottom of the bench – you need to strengthen your torso muscles – chest, lats…
  • Stuck higher If you fail up high – you’ve got weak triceps.
  • Feet and legs. Put your feet on the floor and not on the bench if you are trying to get stronger. Keep your butt firmly on the bench. Push the ground through your heels. The force will transfer from the ground through your feet to the bar.

How to Grip the Bar

Always squeeze and grip as hard as you can. It’s called irradiation – the harder you grip, the stronger all the other neighboring muscles will become. So if you squeeze hard, your forearms, arms and chest will become stronger and it will be easier to push more weight.

When doing pushing movements such as dips and presses, always make sure the bar stays towards the heel of your palm and not towards your fingers. It will make all the difference for the health of your wrists. Not to mention you’ll be stronger.

How to Protect Your Shoulders

Lots of people complain of bad shoulders from benching. To make things worse, many of us spend the day hunched over on a desk. To top that, folks fail to train the muscles of their back in order to counter for the tons of bench pressing and the poor posture.

If you don’t want to have shoulder surgery, there are two things you need to know regarding bench press technique.

  • Lower the bar to the bottom of your chest. the place where your stomach muscles meet your rib cage.
  • Don’t flare your elbows out to the sides. Instead, have your arms at a 45 degree angle to your body. In other words, they will be a little tucked in.
  • Squeeze the back Third, squeeze your shoulder blades and upper back and press hard against the bench.

Smart Training

You are going to learn 3 workouts that will increase your bench press by 5-15lbs (2-7kg) in the next 12 days. You will train every day, Monday through Friday, rest on the weekend and then again Monday through Friday for a total of 10 workouts. You will be doing 2 sets of 5 reps.

Lets say you can bench 100lbs for 5 reps. Plan it so that you will hit 5-15 more lbs on the 10th workout. Lets say 110lbs. Now work back from this to establish your starting weight for your first workout. Each day you are going to do just two sets and the second set is going to be roughly 10% lighter.

Make sure to rest 3-5 minutes between sets. The first few workouts will feel kind of useless. Don’t change the weight! Pretend it is heavy and squeeze your muscles hard. This is going to fool your body and make you stronger. Now after you hit your 10th workout, you can start over at 75lbs, etc.

Workout 1 – Set 1 – 70 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 60 pounds/5 reps
Workout 2 – Set 1 – 75 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 65 pounds/5 reps
Workout 3 – Set 1 – 80 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 70 pounds/5 reps
Workout 4 – Set 1 – 85 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 75 pounds/5 reps
Workout 5 – Set 1 – 90 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 80 pounds/5 reps
Workout 6 – Set 1 – 95 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 85 pounds/5 reps
Workout 7 – Set 1 – 100 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 90 pounds/5 reps
Workout 8 – Set 1 – 105 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 95 pounds/5 reps
Workout 9 – Set 1 – 110 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 100 pounds/5 reps
Workout 10 – Set 1 – 115 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 105 pounds/5 reps

This is the simplest workout – a linear strength training cycle. It is called linear cause each subsequent workout you just add a bit more weight. To change things up a bit, here are two more variations.

The Step Cycle

In this workout you are going to stay at each weight for two workouts to make your gains solid.

Workout 1 – Set 1 – 90 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 80 pounds/5 reps
Workout 2 – Set 1 – 90 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 80 pounds/5 reps
Workout 3 – Set 1 – 95 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 85 pounds/5 reps
Workout 4 – Set 1 – 95 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 85 pounds/5 reps
Workout 5 – Set 1 – 100 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 90 pounds/5 reps
Workout 6 – Set 1 – 100 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 90 pounds/5 reps
Workout 7 – Set 1 – 105 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 95 pounds/5 reps
Workout 8 – Set 1 – 105 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 95 pounds/5 reps
Workout 9 – Set 1 – 110 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 100 pounds/5 reps
Workout 10 – Set 1 – 110 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 100 pounds/5 reps

The Wave Cycle

With the wave cycle you are still going up in the overall poundage, but you are going to do it in a sort of two step forward one step back manner.

Workout 1 – Set 1 – 90 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 80 pounds/5 reps
Workout 2 – Set 1 – 85 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 75 pounds/5 reps
Workout 3 – Set 1 – 90 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 80 pounds/5 reps
Workout 4 – Set 1 – 95 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 85 pounds/5 reps
Workout 5 – Set 1 – 90 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 80 pounds/5 reps
Workout 6 – Set 1 – 95 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 85 pounds/5 reps
Workout 7 – Set 1 – 100 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 90 pounds/5 reps
Workout 8 – Set 1 – 95 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 85 pounds/5 reps
Workout 9 – Set 1 – 100 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 90 pounds/5 reps
Workout 10 – Set 1 – 105 pounds/5 reps – Set 2 – 95 pounds/5 reps

If you haven’t trained for strength in this way before the results will be fantastic. You can expect to gain 30-40lbs/15-20kg of strength in 2 months.

Note: the above routines come from Power to the People, a book by Pavel Tsatsouline, a former soviet Specnaz instructor, who now teaches the American special forces effective strength training methods.

Benchpress Badass by USNavy