Fixing my bench press

[BendtheBar]

I went through my recent log history trying to find out what I was doing when my bench press was moving, and what I was doing when it wasn't. I was baffled. Both approaches looked the same.

During the first 2 months of frequent benching my presses skyrocketed up to a 450 Slingshot max. I was hitting PRs every week. After that point things took a nose dive. 405 feels heavy now. I couldn't figure out what the difference was until today...

I dropped heavy overhead presses about 2 months into frequent benching.

Here I was searching for some magical combination of bench press reps, sets and schemes, and I overlooked the obvious: my shoulders are getting weaker. Today I added in overhead dumbbell presses just for fun, and found I was weaker by 20 pounds per dumbbell. I had lost a lot of shoulder strength.

Am I 100% certain this is the main factor behind my bench press stalling? No. But I do believe this is a big part of what has caused the wheels to fall off the PR machine.

Don't misinterpret this post as a call to overhead pressing. It's not. The point I am trying to make is that when trying to figure out why things have stalled, don't overlook the obvious.

[bigtim27]

I hope this is the reason and it works out for you!

[TitanCT]

awesome dude.
this is a great post to learn from as well!
hope that bench gets up!

[Trevor Ross]

Ed Coan and Ted Arcidi did heavy presses for their benching power.

[LtL]

The key learn here is to analyse your training. We all keep logs but do we read them? Do we go through and look for patterns? Assistance exercises that go up alongside main lifts? Use your information. Knowledge is power people.

LtL

[Fazc]

Amen.

[Off Road]

Awesomeness. I like simple fixes.

[Ryano]

I certainly don't mean to be a killjoy, but I never do overhead presses. It just puts to much strain on my shoulders. That being said, do whatever works.

Make's me think, is the shoulder press loss a cause or an effect of the stagnated benchpress? I guess only way to find out is to start the OH again and see if the bench goes up with the OH.

[Off Road]

Originally Posted by Ryano

Make's me think, is the shoulder press loss a cause or an effect of the stagnated benchpress?

Good question. I like these threads, they really make you step back and think about how everything interacts.

[5kgLifter]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

During the first 2 months of frequent benching my presses skyrocketed up to a 450 Slingshot max. I was hitting PRs every week. After that point things took a nose dive. 405 feels heavy now. I couldn't figure out what the difference was until today...

Can I just ask, was all bench pressing up to the 450 max with the slingshot done with the slingshot, or was there also heavy bench pressing minus the slingshot during that time frame? Just for clarification.