How to bring back flat bench power

[qbkilla]

All you have to do is start benching again and progress in weight, nothing complicated or difficult. Flat bench is a great way to tear a pec know that beforehand.

 

[need4tren]

CNS CNS CNS, if you want to pound your bench or your squat. Do not tax your cns out on other days. If your putting max effort into all your lifting days this will really effect your bench days. CNS IS HUGE.

Heaviest bench days should be after rest day. With a good day of eating the day before. Other then that just lift as heavy as possible and keep reps 5-6, don’t try and max out everything

 

[XtremeMuscle!]

well in regards to "regaining power," the rep range offered by the Op seems rather confusing. You need to spend time more towards the 3-5 rep range for enhancing raw power, not forgetting "listening to your body." I would say Mike Turscherer - founder of RTS has some great concepts regarding this principle. Go looks at his website. You can find many free articles on the site without even ever having to buy his textbooks. Try it bro!

 

[dragonfire101]

Speed Bench 10 sets x 3 reps with chains

 

[maldorf]

Fred Hatfield 5x5

I used this many times and each time I achieved the 10% increase in my max on the 3 big lifts. Worked great for me.

https://liftvault.com/programs/powerlifting/fred-hatfields-peaking-program-spreadsheet/

 

[trekrider215]

I like to start off by spending about 5 or 6 weeks doing sets of 10's. Progressive overload. The goal is to work up to a top set, with this obviously being your heaviest set.

So for me i might go, 135x10, 185x10, 225x10, 275x10, 290x10, 305x10. Then the following week ill try to beat that my top set by 5-10lbs.

After 5 weeks you might start to stall and no be able to keep adding 5-10lbs each week , so when that happens ill cut all the sets down to 5 reps, EXCEPT THE TOP SET. That is still ten.

So it might look like, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x5, 300x5, 315x5, 335x10.

Taking away all that initial volume WILL allow you to get more juice out of that top set.

Now that ive spend a couple months essentially building my base i will start gradually tapering the reps down. Ill usually go straight down to sets of 5. Ill stay there for three weeks, and then drop down to sets of triples, after two more weeks ill go down to doubles and singles. The whole plan is essentially meant to peak you for a powerlifting meet. Its more complicated then it looks because the volume changes with the reps, and i really only use progressive overload for that initial foundation. I find that i build more of my bench strength in the ten rep range, however you cant stay there forever. Its easy to continue to add 5bs each week to a set of ten than it is to a set of 2 or 3 reps.

In reality to get strong you're going to have to spend time in different rep ranges using different amounts of volume. 5x5 works great but only goes so far.

I also like to do board press after my bench to just train my lockout because i naturally bench with a close grip so my lockout is generally pretty weak.

I like floor press, incline dumbell, and weighted dips as accessories. Also a crap ton of tricep work because they seem to be able to handle a lot of volume.

 

[Rogue]

The difference with bench work and machines is the use of your scapular muscles.
Condition those and get back into benching as describe consciously using them.
Emric used to have a machine at his gym that was a combination table press, push up motion. You'd get in it in the push-up position a little elevated, kick the lever and the weight would load on your back.
Put you in a natural pressing movement, excellent machine for conditioning all your support muscles to lift heavy weights .
Do you have a picture of it Emeric?