Triceps.....

[BALDNAZI]

The powerlifters who watch me bench,all say that I lack tricep power about halfway up.My chest is thick and massive,big shoulders as well.My biceps are over 21" and my tris are big,but I guess not strong enough.Im thick,my technique is sound,and all these power guys do is shake their heads and say if I had more tricep power,Id be a very serious bencher.

They suggest lockouts in the power rack,alot of close grip work,etc.My question is what do you think?Right now Im doing triceps right after my chest workout,and I really dont like it.I'd like to move them to another day.But Im open to any and all suggestions........

 

[GetnDiesel]

Bro I LOVE Bench Press

Maybe even more than Deadlifts. I am CERTAIN you could add 50# on that bench of yours in short order, cuz youve got so much mass to work with.

Now for Tris, nose breakers (skull crushers) lying flat on your back are king. That is one of the best tri-power exercises there is. Use that on arm day as the FIRST excercise, Warm up good, then go heavy and work your triceps with the same intensity you put into a squat workout.

On arm day, finish your tris before bis. Youve got guns, youre just tryin to get more "pow" in the gun.

Train arms 2x a week. And there is another secret to bench: nothing builds bench like benching. Bench twice a week too.

Theres a bunch of power bros called "westside barbell" and they are always making up new programs to hone bench. Look em up, you are bound to find one that you like.

I adapted a crosstraining program they had and worked my incline bench up to 350 RM and 315 for triples. And at the time I only weighed about 240, so this is well within your reach bro.

A lot of northbloods lack quick fibers, and Im a sufferer of this. I cant beat anyone in a 40yd dash, but I will outlast them if it takes me 5 miles to do it: Im just 99% slowtwitch fibers. The crosstraining program I used involved "speed sets" to train "explosion." Now for me "explosion" just wasnt there, so I tried their speed sets and it worked.

Tuesday- Bench Speed Day
9 sets of 3 reps @ 50-60% of 1rm, all done in a TOTAL of 9 minutes....
Yes, you are done in 9 minutes....
It makes you rethink your mindset entirely, and its very hard to walk away from chest that quickly. But you must do it to retrain yourself. If you feel like you "should have done better" "didnt quite get it" that workout? Too bad. Get pissed at yourself, and do better next Tuesday, but do not train chest anymore that day.

You have 9 minutes to literally LAUNCH a total of 27 reps! So you MUST make every rep count. Oh I forgot, if you use a false grip, you cant do this workout... but then again, if you use a false grip, now is a good time to change that.
You start with a light warm up, maybe 30% for a few sets of 21, whatever you need, then get your watch out.
Each new minute, you bench that pansy ass 50-60% and try to accelerate your rep as you go such that, if you DID use a false grip, the bar would fly out of your hand. Thats the key to making 50-60% give you a workout. The whole workout revolves around forcing yourself to explode under the bench.
Lets say it takes you 15 seconds to set and do 3 reps, then you rest till that miniute is up (45 secs), get it?
Its all about exploding.
Its all about acceleration.
Send the bar through the roof.
Then lower it as fast as possible, but slowly enough so that you arent bouncing it. Bouncing isnt good on the tendons as Im sure you know. Just move it as fast as you can, and hit the next rep.
Done in 9 minutes.

OK, now when youre done with bench, thats all the bench you get till Friday, so eat every rep like a starving wolf!

Oh another nice thing about this is no matter how you push, you will have plenty of gas left in your tank after only 9 minutes. This workout CAN be followed by punishing tris heavily! Start these heavy tri days with nosebreakers, and then once you got your solid mass work done on tris, hit other tri work as you see fit.

Totally out of context at this point bro, but I think layers of synthrol not only dont directly ADD strength, but I suspect they make you temporarily weaker. I theorize they detract from leverage since your actual living fibers are stretched around them and have to work around them as well. In addition, muscles are not only connected in strands, but cross connected as well. This cross connection adds tensile strength. The temporary displacement and or disconnection of fibers cant possibly be helping. If youre off syn now, Id let your guns rest from it awhile. I mean lets be honest bro, 21" guns are pretty freakin huge already. Im not trashing syn-use, Ive tried it myself. But I felt it hurt my strength when I did. Even shooting bis hurt my bench. So do syn when you wish, but just be aware you might not be benchin a whole lot until your arms heal.

OK, back to the workout:
Bench/Tris are done Tuesday and Friday.
Tuesday is a quick "Speed" day, followed by a massive tri session.
Friday is heavy bench day, followed by a normal tri workout, such as pushdowns and dips.

Tuesday is the day people look at you funny for benching 150# like you were a spaz and quitting 9 minutes later, but Friday is where you shine and reap the benes of the crosstraining.

Friday is a warmup as needed.
70%1RM for 3 reps
80%1RM for 1 rep
90%1RM for 1 rep
100%1RM (obviously for a single)
90%1RM for 3 sets of 3
I know some may say, "hey GND thats only 4 real sets." OK, so sue me. Its like HIT I guess. Just put all you got into those sets.
But Friday, unlike Tuesday, after you bench you can do whatever else you like to chest: it has 4 days to recover by Tuesday. Hit your pec dec or whatever, just do bench first.

And USE the 2.5# weights. Again this is mental. Work out your 1RM and accompanying %s on paper. Be exact and round up to the nearest 5# at the 2.5 mark, and round down at 2.4.
Dont be lazy and just use 25s and 45s. What this means is you must EARN every 5 pounds of new bench, and when you do, you get to recalc all your %s and move them up.
It may sound like a simple mind game, but its a system of rewards. It also allows you a taste of success more often. Dont think "50 more pounds on bench" think "Im going after 5# more."

Happy Bench Bro!

 

[Sandblaster]

BN,

WSB advocates a lot of different exercises. If tricep strength is an issue, start doing your flat dumbell presses with your elbows in. Don't let them flare out. Drive the dumbells towards your belly.

I think the BEST exercise for increasing tricep strength are close grip declines but done in a different way. It is much like a partial in a rack. Take a shoulderwidth or narrower grip. Keeping the elbows in, lower the bar to your upper abs. The movement should be about 6-8 inches if done properly. You will find you can do a ton of weight this way.

Lastly, I hate rack work. All it does for me is tear up my tendons and joints. If you do it, do it sparingly. Some get great results, all I get is injured.

PB has a 575+ bench, so he can really comment on this....

SB

 

[Paul Bunyan]

I like heavy board presses. 4 or 5 boards for sets of 3-5 reps. I rarely do more than 3 sets of these at one time. Use a moderately close grip like hands half way between the smooth part and the rings. You can also suspend the bar in chains and do presses from various heights. Usually a 4-8 inch range of motion is best.

I also like partial close grip benches. Same grip as board presses. Go about half way down , pause, press back up.

Those should give you something to play with.

PB

 

[GetnDiesel]

SandBlaster you RULE bro!

I never tried that decline bench move for tris. Did it first time last nite. Man that thing is phuckin awesome. You CAN hit a really heavy weight that way. I hit about 80% of my flat bench 1rm for a set of seven, cant wait till Im more used to it. The amount of weight you can handle should slap some power on the arms for sure. The pump was hideous sick! Thanx SB.

 

[BALDNAZI]

Thanks

I hate that my board is down,but this is why PM is my second home.You guys know your shit.

GND you better save some of that knowledge for when the UG is back up.When is your book coming out?Hahaaaa

 

[gravityfighter]

Is there any particular bench angle for this move, I've always liked doing decline bench more toward the flat angle(last 1 or 2 pin holes)or would a steeper angle work the tri's more?
Thanx,GF

 

[Sandblaster]

You'll see that you can push the weight up quickly on it and it really improves your bench. I used to hit 100lbs. over my flat max on that exercise and then did ONE set of heavy negatives (2 reps) followed by a rep set on the way down.=. That was it for my ME (Maximum Effort) day as far as bench.

Glad it worked for you Bro.

SB

 

[Gene G]

Speed Work

BN, you should definetly try the close-grip decline exercise, I could imagine how effective it must be.
But what I think is really holding you back is your lack of speed. Youve got a ton of muscle to work with but during a max effort bench attempt I bet not all of your available muscle fibers are being recruited and those that are, are not being stimulated with maximum (or at least near max) frequency, both of which speed work trains. And it shows when you bench, its hard to explain but you just dont have that drive that allows you to beak though the barrier, you depend soley on your strength to muscle through. Youre really missing out on some fantastic gains by neglecting speed work and I garuantee that youd break though your current plateu if you did just a few weeks of DE benching. If you cant fit it in your schedule neglect something else for a while....like bi's.

 

[GetnDiesel]

Re: Speed Work

BN, you should definetly try the close-grip decline exercise, I could imagine how effective it must be.
But what I think is really holding you back is your lack of speed. Youve got a ton of muscle to work with but during a max effort bench attempt I bet not all of your available muscle fibers are being recruited and those that are, are not being stimulated with maximum (or at least near max) frequency, both of which speed work trains. And it shows when you bench, its hard to explain but you just dont have that drive that allows you to beak though the barrier, you depend soley on your strength to muscle through. Youre really missing out on some fantastic gains by neglecting speed work and I garuantee that youd break though your current plateu if you did just a few weeks of DE benching. If you cant fit it in your schedule neglect something else for a while....like bi's.

Hey Gene, bro post up a little example of "speed work" so we can make sure we are all on the same page. Ive still got PLENTY to learn myself. After trying SBs decline move, Im listening out here for new ideas. What kind of "speed work" do you suggest Gene? I think Im low on that too. Im only 230, but Ive seen little wiry bros weighing 50 less than me hit most of my lifts. I probably could benefit from some speed training myself.

 

[Gene G]

More often than not, speed benching is synonymous with DE work as far as I know, you would use 45-55% of your max (although ive heard of 55-65% being used also...not too sure which is better but the lower one works best for me) and do 9 sets of 3 fast reps, where all 3 reps are completed in 3 seconds or less. You would also switch between three different grip widths for every 3 of the 9 sets. After youve done your 9 sets you proceed to do one heavy single at about 90%...(im not sure what purpose the heavy single serves since I only read it in an article by David Tate, perhaps someone can explain it.) As for the exercise, you can choose from most of the ME movements like band or chain presses, floor presses, close-grip incline presses, and probably board presses too (however it may be a good idea to stick with 2 or 3 boards if youre gonna do it). Id stick with either straight weight, bands or chains, if I ever get any chains, on a flat bench though. If your gonna use bands or chains, dont include them into your 45-55% calculation.
Aside from DE work you can do other stuff to increase your speed and reduce neural inhibition. You can do medicine ball throws where you take something like a 20lb. medicine ball and pass it back and forth to your partner about 10 feet away for 4 sets of 20 back and forth passes. hold it on both hands and throw the ball from your chest with elbow slightly out and most importantly...be explosive, you wanna throw that ball as hard as you possibly can. Clapping pushups are also a good speed exercise and you could hold a mini band in your hands and run it around your back to increase the intensity. And lastly you could do incline pushups for height. The way this works is you find a ledge thats about waist heigth (more or less, depending on your strength) and do a pushup off of it except you wanna push hard enough to propel yourself off the ledge into a standing position as fast as possible, so youd have to push as hard as you can. Do 3-4 sets in the 6ish range.
Hope this helps
-Gene

 

[Sandblaster]

With the speed work, roughly 50-55% works best for trainees who don't use bench shirts. Simmons used to recommend higher. What I do is 8 x 3, three weakest grip(first), three weaker grip (second), and two with my strongest grip. Rest 45 seconds between sets.

Using bands complicates things and should only be used by those who need the additional stimulation. You can quickly overtrain with bands. The nice thing about them, however, is that they allow you to push harder than ever before making the speed work more effective IF you have your percentage right AND you have the right band tension.

SB

 

[GetnDiesel]

Coool!

...you would use 45-55% of your max (although ive heard of 55-65% being used also...not too sure which is better but the lower one works best for me) and do 9 sets of 3 fast reps, where all 3 reps are completed in 3 seconds or less. You would also switch between three different grip widths for every 3 of the 9 sets. After youve done your 9 sets you proceed to do one heavy single at about 90%...(im not sure what purpose the heavy single serves since I only read it in an article by David Tate, perhaps someone can explain it.) ...Hope this helps -Gene

Thats great stuff man! Ive tried the speed sets done exactly like that. I didnt know any theory, just monkey see monkey do, but it still worked. I never heard of the 90% 1rep set to follow though... hmm, I'll try it and see if thats even better.

I dont know anyone into PL enough to throw a medicine ball or anything, but several of those ideas look worth adapting... good food for thought. I do think speed is probably a missing link for me and this should address that weakness.

Thanx yall