Home Posts tagged "Bench Press" (Page 7)

Quick Programming Strategies: 4/28/09

I figured I'd start up a mini-series of sorts here where I discuss some of the little changes you can make to programs to get big results. Many intermediate lifters get stuck in a middle ground with respect to heavy loading in their quest to build strength.  Obviously, they know that, as a general rule of thumb, they need to use some heavier loading at least once a week in the 1-5 rep range to build strength.  And, a lot of them (at least those who have read my stuff and other articles at T-Nation and EliteFTS) know that dynamic work - in this case, speed squats, deadlifts, and bench presses - is a great way to train bar speed and rate of force development - all while improving technique with submaximal weights. So, here you have two separate training sessions out of the week: one for maximal loading, and the other for speed.  That said, a lot of these intermediates also are still new enough to the iron game that they can handle a bit more loading in the 85-100% range. With that in mind, I'll often plug in heavy "work-ups" following speed work.  So, a lifter might do eight sets of two reps on the bench press, and then work up to a heavy set of 1-3 reps after those eight sets.  This not only serves as a way to add in some extra volume in the traditional strength rep-ranges, but also allows a lifter to build in some testing to the program and continuosly monitor progress. I'll typically only do this 1-2 times a month, and as a general rule of thumb, it will come in a higher volume week that follows a lower volume week.  So, in my high-medium-very high-low set-up, it would take place during weeks 1 and/or 3. For more strength building strategies like this at a great price, check out Maximum Strength.

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Maximum Strength Feedback: 4/23/09

I got this email over the weekend from a recent finisher of the Maximum Strength Program: "Eric, Here are my results on the Maximum Strength program. Packing Day Standing Broad Jump: 80 inches Bench Press: 225 lbs Box Squat: 295 lbs Deadlift: 385 lbs ------------------------ 905 lbs total for the big 3 3-Rep Max Chins: BW (230) +10 lbs total of 240 lbs ------------------------------------------ Moving Day Standing Broad Jump: 90.25 inches (+10.25 inches) Bench Press: 275 lbs (+50 lbs) Box Squat: 365 lbs (+70 lbs) Deadlift: 405 lbs (+20 lbs) ------------------------------------------- 1045 lbs total for the big 3 (+140 lbs) 3-rep Max Chins:BW (220) +35 lbs total of 255 lbs (+15 lbs) "Thoughts on the program: "This is the first program I have ever completed from start to finish in the few years that I have been lifting. I always got burned out or got training A.D.D. and did something else. Not with yours. "This program was incredible. Not only did it feel great to do a specifically designed program, but it felt great to see my progress as I was doing the program. The gym I worked out in didn't have a power rack-only a squat rack- so I had to do some McGuyver rigging for rack pulls and pin presses. I wasn't able to do the Anderson Front squats and had to go light on the floor presses, but all in all, I was able to stick with the program 100%. "I missed about a week total of workouts due to a couple serious, family emergencies, but I didn't use that as an excuse to fall off the wagon. I pushed through and loved my results. "Thanks for such a great program, and I look forward to the sequel. "David" 5o pounds added to a bench press in 16 weeks?  Not too shabby!

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The Core: Anti-Rotation

Q: I recently came across an article by Nick Tumminello on tests for dynamic abdominal strength, and the primary focus was sit-ups and reverse crunches.  Given your regard for training the core as an anti-rotator/resistor of lumbar hyperextension, do you have any thoughts on these testing protocols? A: First off, Nick is a brilliant guy with some awesome ideas.  For those who aren't familiar with him, check out his website, PerformanceU.net. Moving on to your question, it is interesting that you would ask about this, as Bill Hartman and I had a good email exchange last week where we were talking about just how "functional" most tests are.  And, more specifically, we were calling into question just how much particular assessments carry over to the real world of injury prevention and performance enhancement. A study from Stanton et al. in 2004 is a great example of the divide between testing proficiency and performance.  As I noted in my e-book, The Truth About Unstable Surface Training, researchers found that six weeks of stability ball training improved core stability in young athletes - as it was measured (in a manner consistent with the training itself).  In other words, this is like saying that bench press training will make you better at bench pressing.  Well, duh!  The more important question, though, is whether or not that bench press performance will carry over to athletic performance.

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And, this is where the intervention in the Stanton et al. study fell short.  While their measure of "core stability" improved, it did not effect favorable changes in running economy or running posture, or modify EMG activity of the abdominal or erector spinae muscles.  In other words, it didn't carry over. A comparable result was seen in a study from Tse et al. in 2005.  After eight weeks of stability ball training in collegiate rowers, while "core stability" (as they tested it) improved, the experimental (core training) group showed no performance improvements over those who did ZERO core training during this time.  And, researcher tested several measures: "vertical jump, broad jump, shuttle run, 40-m sprint, overhead medicine ball throw, 2,000-m maximal rowing ergometer test." So, with respect to your question, I think the question is: do those sit-up and reverse crunch progressions matter for an athlete who spends his/her life in the standing position?  Wouldn't they have more predictive value with respect to performance in a mixed martial arts population that spends a significant amount of time in the supine position in competitive situations?  Interestingly, Nick has extensive experience with mixed martial artists, and that is probably why he's seen such strong predictive value from those tests. Additionally, these issues are worthy of consideration in an athletic population where fatigue is a big issue.  Does an assessment in a rested state necessarily carry over to a situation where movements may change under fatigue?  Bill wrote a great blog on this topic HERE. Food for thought; never take anything at face value.  As with almost everything you'll encounter in the world of fitness, the answer is "maybe" or "it depends."  You have to know how to assess and program accordingly. Maximum Strength Feedback I just got the following feedback on the Maximum Strength program from a trainer who recently completed it: "Body Weight 202--> 207 Bench 305--> 335 Broad Jump 99" --> 104" Back Squat 315 --> 355 Deadlift 335 --> 370 Chin Ups 202+60=262 --> 207+90 = 297 I had two big 'uh-huh' moments when going through this program. (You have been preaching these forever, but it did not truly hit me until the third phase of the program) 1) Improving my ankle and hip mobility was the key to improving my squat and deadlift numbers. 2) Increasing my pulling power was the key to improving my bench press. As a trainer, I had too much pride to ever follow anyone else's program.  I am glad I finally decided to check my ego and follow your program." Pick up your copy of Maximum Strength HERE. New Blog Content It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year Static Posture Assessment Mistakes: Part 2 Pitchers vs. Quarterbacks vs. Swimmers Random Friday Thoughts All the Best, EC
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An Easy Way to Rotate Strength Exercises

I've written on numerous occasions about the importance of rotating strength exercises for long-term strength development.  In fact, it's one of the primary features of the Maximum Strength program. One concern that a lot of people have is that with a typical commercial gym set-up, it isn't always easy to rotate resistance training exercises.  These folks don't have specialty bars for lower-body training (giant cambered bar, safety squat bar, trap/hex bar, etc.) or upper body training (multipurpose bar, thick bar, etc.).  Also on the upper-body front, these folks might not have an extra training partner on-hand to hold the boards for board presses. A great, low-priced option that'll allow you to instantly expand your exercise pool is to pick up two pairs of Lynx Grips.

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These implements enable you to instantly change the diameter of the bar to get "improvised" thick bar training.  And, for the ladies out there, they are a lot easier on the hands - a much better choice than wearing gloves.  Lynx Grips are also really useful for those who aren't allowed to use chalk, as their texture can help to improve grip slightly on pulling movements. We use them all the time at Cressey Performance. For more information, check out LynxPT.com.

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Repetition and The Art of the Deload

Last week, my girlfriend had a big decision to make.  As she finishes med school (optometry) this year, she had two offers on her plate: one for a job in a private practice, and one for a one-year residency.  If she took the job, it meant we'd move out of the city.  Instead, she took the residency - which means that we can stay in our current apartment for another year once our current lease is up on August 15. Now, this might seem mundane to a lot of you, but not for me.  I'm a guy who has moved eight times in the past ten years - including three separate states.  I was 100% supportive of any avenue that she opted to choose, but I had made it clear that if we went anywhere, we were getting a moving company to do it.  After ten years of moving, I was sick of putting my life on hold for 3-4 days at a time to relocate.  It made me think of a quote I read over at T-Nation a few years back: "Stagnancy is often confused with stability." In the strength and conditioning world, status quo is largely understood to be unacceptable.  We always have to be looking to get better.  Maybe a basketball player is looking to push work capacity by perpetually increasing training volume on the court.  Powerlifters rotate max effort exercises each week.  And, bodybuilders may constantly changing programs in hopes of keeping muscles "confused" and growing. However, in the world of "Eric Cressey hates moving more than he hates drunk Yankees fans in center field at Fenway Park," stagnancy is a beautiful thing. This stagnancy in living arrangements gives me stability with my schedule and productivity - so I guess the quote from above isn't always accurate.  And, it makes me think about a few examples from the world of exercise where stagnancy can be a good thing: 1. Activation Drills: I often get asked how to make a scap push-up, scapular wall slide, or other mobility/activation drill harder.  The truth is that you really shouldn't be trying to make them much harder; they're just low-intensity drills designed to be done with perfect technique to get certain muscles "turned on" before you get to the more complex stuff.  So, if you want to make these movements harder, do a bench press or loaded push-up after the scap push-up, or a chin-up after the scapular wall slide (just a few examples). 2. Learning New Movement Patterns: It actually takes a lot more repetitions to ingrain something in your "movement memory" than you might think.  In fact, research has shown that elite athletes have practiced their specific skills over 100,000 times to make them "subconsciously" learned. Let's be clear: I'm not saying that you have to do 100,000 body weight lunges before you can start to load the movement and derive benefit from that training in other tasks.  However, for untrained folks and those returning from injuries, motor (re-)education takes repetition and time.  You can't expect a 16-year old girl to have an ACL reconstruction, then do a session of body weight lunges and be ready to go out and play soccer or basketball safely the next day.  In fact, in this example, "stagnancy" - or consistency in training and gradual progressions - truly does enhance stability in more ways than one. 3. The Biggest Loser - When this TV show is on, it is best for you to leave your remote stagnant on the coffee table and your TV turned off.  This will ensure that ratings go down for NBC and this mind-numbing crap will eventually get yanked off the air. 4. In-Season Athletes - As I wrote in Four Ways to Stay on Track, you have to be very careful with modifying things too aggressively with athletes who are in the middle of their competitive season.  New exercises can bring about delayed onset muscle soreness, which may interfere with performance.  And, increasing training volume and/or loads in-season can inhibit recovery between practice sessions and competition, or lead to overuse injury. 5. Deload Phases - I devoted an entire e-book, The Art of the Deload, to this topic, in fact.  Make no mistake about it: the overwhelming majority of your time in the gym should be focused on getting better.  However, there should always be deloading periods in your training where it's okay to intentionally be "stagnant," as these periods give rise to adaptation that make you better in the long-term.

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These five examples are really just the tip of the iceberg.  Feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section below to add to the discussion for everyone's benefit. New Articles The Seven Habits of Highly Defective Benchers was published at T-Nation last week. A Day in the Life of Eric Cressey was published at Precision Nutrition two weeks ago. Blog Updates Random Friday Thoughts Peak Power or Vertical Jump? The Most Detailed Maximum Strength Feedback To-Date Stuff You Should Read Have a great week! EC
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Random Friday Thoughts: 3/6/09

1. Last weekend, my girlfriend and I headed down to Florida for a quick three-day escape to warm weather, but today, we'll be shooting up to Southern Maine to visit with my mother's class.  She's a teacher at my old stomping grounds, Kennebunk High School (Go Rams).  I'll be chatting with her students about fascinating topics such as: a. how to make a fried egg without a spatula b. how I became a ninja without ever receiving a degree in ninjalogy from an accredited institution c. why Tony Gentilcore's knee sleeves smell worse than...well...anything d. why they should wear belts and stop turning the brims of their baseball caps off to the side 2. I had a new article published yesterday at T-Nation: Seven Habits of Highly Defective Benchers In reality, this article could have been called "Why Kevin Larrabee has missed a 300-pound bench press 931 times."

And, a second attempt, just because the first one was sooooo close...

Don't worry, Larrabee; you're still my boy.

3. Speaking of writing, I actually got started on a new project this week.  Things quiet down a bit for me during the high school baseball season, so it is when I focus more on seminars, writing, and rescuing kittens from trees.

4. This week's 16x16 sled relay went a lot more smoothly than last week.  In fact, we beat our best time by about 45 seconds.  We've got one more week of this madness, and then we'll find something new for the Thursday insanity.

5. Just a quick note of congratulations to the Lincoln-Sudbury hockey team, whose season came to an end with a tough loss in the state semifinals last night.  Nine guys from the team trained with us last off-season, and these guys deserved all the success that came their way.  Nice job this season, fellas.

Have a great weekend!

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The Seven Habits of Highly Defective Benchers

In my line of work, I get to see a lot of pitching instructors and hitting coaches. Some have the unbelievable ability to really get through to kids and make them great. On the other hand, there are some that flat-out suck. As I've seen these two ends of the spectrum, I've come to realize that the best guy to teach you a curveball is rarely the one who has had a dirty 12-to-6 breaking ball since he was in seventh grade. Rather, the guy that can teach you the most is the one who struggled with his curveball for years and tried everything to even turn it into a mediocre pitch. Continue Reading...
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Healthy Knees, Steady Progress

Here's your weekly Maximum Strength success story: "Hey Eric, "Just finished the Maximum Strength program and it was awesome! I played college volleyball and and after letting myself get out of shape, I started weight training about 2 years ago. Obviously playing volleyball you could probably guess I have bad knees. Bedsides the typical tendinitis and jumpers knee, I also had a lateral release done on each knee. I never really squatted since I thought it was bad for my knee's, but one of the guys at the gym who is involved in powerlifting got me squatting. Then I found your book and everything in it seemed to line up with the way I was thinking about working out, and I can tell you my knee's feel better now than they ever have in my life. "I'm kicking myself for not doing all the energy workouts, but still stoked with the results. It's been about six weeks since I completed the program and I am already thinking of doing Maximum Strength again. "Thanks for the great book and looking forward to the next one. Me: Male 36 (37 in April) 6"3 Packing Day: Body weight: 216 (13.1% body fat) Broad jump: 98 inches. Box Squat: 365 lbs. Bench Press: 255 lbs. Deadlift: 365 lbs. 3 Rep Chin-up: 254 lbs. Moving Day: Body weight: 226 (14.1% body fat) Broad jump: 110 inches. Box Squat: 395 lbs. (just missed 405, didn't get the depth) Bench Press: 275 lbs Deadlift: 405 3 rep Chin-lup: 268 pounds Larry Quinn"

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Big Bench to Bigger Bench: Maximum Strength Feedback – 2/24/09

I just received an email from another satisfied Maximum Strength customer.  Steve made great progress overall, but to take an already-great bench and add 15 pounds to it in four months with no change in body weight after 10 years of lifting is really impressive. "Coach Cressey, "I loved the Maximum Strength program!!  I just finished it and the results were amazing.  I currently have two friends on the program and they are also doing quite well. "I've trained pretty consistently for about the last 10 years.  My goals have changed throughout the years.  I used to weigh approximately 189 lbs, but have been focusing on strength and athleticism more recently as that is more applicable to my profession than being big.  Here are the results: Packing Day: Body weight: 172 Broad jump: 106 inches. Box Squat: 365 lbs. Bench Press: 315 lbs. Deadlift: 405 lbs. 3 Rep Chin-up: 232 lbs. Moving Day: Body weight: 171 Broad jump: 111 inches. Box Squat: 405 lbs. Bench Press: 330 lbs, with an almost at 345. Deadlift: 455 3 rep Chin-lup: 271 pounds Steve Estvold"

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The Most Detailed Maximum Strength Feedback To-Date

I received this email from Kevin Miller, a high school strength and conditioning coach in Pennsylvania, who recently completed the Maximum Strength program: I recently completed the 16 week Maximum Strength program by Eric Cressey, and I wanted to give my review on the program. I am 37 years old. I played H.S football and baseball and had good strength and speed. From 1995-2004 I switched gears and became an Endurance athlete (marathons and Iromans). I had great endurance and could run forever but I went from probably a 28-29 inch vertical to probably a 19-20 inch vertical. Over the past few years I have jumped back and forth from endurance to strength programs. I saw results in both but I never stuck to one program. Two years ago I purchased Inside-Out by Mike Robertson and Bill Hartman. I thought it was a great program, so I started to read more about Mike, and in turn, Eric - and was instantly impressed with what he had to say, as I'm a volunteer sports performance coach at the high school where I teach. Over the past year I have read his articles and watched his DVDs, so, when Max Strength came out I was hooked and decide to STICK to a program. Below are my results (Pre and Post) PRE------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------POST BW                               146 lbs                                                 151 lbs Broad Jump                88 inches                                         94 inches (6 inches) Bench Press                 195                                                      220 (25 lbs) Box Squat                    255                                                      325 (70 lbs) Deadlift                        275                                                      315 (40 lbs) Three rep Chin up        BW + 44 lbs                                       BW + 58 lbs (19 lbs) Notes/Comments: Overall, I was very pleased with the results. As far as BW, I was happy to gain 5 lbs, to be honest. I am a father with two kids and a third on the way. I never get to slow down. After school (I trained in the morning before school), I'm in the weight room with high school kids for 2 hrs (boys and girls). Although I am not "training," I probably do 100 body weight squats plus several other movements because the kids need to see what I'm recommending. Physically although I only gained 5 lbs I look bigger, but not bulky - just thicker and more athletic Overall, out of a rating of 10. I would give this program a 10. Here is why: 1. If you follow it, you will get STRONGER. The book is MAXIMUM strength, and it does what it says it does. 2. I feel really strong. Before, I had decent strength, but now I just feel a lot stronger 3. The mobility part is excellent. I knew what to expect here since I have several of Eric's products but this is where so many people can benefit (especially high school kids). I never stretched a day in my life in hs. Now, I would never start a workout with doing mobility work. 4. As a coach, I became a better coach by doing this program. Plain and simple, I now know how it feels to get under the bar with 325 lbs on my back. I realize that's a warm-up for some people but for me at 150 lbs it's a lot. 5. The progressions are excellent. 6. Nutritionally, there is some great advice in the book. To be honest, I think I've always had a good diet but for anyone who doesn't there are some great points. Who can benefit from this book? 1. Any high school kid or "Mom/Dad" looking for strength and results. 2. Any high schools coach (football, track, hockey,etc). As much as we would like to "customize programs" for each athlete, it's impossible at the high school level. I train 50-60 kids at 3 pm, and at my school, I don't have the time, manpower, or money to make up individual programs. Sure, I can screen kids and put in groups, but I believe if high school kids followed this for 16 weeks, it would be better than 95% of the program they are currently following Favorite exercises I never did before I read this book:
  1. Rack pulls: I loved the feeling I got in my posterior chain
  2. Pallof Press: Much harder than it looks
  3. Anderson squats: I loved this type of front squat.
Overall, great book, and if you follow this program, you will get stronger Kevin Miller CSCS

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LEARN HOW TO DEADLIFT
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