Quick Bench Question
|
Users viewing this topic:
none
|
|
Logged in as: Guest
|
Login  | |
|
Quick Bench Question - 10/19/2006 7:12:00 AM
|
|
|
ianthegreat
Posts: 82
Joined: 10/16/2006
Status: offline
|
I'm curious as to why, when I workout with 185 (3x5-7) can only max maybe 5lbs more, and others working out with, say 180 max 200+. I'm fairly tall with pretty long arms. Could this be a factor? Just wondering.
- Ian
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Quick Bench Question - 10/19/2006 8:23:04 AM
|
|
|
Absolute0
Posts: 219
Joined: 10/9/2006
Status: offline
|
Try going heavy more often
_____________________________
6'0" 225 lbs
Bench 300
Squat 375
Bulking
(in reply to ianthegreat)
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Quick Bench Question - 10/19/2006 12:16:19 PM
|
|
|
ianthegreat
Posts: 82
Joined: 10/16/2006
Status: offline
|
Heavy is 185, for me atleast. Eh, ill stick it out for another month and see how it goes.
_____________________________
22 - 6'4 - 195
Hook 'em
Halodrol Liquid Gel/Activate log started Dec. 6
(in reply to Absolute0)
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Quick Bench Question - 10/19/2006 12:34:01 PM
|
|
|
Absolute0
Posts: 219
Joined: 10/9/2006
Status: offline
|
If you do 5-7 reps, it's not that heavy. By heavy i mean 1 rep max. Try doing some bench days like 5/3/3/2/1 or something.
_____________________________
6'0" 225 lbs
Bench 300
Squat 375
Bulking
(in reply to ianthegreat)
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Quick Bench Question - 10/20/2006 7:19:47 AM
|
|
|
mickeybue37
Posts: 259
Joined: 9/14/2006
Status: offline
|
absolute is right, the only time i saw some real strenght increases was when i was doing my complete max like 1 rep. at that time i could only bench 180 max-1rep, now about 2 and a half months later i'm maxing out at about 265. big difference.
_____________________________
you have to sweat to achieve your goals.
(in reply to Absolute0)
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Quick Bench Question - 10/23/2006 7:37:28 PM
|
|
|
LPwrestler
Posts: 90
Joined: 7/4/2006
Status: offline
|
try getting a partner to do negatives.
(in reply to mickeybue37)
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Quick Bench Question - 10/24/2006 3:24:38 PM
|
|
|
twistedlink
Posts: 3098
Joined: 5/31/2005
Status: online
|
Dont worry man i have similar problems
I have (well 4 weeks ago) repped 110lbs 9 times, then i just failed 120lbs completely.
Dont know if that was from being worn out or not but whatever.
Just take these peoples advice because ive got none lol
what are your other lifts like?
_____________________________
http://dbboutofbounds.proboards105.com/index.cgi
The hopefully only temporary OOB, dont worry i dont bite lol.
(in reply to LPwrestler)
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Quick Bench Question - 10/24/2006 10:21:22 PM
|
|
|
PD81
Posts: 302
Joined: 6/27/2006
From: East Coast
Status: offline
|
i agree with with LP - negatives at the end of the workout with your max.. do about 5 reps
during your working sets use 1bout 90% of your max and just bust out as many reps as you can for 3 sets. give it about 4 weeks and your max will be higher
_____________________________
6'2 185 pounds
450 Deadlift
335 Bench
New Journal
http://www.discussbodybuilding.com/My_New_Journal/m_274064/tm.htm
(in reply to twistedlink)
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Quick Bench Question - 10/25/2006 3:39:21 PM
|
|
|
ianthegreat
Posts: 82
Joined: 10/16/2006
Status: offline
|
Alright thanks for the advice. I haven't heard of negatives before.. that the same thing as a burnout at the end of your routine?
_____________________________
22 - 6'4 - 195
Hook 'em
Halodrol Liquid Gel/Activate log started Dec. 6
(in reply to PD81)
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Quick Bench Question - 1/4/2007 4:22:49 AM
|
|
|
dvldogg187
Posts: 20
Joined: 1/4/2007
Status: offline
|
When lifting weights there are actually three different portions to the exercise. I'm going to use bench press as an example. You pull the bar off the stand. Lower it to the body. Begin pressing it up. Lower it back down to your body. When you lower it to your body it is called the eccentric phase of the lift. This is what people refer to as the negative. When you press the weight up and way from your body this is know as the concentric part of the lift (you can remember this because on the concentric part of the lift your muscles contract becoming shorter). Between the eccentric part of the lift and the concentric part of the lift when the weight isn't moving is called the static phase.
To truely become better at an exercise you must understand the dynamics of what you are doing, for this we need to use a little bit of physics (we'll keep it simple don't worry). To set an object in motion requires force. Since objects objects at rest tend to stay at rest, holding a weight requires less force (though obviously some is required because of this gravity thing working against us). Now to the negative, since we are not applying force to change the weights possition, and we are not applying force to keep the weights static, we can use this left over energy to resist a much larger weight coming down on us. We are essentially exchanging possition for strength. Ok I know I made that pretty confusing, but I'll break it down a little more. When you benchpress you can lift a weight with 100% of your 1 rep max. You can hold the weight static with anywhere between 110 and 125% of your 1 rep max (the precentage is arguable but it is significantly higher than your 1 rep max). You can slowly lower the weight to your body with a weight that is as high as 150% of your 1 rep max! You'll need a partner to pull it back off of you.
So how does this help you out? There are several ways this can be significant.
1. You can incorperate negatives repetitions into your exercise that are heavier than any weight that you can possibly lift, thereby training your body to compensate to heavier weights.
2. You can lay in a squat cage with the weights resting on the lowest bar setting so that you only need to lift the weight a few inches before you are holding the weight fully extended from your body, thereby training your body to compensate for heavier weights.
So, if you are a junkie for going to failure, one thing you can do to really push yourself further is to rep out with whatever weight you are used to using. When you reach failure, hold the weight in a static possition untill you can no longer hold it. When you fail at this point, you can still attempt to do some controlled negatives with the weight allowing you to really stimulate all the muscles through complete failure. If your a real sicko, you can do some push ups afterwards.
There are two types of muscle fibers in the body (ok 3 but one of the types is exclusive to the heart so we wont include it). Slow twitch muscle fibers and fast twitch muscle fibers. Slow twitch fibers are used by the body as sorta an endurace muscle. They are capable of quickly recovering and are very efficient at flushing lactic acid buildup. Fast twitch muscle fibers just plain suck at any kind of long term use, but they are very very good for quick powerful bursts. Fast twitch muscle fibers are the muscle fibers that are significant to you and your 1 rep max, because they are the powerful muscles that are going to get an object that is at rest into motion. The percentage of fast and slow twitch muscle fibers in your body is determined geneticly and you cannot change them very much (bummer huh?). But wait, there is hope. It seems that there is a variation of the slow twitch muscle fiber in our body, we'll call them slow twitch type b. For all purposes it responds very similar to a slow twitch muscle fiber, but it can be trained and stimulated to act as a fast twitch muscle fiber. We can train these!
So how do you train your fast twitch muscle fibers, without those pesky slow twitch muscle fibers gettin in the way?
1. Lift heavy. Very Heavy. Since your slow twitch muscle fibers are not the primary activators of heavy powerful lifts, by lifting heavy you will train your fast twitch muscle fibers, and those thoe slow twitch type b fibers will jump in also.
2. Slow heavy negatives (but not because it's heavy, we'll talk about this more in a little bit). The heavy weight does help increase joint strength for those 500 lb bench presses you will be doing.
3. Lifting lighter weights (sounds counter intuitive doesn't it?). I know some of you will say I'm crazy, but lifting lighter weights can help you train your fast twitch muscle fibers. How? When you lift these lighter weights you want to lift them with as much speed and force as possible. You want to explode into the exercise (good form is a must to avoid joint injury). The nature of fast twitch muscle fibers is to cause a very sudden and violent contraction. By imitating this with lighter weights we can recruit our fast twitch muscle fibers exclusively to complete the exercise.
4. Lift to failure with your normal weight load, then continue lifting beyond failure by incorperating forced reps (partner helping lift the weight just enough so you can complete the exercise) or doing statics and negatives after you've failed with all concentric action.
The reason #4 works is because after the slow twitch muscle fibers are exhausted, the body will then recruit fast twitch muscle fibers to do the job that slow twitch muscle fibers can no longer do. They suck at this job, but they will be working, and will be working very hard.
Body builders operate under the principle of time under tension. The longer they can keep their muscles under tension, the more muscle fibers they will recruit to continue doing the exercise. Since they want to exhaust all of their muscle fibers allowing themselves the potential for maximum grown, they will do rutines well into the 12 rep range. For power purposes this just sucks. Power lifters don't want to be bigger, they want to be stronger. But we can use what we know about body building and time under tension to help us. The longer the muscles stay under tension, the more muscle fibers need to be recruited, and the more fibers recruited, the greater chance that your fast twitch muscle fibers will be recruited to finish the exercise. This is where those nice slow negatives come in. Slow heavy negatives should take between 20 and 30 seconds for the weight to go from full extension to laying on top of you crushing the air out of your lungs. 20 to 30 seconds is alot of time for your muscles to be under tension. ALOT of time. Consequently you are almost guranteed to recruit fast twitch muscle fibers when using this technique. You can tell you are using them because suddenly the weight will just come crashing down onto you, that is your fast twitch muscle fibers failing!
I'm going to jump back to lifting with lighter weights. First, the body doesn't naturally want to use all of its strength at one time. From an evolutionary standpoint this is very dangerous. Lets say you are a cave man, and you just fought off a saber tooth tiger. If you used all your muscles to fight him, you'd have nothing left to fight his buddy who decides to attack you next. If you have nothing left, you are dead and can't reproduce. Since we are here, our forefather the caveman must have had some internal mechanism keeping the body from using up all it's muscles at the same time. Power lifters seek to change this in their bodies. Power lifters want to use 100% of their muscles to complete one lift. So they train that way. They train their muscles to explode in one combined contraction. You will never use all of your muscles in one big explosion, probly not even 70%, but you can train to use as many of your muscle fibers as you can. To do this, you need to teach your body what it means to explode. Lifting light, say 50 to 60% of your 1 rep max can do this. You take 50 to 60% of your 1 rep max, and you press it up as hard and as fast as you can (speed is essential, because if you are moving it slow your not using them all at once). You do this about 10 times, then rest. Say 3 sets of these, and you have just trained your fast twitch muscle fibers. They wont really be stronger, but your 1 rep max will go up because they will be working together on a lift. Use this in conjunction with the other techniques I've described, and your 1 rep max will go up.
To answer your question. I think the reason your 1 rep max is so close to your 5-7 rep max is because your muscles are not all working together at the same time. Some fibers work, then others take over, then when those fail, others take over. Train them to all work at the same time and I think you will notice a greater difference between your 5-7 rep max and your 1 rep max.
Keep in mind that I'm not an exercise physiologist, a physist, or a physical therapist. I may have messed up on one or two of the finer parts here, but as far as a basic overview it's all right there. Good luck, lift hard, eat big!
(in reply to ianthegreat)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Advertisement
|
|
|
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
 Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts |
|
|
Printable Version
