4. Pay more attention to recovery

7. Nutrition is the basis of gaining muscle mass

In the section on the question Please tell me how many times a week to do the bench press? given by the author Qqq qqq the best answer is 3 times a week

Answer from reroll[guru]
3 times to do.

Answer from Neurosis[guru]
1, 2 times))

Answer from YO K I F[master]
Once a week. Since the best scheme is to spread the three basic exercises over three days. Let's take squats on Monday, bench press on Wednesday, deadlift on Friday. And add more exercises to them, depending on which muscle group is more involved in the base.

Answer from opportunist[guru]
One time is enough.

Answer from GZ[guru]
If your level is BEGINNING, then you can do it 3 times a week, only you need to distribute the load correctly, the 1st day is hard, the 2nd day is easy and the 3rd day is medium ... Although I have always trained hard and did not pay attention to these postulates ...
How more weight, the more time you need to recover, after half a year you need to review your training and adjust some points for yourself and your lifestyle ...

Answer from Yoashka Boyarov[guru]
I do three times a day for thirty times. In a week it turns out 630 times.

Answer from Silovik[guru]
three times in 2 weeks, for example: Monday - easy, Friday - hard, second week Wednesday - medium load.

Answer from Yörgey[expert]
At least every day! Just don't make it hard every workout! There are many varieties of bench press! In addition to easy, hard, there are boosters, high-speed bench press, press with a pause, negative, from a standstill ... can go on forever...

Answer from Yotanislav[guru]
breast pumping is enough once a week! you just need to swing it not only with a bench press, but with a set of exercises!

Answer from Vladimir Sakhnenko[guru]
Should be done once a week. In general, all muscles are pumped once a week. The exception is the press, well, maybe triceps. And there will be overtraining. You need to leave the gym a little tired, and not exhausted in the ass

• Judge of the international category in powerlifting,
• trainer the highest category Turkmenistan,
• judge of the national category in bodybuilding.
• 8-time Champion of Turkmenistan;
• 83-time record holder of Turkmenistan.
• Participant of 7 World Championships in powerlifting and bench press according to IPF:
• 1995 men, Finland (athlete),
• 1996 juniors, Finland (athlete, referee, coach),
• 1996 men, Austria (athlete, referee, coach),
• 1996 bench press, Denmark (athlete, referee),
• 1997 men, Czech Republic (judge),
• 1998 bench press, Germany (judge, coach)
• 2001 Veterans Canada (judge)
• Participant and winner of two Asian Championships: 1995, India and 1996, Kazakhstan.
• Silver medalist at the WPC World Championship in bench press 2003.
• 2001 WPC Bench Press World Cup Winner,
• 2001 North American Bench Press Champion,
• holder of several Canadian records in the bench press;

Bench press

When I wrote this article, I did not at all seek to make the reader believe that this particular program is what he needs on long years powerlifting. Simply, I wanted to put on paper and convey the knowledge and experience that I have gained over 15 years of "long wandering through the halls." Fortunately for me, I did not have huge problems with ligaments and muscles. There were tears and stretching pectoral muscles, shoulder ligaments, elbows. Once, there was even a pinched sciatic nerve due to incorrect technique in the bench press (moved his head).

For two months then I could not do anything, and during the bench press after the 5th repetition, it began to throb in my head with terrible force. All these little annoyances made me think. Frequent changes in training programs, reading various available literature, watching videos, and later the opportunity to see the great champions with my own eyes - this is the path that brought me to the line of 250 kg in bench press at a body weight of 95 kg. In all these years, poking around like a blind kitten from corner to corner, I found my way to the big bench. And to be honest, I found it quite recently, which confirms the progression in my results.

At the heart of my training program, I put 6 exercises, which the best way contribute to the development of muscles and ligaments - bench press, bench press at an angle of 45 degrees, push-ups on the uneven bars, bench press with a narrow grip, bench press from behind the head while sitting, traction of the barbell in an incline. I consider them the most valuable for increasing the result.

In addition to these, sometimes I use dumbbell bench press, standing dumbbell side raises, seated dumbbell press, bench french press, triceps dumbbell extension (very cool exercise, borrowed from Louis Simmons), and, of course, biceps with barbell or dumbbells.

I use these additional exercises mainly in the preparatory period. In competition, I almost never use them. And if you really want to "indulge", then I do it in accordance with the cycle - i.e. 5x6 or 3x5. I never do 3x3 in them - there is a very high probability of tearing, because. weight is much higher.

Bench press twice a week, I think normal. This should be the minimum load on the chest. Like many coaches and athletes, I have tried various training programs of all kinds of famous coaches and athletes. But in most cases, me and my athletes failed - injuries to the chest, shoulders, elbows, or the program simply did not work. Especially, I want to mention the programs of Pavel Chernyshov and Boris Sheiko.

I think Chernyshov's program is the best for women, and especially women's lightweights. Checked - it works! In less than half a year, the result of a girl weighing 60 kg increased from 60 kg to 90 kg. But female and male muscle structures are different. Men need more time to recover.

This means that training more than 3 times a week for the bench is just dangerous to do. Even with a huge "load", it's still dangerous. Chemistry helps to a certain level, but if the program clearly introduces you into overtraining, then the load must be urgently reduced.

Often athletes face the problem when their bench press program included only one full workout, and then they suddenly switched to a training program taken from Sheiko or Chernyshov, which means 4-5, or even 7 workouts per week. Muscles have adapted and now do not want to respond to exorbitant loads. You need to move smoothly, do 2 workouts a week, then 3. But I think that 2 times is the minimum. The maximum I consider 5 workouts per week - twice a week for two bench presses per day, and one bench press on a separate day.

How do I feel about bench press twice a day, ie. e.g. bench press - squat - bench press? Positively! Basically, the first press is performed as a warm-up, although there are also weights under 90%. The feeling from the first press is not always excellent. As if, “the car that was started and driven, after two months of inactivity, only after 20 minutes starts to drive as expected.”

But in the second press, all the resources of the body are included. Firstly, this is already work beyond the limit, and with such work, and even more frequent, the body gets used to the development of resources that usually sleep, i.e. the result grows much faster. Secondly, repeating a workout at 70-80% twice a day with a slight decrease in weight, but changing repetitions from 3 to 4-5, makes it possible to increase the volume of training, i.e. tonnage.

At the same time, there are no negative effects on the chest and ligaments - the muscles are warmed up, while they managed to recover after the first bench press during a squat or other exercise. In general, it is sometimes useful to include a “double bench” in your workout.

I use the following program mainly to restore the result and prepare the ligaments and muscles for the upcoming loads. This program can also be used both in the preparatory and in the competitive period. That is, the program begins in the preparatory period (the first two phases), and ends (3 and 4 phases) in the competitive period.

Moreover, you can use it for an unlimited time. From 8 weeks for all cycles (2 weeks per phase), up to 16 weeks (4 weeks per phase), followed by repetition of the entire program from scratch. In special cases, you can do a week per phase, but progress will not be as obvious as a result. Simply, you will go through a competent cycle of preparing for competitions in 4 weeks. Try this program. I always use it for treatment and even reach the maximum level without formological loading.

Phase 1 - 4 weeks - 60% x10 x 4 sets - (two workouts per week)
Phase 2 - 4 weeks - 70% x 6 x 5 sets - (two workouts per week)
Phase 3 - 4 weeks - 80% x 5 x 6 sets - (two workouts per week)
Phase 4 - 4 weeks - 90% x 3 x 3 sets - (two workouts per week)

Along the way, several auxiliary exercises are performed. Assistive exercises I divide into two categories - auxiliary and additional. Auxiliary ones are those that develop the muscle groups directly involved in the movement, and additional ones are exercises that strengthen the ligaments and muscles that are interconnected with the main moving muscles. In the first case, these are exercises that directly increase the result, in the second - strengthening the ligaments and muscles, preventing injuries, strengthening the grip, and stabilizing.

Auxiliary:
1. Bench press
2. Incline Press
3. Push-ups on the uneven bars
4. Press with a narrow grip
5. Press from behind the head while sitting
6. Bent over row

Additional:
1. French bench press
2. Biceps with barbell and dumbbells
3. Traction blocks
4. Lying layouts
5. Standing layouts
6. Seated Dumbbell Press
7. Dumbbell bench press
8. Flexion and extension of the forearms

On deadlift or squat days ( better traction) you can do something like this:
1. Press from behind the head while sitting
2. Wiring while standing
3. Tilt pull
the first two are best done in a super series.

In a complex workout with a squat or deadlift, better exercise alternate the bench press with the rest of the exercises to enable the muscles to recover and then work with fresh strength and full dedication.

In additional exercises, the same number of approaches and repetitions are done, relative to the phase. Additional exercises are excluded from the program in the third phase, except for the French bench press (or replace it with a lying extension with dumbbells) and a biceps exercise. In the last 4 phase, two weeks before the end of the phase, you can throw out some of the auxiliary ones, for example, push-ups on the uneven bars, and also completely stop doing additional ones - bench press, extension with dumbbells, biceps. In some cases, the incline press can also be thrown out (if chest overload is felt).

When completing this course, you can not even use "heavy" pharmacology, but only on condition that a reasonable maximum is chosen. The percentage should be taken from the maximum WITHOUT T-SHIRT, even in the gym.

Trust me, you don't need chemicals. The chest will be very strong and firm. And it won't "break". Chemistry, of course, is needed, within reasonable limits, but you can get by with creatine with protein. Ekdisten with RusOlympic. That's all!

To achieve the maximum benefit from the program, it must be completed completely. It is advisable to go through 4 phases of 4 weeks. The first 4 weeks, where the workout includes 4x10 presses, you will not be thrilled, but remember one thing, in this phase lies the key to big results without injuries. In this phase, the ligaments are strengthened, the technique is formed, injuries are healed. I believe in this program! After all, she worked for many and gave results, so why won’t it work for you? The main thing is to endure the desire to go for a record, do not go at all in the first 8 weeks, but preferably 12 weeks, at least. And then you will be surprised!

You ask, where are the "double bench presses"? With a busy competitive cycle, I do not recommend returning to bench presses 6-10 times, i.e. the above training program cannot be used in full. Then where is the exit? There is only one way out - you can still start training with that 16-week program, and then connect a program that will maintain the result level at high level. Those. if you have reached the optimal level of training for this year and want to keep the result for 3-5 months, or even a year, without “rolling down the mountain” physical form, then a rational solution must be found. The following program might be such a solution:

Moreover, auxiliary and additional exercises should also be used in accordance with the number of approaches and repetitions in this phase of training. For example:

The main emphasis in the implementation of auxiliary and additional exercises you need to do on strengthening the main muscle groups and ligaments involved in the movement during the bench press - shoulders, arms, chest, lats - these are the main movers in the bench press. That's where you concentrate.

After completing this 4-week program, it can be repeated by recalculating the result with a new maximum.

Do not forget one thing - you need to press with a pause, even in warm-up approaches. A 2-3 second pause will give you a powerful breakdown over time, and explosive force there will be one that even great champions will envy you.

Nikolay Vitkevich

Master of Sports in Powerlifting WPC

The bench press is something that I never had. I went out on a squat, deadlift, anything, but you must admit that a bench press at the level of 180-190 kg for a competing lifter in the category up to 125 kg (albeit without "chemistry") is not just not enough, it's nothing. Pearls of pumping wisdom such as: “Bench press is either there or it is not!” In all the rocking chairs where I trained back in the basement days, I could decently do anything, but not the bench press. I tried different programs, read literature, shoveled the Internet, all to no avail, until the following factors coincided:

1. I gained an unshakable determination to break through the press like “I’ll roll on the bench, but I’ll bench!”
2. Our coach S. Trusov introduced me to the article by A. Butenko in the World of Power, which was actively discussed in our Olympus.
3. In connection with frequent business trips to Moscow for work, I began to visit the legendary “Muscle-Sport” quite often, where A. Dunaev, E. Grachev, A. Sharovatov, A. Malanichev and other famous powerlifters were training at that moment. Thus, I was simply doomed to success, anyone else in my place would not have gone anywhere, would have progressed.

Next, I had to plan the training cycle. Here I made two more “discoveries” along the way: being unable to fully recover from heavy bench presses once a week, I suddenly felt much better by switching to two bench presses a week and realized the fallacy of constantly training with near-limit weights that obviously slow down the possible increase in strength.

Now about why I remade A. Butenko's 16-week program into an 8-week one. This is explained:

1. Individual physiological characteristics, primarily by metabolic rate (in general, I am a firm supporter of an individual approach to training).
2. The eight-week program fits very well into the 10-12 week pre-competition cycle. I leave another week for rest before the start, another week for fitting and pressing shirts, etc. and two weeks "to work on the bugs." If, for some reason, I cannot “clearly reach” the planned weight, I can add another week of work with the previous weight for “polishing”. I wrote about such a transformation to Andrey, he generally approved of this version.

I noted for myself very important features of the A. Butenko program, namely, an extremely careful attitude to ligaments and joints and their very good preparation for heavy loads. This is especially true for athletes who:

1. Recovering from injuries.
2. Are situated in adulthood and recover more slowly because of this.
3. They are engaged both with serious pharmaceutical support and without it. In the second case, the "plus" at the output is less.

And everything else is very simple: we determine our maximum clean bench press with a pause without a T-shirt and start counting from it.

For the first two weeks, we press 60% of a certain maximum for 10 times with a pause of 4 approaches.

I benched medium grip on Tuesday, competitive on Saturday. The width of the middle grip is determined so that the arms straightened with the bar are parallel to each other. The width of the competition is limited by the rules (81 cm between the index fingers). In most cases, you can start from the width of the grip, when the elbows are bent to a 90-degree angle and set aside.

The bench press is performed with a slow lowering to the chest (elbows to the body), then a pause and a quick press using latissimus dorsi, triceps, chest and deltas. At the starting position, the shoulder blades must be brought together, holding the bridge as much as possible and firmly !!! Stand on feet. The pelvis only needs to touch the bench. Sometimes in the process of training, you can use controlled "cheating" with the pelvis, but only so that at the competition you do not "cheat" out of place to the delight of the judges.

With each weight we work 4 workouts, respectively - 2 weeks.

So, in the first week, with a plan of 60% for 10 times in four sets (one first is always 10 kg less), I manage on Tuesday with only 8 repetitions, and on Saturday with 10 in the first two sets, because wide grip reap easier.

In the second week, I already press 10 reps for the first 3 sets on Tuesday, and on Saturday I finally do 10 reps in all sets.

Let's move on to the next weight. 70% for 6 reps in 5 sets. Naturally, in the third week I only get close to the designated plan, and at the end of the 4th week I cope with the percentage completely.

The fifth and sixth weeks we work 80% for 5 times in 6 approaches.

And finally, the seventh and eighth weeks - 90% for 3 times in 4 sets.

Then it remains only to fix the increase and, having rested, begin the next cycle. After me, several athletes tried to train like this in our Olympus - they all added. Try it - and you will also add, you just cannot help but add. It works great! In my case, the bench press grew to 240 kg in a year at the WPC Russian Cup.

Now about the utility room. Andrei describes the main auxiliary exercises, I have reduced their number. On Tuesday, I always pressed after the squat, so, being barely alive, I could only do three sets of push-ups on the uneven bars. If you do not squat, you can give a little more auxiliary exercises. On Saturday, when I only had a bench press, I did three sets of bench presses after the bench press, each time choosing the weights and number of lifts according to my well-being.

As for the lats: on Thursday, they were loaded from pulls and I also did ordinary pull-ups. Squats and deadlifts do a good job of stimulating overall mass and strength gains, but when you specialize in the bench press, you can go deeper into it. Thus, you can combine both approaches, sometimes stimulating the press with other heavy exercises, sometimes resting only on it. I noticed that even if you only do the bench press with working weights in the region of 200 kg, the load is distributed over the entire body including the legs. Therefore, many modern bench pressers have very powerful muscles of the whole body only due to the bench press.

do one thing maximum repetition at least once a week. You may be doing the bench press two or three times a week. But you'd be surprised how many people never do one rep with max weight.

• Do one max rep after you hit your normal limit.
• Everyone asks someone to help you do a rep to failure. Doing a bench press at the limit of strength yourself is unsafe.
• If you can do one rep with any weight, it does not mean that this weight is your maximum. Continue to gradually increase the weight until you get to the point where you can never press.

Press the weights that are difficult for you to work with. This advice is similar to the previous one. When the body constantly works with heavy weights, it adapts the muscles to work with such weights. If you do not work with heavy weights, at the limit, then the body does not develop; You will stay on the same level regardless of your efforts. Improving your results in the bench press is periodically working with weights larger than your working ones.

• For example, you usually start with 80kg, and then do 82.5kg, 85kg and finally 90kg. You do all approaches not easily, but confidently enough. So it's time to change the weights. Start with 82.5kg, then 85kg, 87.5kg and finally 95kg. The last set should be very difficult to do.
• If you want to fully complete all four sets, then pick up barely reachable weights. And then try to do four reps on the fifth set, which should be very difficult.
• Alternatively, you can try sets of 4-5 reps. If you want to do only 5 reps per set, then the weight of the set should be significantly increased compared to the standard set of 8-12 reps. If you bench press twice a week, do shorter sets with increased weight once.