Bench won't budge - 57 year old female client

[AndrewLewis]

Brent,

I have a female client (57 years old, 150lb bodyweight). I put her through LP and got her bench from 35lb to 70lb for triples. Switched to HLM because she was getting beat up (she does "cardio" at another facility and she will not be convinced out of it, so recovery is starved).

Right now, on HLM, these are her numbers:
Deadlift: 185lbx2,
Squat: 135lbx2,
Press: 57.5lbx3,
Bench: 75lbx3

Her bench press will not move at all. She's basically made no progress on it over the last month. Her deadlift and squat steadily go up 5lb per week, press 20oz per week.


Here's the bench side of the programming:
Monday - Heavy bench: 75lb for 5x2
Wednesday - "Heavy" press: 57.5 for 3x3
Friday - "Light" bench: 70lb for 3x3

Is there anything obvious that would make you say "That's why squats are going up but bench isn't"?

[Brent Carter]

Honestly, not really.

What kind of increases are you attempting on the bench?

[AndrewLewis]

1.25lb, then switched to 20oz, but even that isn't working.

Her recovery is poor, but I would expect that to affect the squat and deadlift as well.

[Nick Delgadillo]

I'd say she needs to do more benching. Volume's way too low here. I'd look to work her up to 5x5 (at least) on the "light" bench day. I've had some success with putting women on 5x5 press on Monday, 5x5 bench on Wednesday, and 2x3 press and bench on Friday. She'll need to be worked up to something like that over a couple of weeks.

[Brent Carter]

Yeah, she definitely needs more stress to drive adaptation.

I asked Baker about this and the following was his recommendation: "Put her Bench on TM. Get the volume back up on Monday to 3-5 x 5 and alternate on Friday between 5-6 singles across and 3-4 doubles across. It may not work for a prolonged period of time but will get her unstuck. She needs exposure to heavier loads."

[AndrewLewis]

In fact, I asked Andy about this a while ago, and he basically said "It'll probably work, but the volume might be too low. Try it and see."

I'll try out "Put her Bench on TM..." and see how it goes.

Thanks everyone. I appreciate it.