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Thread: Mid-intermediate Bench Stall

  1. #1
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    Default Mid-intermediate Bench Stall

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    I am 17 years old, male, and 200 lbs at 5'11". I am currently not interested in gaining weight because I am rehabbing a recurring IT band problem using low weights at slowly increasing squat and deadlift increments.
    I stalled my bench at 195x5x3 at the end of my novice LP. I did not want to try TM again because it failed miserably before (another LP after football season). I decided to try my own programming and keep it somewhat simple. I use a pretty narrow bench grip. I decided to try to make 5 lb jumps once per week on a top set of 5 as long as I could and I based my work sets around this. I benched 4 sets of 5 reps of bench work sets and 2 sets of 5 reps of assistance (pause bench or CG bench) every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. On Friday, I did Press for 3 sets of 5 reps. Each Wednesday, I did my top set of 5, 3 more work sets, and my 2 sets of assistance. This added 20 lbs to my bench in 4 weeks, 5 lbs added to the top set each week. During that time, I did pause benches for assistance. When I got stuck at 215x5x1 for my top set, I switched to CG benches. Doing about the same scheme as before, I got up to 232.5x5x1 for a top set: an addition of 17.5 lbs over 6 weeks. I attempted 235x5x1 for a top set Wednesday for the next 2 weeks, but I failed both times. After my first fail at 235x5x1, I switched to pause benches because I failed at the bottom of the lift at that point in time. The switch did not help. I fail my work sets now: 227.5x5x4 on days without a top set. I am unsure of where to go in my programming. Do I increase in volume? I made this program very high volume because I have a pretty great capacity for recovery (which makes high volume a requirement for progress), given that I am 17 years old and male. Where should I go from here? How do I adjust my programming given my situation?
    Thanks for your time,
    Jack Morrison

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
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    If you don’t wanna do Texas method you could always do a hlm routine. I had really good success using the starr method outlined in practical programming.

  3. #3
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    Sep 2018
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    I plan on finding a 1RM and then doing a 4 day HLM routine outlined in Practical Programming which will include 2 heavy days. It seems like the general idea in the intermediate section in the book is to just find what works for work sets and reps, along with assistance exercises, using trial and error. If you have any other experiences of what has worked and what hasn't on a program like this, I would appreciate hearing them.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
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    Phoenix, AZ
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jack Morrison View Post
    I am 17 years old, male, and 200 lbs at 5'11". I am currently not interested in gaining weight because I am rehabbing a recurring IT band problem using low weights at slowly increasing squat and deadlift increments.
    I stalled my bench at 195x5x3 at the end of my novice LP. I did not want to try TM again because it failed miserably before (another LP after football season). I decided to try my own programming and keep it somewhat simple. I use a pretty narrow bench grip. I decided to try to make 5 lb jumps once per week on a top set of 5 as long as I could and I based my work sets around this. I benched 4 sets of 5 reps of bench work sets and 2 sets of 5 reps of assistance (pause bench or CG bench) every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. On Friday, I did Press for 3 sets of 5 reps. Each Wednesday, I did my top set of 5, 3 more work sets, and my 2 sets of assistance. This added 20 lbs to my bench in 4 weeks, 5 lbs added to the top set each week. During that time, I did pause benches for assistance. When I got stuck at 215x5x1 for my top set, I switched to CG benches. Doing about the same scheme as before, I got up to 232.5x5x1 for a top set: an addition of 17.5 lbs over 6 weeks. I attempted 235x5x1 for a top set Wednesday for the next 2 weeks, but I failed both times. After my first fail at 235x5x1, I switched to pause benches because I failed at the bottom of the lift at that point in time. The switch did not help. I fail my work sets now: 227.5x5x4 on days without a top set. I am unsure of where to go in my programming. Do I increase in volume? I made this program very high volume because I have a pretty great capacity for recovery (which makes high volume a requirement for progress), given that I am 17 years old and male. Where should I go from here? How do I adjust my programming given my situation?
    Thanks for your time,
    Jack Morrison

    1) Have you attempted moving to 2.5 lb increases when you get close to that problem weight?

    2) Have you ever trained triples?

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