I guess Im a poor reader. I didn't see the bench press addressed anywhere in the article. I did see that you explained squats will slow to 5lbs increments and from that I suppose it could be assumed the bench would slow to a lesser amount.
I guess Im a poor reader. I didn't see the bench press addressed anywhere in the article. I did see that you explained squats will slow to 5lbs increments and from that I suppose it could be assumed the bench would slow to a lesser amount.
In my case I went up by five pound increments until 225, then I dropped to 2.5. Since my second and third sets are fine (they don't snap, crackle and pop and I hit all the reps) I don't think I'm doing too much warmup.
Two things which complicate this are that I had previous experience with the bench press and a minor cuff injury as a teen. Beyond that, the only aspect of the program I know I am lacking in is sleep. I rarely get seven hours or more.
I will try sticking with the linear program through the end of the year at least on this reset. I will experiment different warmup volumes and let you know if any of them help.
Either way, thanks for the thoughts. I gleaned from the comments that I may be weak, fat and NDTP - so I'll sack up and stick with it to push into a territory which is more in line with my height/weight.
I was a bit confused by your answer to Benny1981.....I've been using Jesus Quintana at the back of PP for a rough target to reach on Starting Strength. (Taking his starting weights on texas method as a guide to where he must have finished on SS.)
He's benching 235 as a 5RM at a bodyweight of 225. So personally I would be very pleased to get to a bench of about 220-230x5x3 at about 215 BW by the end of SS. And I thought Benny1981's weight gain and bench press looked pretty reasonable for someone finishing the beginner program.
Anyway, I had been really pleased with how the program's worked for me so far, but should I re-think my targets?
Thanks,
Ben
You're absolutely right. It's the books and this board you have not read.
Your target should be to get as strong on the program as possible by carefully planning your approach to making incremental increases for as long as possible. This will never involve a hard number target.
Last edited by Mark Rippetoe; 11-19-2010 at 06:02 PM.
Thanks for taking the time to answer this. That's answered another question for me too. I'm still progressing each bench session, but only by about 0.5kg each time, so it's very slow going now. I was wondering whether to switch to Texas method, but clearly I should continue as I am until it stops working.
Cheers
Last edited by Mark Rippetoe; 11-19-2010 at 06:03 PM.