Upper body not improving

[Knyght]

Hi. Some stats first.

168cm
67kg (55-58kg when I started).

Been doing practical programming novice since around October. Took a couple of weeks off over Christmas which turned out to be a bad idea and really killed my progress. So I've been on the program properly consistently since mid January.

Lifts:
Squat: 84kg and improving (very slowly)
Deadlift: 100kg and improving nicely. Though it seems more like 5 singles with 20 seconds rest in between than 1 set of 5.
Bench: 56kg, going nowhere.
Press: 30kg, been stuck here for a couple months.

So yes. My lower body is doing pretty okay. Not fantastic but I'm improving and that is the important part. But my upper body lifts are weak in comparison and seem to be going nowhere.

My weight is increasing, but quite slowly. Less than 0.5kg per week I think.

I'm pretty sure this is (much?) too early to stall, so is it just that I'm not eating enough? This is my guess. I'm also wondering if I should slightly reset my presses (to say, 25kg and 50kg or so) just to try to get back into a groove where I'm actually improving them.

Thanks.

[D.W.]

Lower your 3x5 worksets to 90% of your last training. This should be "easy", then progress normally again.

[crunchy]

You must have very bad technique with press and bench?

On the other hand it seems you're handling the squat and deadlift well.
I squat and deadlift less and bench the same and press a little more.

[scwot]

Sex? Age?

[Knyght]

Oops. Male, 27.

Also my sleep hasn't been great due to deadlines lately, but now those are gone and I'm pretty well rested from now on.

My bench form seems okay to me. It's just very difficult, and very difficult to stabilise the bar. The bar has a tendency to go backwards when I push upwards on later reps. Maybe this is something my body is doing to make it easier. Not sure.

As for my press form - it's fine on lower weights, I think. At 20 - 28 it's fine. At 30 My back bends back a small ways on the last rep or two of each set.

Thanks for the input.

[RRod]

How much are you increasing the weight each time on the bench and the press? 2.5kg jumps on the 30kg is too much of a jump to last for very long, so 1kg jumps on the press at least could be advisable (if you have the right set-up for microloading). Luckily you have plenty of weight to pack on your body, and increasing your rate of body-weight gain might help the recovery situation (along with more sleep).

By chance, do you have long forearms?

[scwot]

You'll need to post some vids of your lifts. Somethings not right.

[Tamara Reynolds]

You still weigh under 150 lbs.

Pressing and benching will become easier if you fix that.

[Knyght]

1kg for bench and press. We have 0.5 plates. But my form at 30 isn't good enough for me to want to even go to 31, though I know I could do it (with bad form).

I'm not totally sure if I have long forearms relative to everything else. Is there some easy way I can test, preferably without having to go and buy a tape measure?

[RRod]

1kg for bench and press. We have 0.5 plates. But my form at 30 isn't good enough for me to want to even go to 31, though I know I could do it (with bad form).

I'm not totally sure if I have long forearms relative to everything else. Is there some easy way I can test, preferably without having to go and buy a tape measure?

Haha, don't worry about it that much. It's just a general trend that if your forearms are long (so say that your fingertips come very close to your knees), you will be at an advantage in the deadlift (less far to move the weight and better hip/leg mechanics for the liftoff) but at a disadvantage in the presses (your ROM will be longer than someone with T-Rex arms). But you're main problem is probably still needing to add some girth to your shoulder girdle, chest, and arms.

As you are microloading, I'm assuming you are controlling the plates you are using each time (or have plates that are weighted to a tight tolerance)?