my 57 year old dads regressing bench press

[ashbak]

Hi Andy,

Since your advice for my mma strength training was so good I though maybe you could help me out with this.

Going to try to make this as short as possible. My dad is 57 year old, been strength training for about 10 years, he weighs about 97 kilos at the moment. His lifts were stalling for long time on 531 but he claims the large amount of volume makes him feel good so he did it anyway.
I convinced him to move to HLM which he has been following for several weeks now and his deadlift and squat is improving steadily, while his press hasnt and his bench press have regressed slightly. This can have something to do with him losing weight, he used to weigh around 105 kilos and had a benchpress 1rm at around 130 kilos for a while.

How would you tweak the HLM for someone like him? His bench for 3x5 is at around 100 kilos, he usually fails at the bottom of the bench and his close grip bench press is at like 90% of his regular bench so im thinking maybe his triceps isnt his weak point.

Thanks in advance.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Weight loss will absolutely cause regression in his bench and press. I'd look at that as the primary.

As far as training, perhaps have him change his medium day exercise to like a 3 second Paused bench press. I'd train it for 3-4 sets of 3 and have him keep doing regular touch no go benches on monday. Not sure if that will unstick it, but maybe.