For sure there is zero leg drive. I will have to rewatch the Tate video and see what he says about leg drive. I don't remember. Right here my biggest cue I am working on is to keep my elbows in a bit (I can't keep them all the way in without losing a ton of strength). Then I try a little arch. Everything else I forget as the weight comes down and I feel it all on my triceps.

Here I totally forgot about the J, but by accident I did do a little J and I did go down to my lower pecs.

I really like the bodybuilding style. All mind and pecs. None of these other ******ed muscles to worry about But I am going to give her up. Its so hard.

ROM looks kind of short to me on both styles but it may just be the camera angle

loco,

you're not anywhere close to the arch tate recommends, and note the foot positioning he recommends (up on the balls of your toes, though that's a tad extreme). Def some rewatching to do.

Every rep touches my chest. Just very, very lightly.


But yeah I am definitely watching the Tate video again. Next week I am resetting to 180 and doing all my reps with elbows tucked and more arch.

There is another upside to this. My squat is planned for 190 tomorrow. And thus bench press at 180 would mean my squat is > than my bench. The righting of the ship continues.

FWIW I don't bother to keep my elbows super tucked like Tate does even though I follow most of his other advice. Want more pec involvement ldo.

This is correct. ^

Get everything tight tight tight. Remember the part of the video where Tate pushes on the guy's legs when he's set up - you want to get the legs (and core and back, etc) so tight that someone cant make you budge if they push you.

Your back - I dont see any pulling exercises. Major programming flaw imo. I think you'd make more progress scrapping all the other pressing stuff besides the bench press and adding pulling stuff in instead. Add this pulling on top of whatever you do on "back day" imo. You need a big strong base (back) if you want to bench big weight. Your pushing muscles look fairly strong but your base is weak.

Right now, you arent really pulling your shoulder blades back. You want to pull the shoulder blades back & keep them pulled back from the time the bar comes out of the rack until you set it down. That's why you need to do more pulling. When you grip the bar, squeeze it hard and try to pull it apart. That helps with keeping the back tight & the shoulder blades pulled down & in.

This may or may not be useful to you. I do the "duck foot" thing now. I'm going to try keeping them straighter and see how that feels.

http://articles.elitefts.com/trainin...y-smith-style/

My pushing muscles are definitely stronger than my pulling muscles. That's a good catch Cha. I've told this to my Coach multiple times. At first when he gave me the old routine that had two chest workouts per week and one back workout after high volume deadlifts.

I then told him again last month when he came up with this new routine. But instead of giving me a workout with two back days a week, he put back all by itself on one day (with deadlifts on another lower day). Its a step in the right direction because I definitely absolutely need two lower days. More back work will have to wait for now.

I did sneak in some weighted pullups with a 40lb dumbell before my workout today (not listed because they were light 3x5. The pullups are not as bad as the rowing. I am horrible at all rowing movements. Can't put more than 75 pounds on the tbar. Its pretty pathetic.

I have a lot more hope for this new style of benching because of you guys. I just saw that link Cha posted. Man once I get this right, I am going to leave you guys all in the dust with my bench

New goal. Forget 300, 2x bodyweight bench!!!!! I am coming after Busto. The little big man is slowing down because of injuries. Not me, shoulders feel great. Triceps grow by themselves (they are like my Traps, I purposedly avoid working them out).

And with this new technique I'll be using some leg drive, more back muscles, and more triceps. Oh 300 baby, here we come!!!!

I think we have a winner.


Your Bench will never hit its full potential until you strengthen your back. I like the idea (promoted by Jim Wendler among others) of doing the opposite pulling movement as assistance every time you do a pushing movement. So do Pullups on days you overhead Press and Rows on days you Bench.

PL style bench is just gonna feel weird and weak until you get used to it. IMO the only reason it is stronger, and only for some people, is the shorter ROM. Still definitely worth learning because it is much easier on the shoulder joint in the long run, but it seems like you're expecting it to allow you to move bigger weights when the difference will probably be pretty negligible.

Not sure technically what you'd include in PL style vs BB style, but I think the arch and leg drive both would significantly allow more weight to be used. If you're just strictly talking about arm position/elbow tuck then I dunno.

I did a legitly hard set of 10 squats for the first time today. I felt like death. I think you are to blame for this, loco.
I keep getting told this. I'm a ****ing master of pullups and the rows (max pullups>max dips) but I don't think it really carried over to bench all that strongly past the initial stages. I think it has more to do with shoulder stability and prehab than an actual use of the upper back muscles in benching, which is vastly overrated by the powerlifting community. I mean ofc they have to be done for a big bench or you're near certain to suffer a shoulder injury in your pursuit of a good bench.

Maybe you just dont know how to ****ing bench.

nsfw

Yeah haven't seen that 3 trillion times or rigorously studied Tate's bench setup... Lats are only marginally important in raw benching.

http://www.criticalbench.com/Scott-Mendelson.htm

1) Put your back into it:

Big chests do not make big bench presses. Proper technique makes the primary movers the back (latissimus dorsi), triceps, and rear deltoids.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scot_Mendelson

Scot Mendelson (born February 21, 1969) is an American powerlifter, who specializes in the bench press. He has broken multiple world records and is currently the all-time world record holder in the raw (unassisted) bench press

He lives in my neighborhood (or at least did in '10).

Lower Body I

HBBS 2x5 190

I am kind of tempted to stay at this weight again next week and try to "tighten" things up. Let me know what you guys think. I can't find good angles to film from. This squat rack is right next to a mirror and I realized today that I have never sent my Coach a video that clearly shows my knees. I think I may have some slightly knee cave on the last couple of reps as noted by KC and Cha. I tried filming the mirror but still didn't come out.

Leg Press 2x10 350

Bulgarian DB Split squats 2x10 35s

other accesory work.

Skipped out on calves and planks. Will get to it on my day off tomorrow. Did pull a downtown on the brunch all you can eat buffet and destroyed their meat supply. 230 g of protein in one sitting. I crippled their cevice and filet mignon stores. Only came in at about 1800 calories for this brunch because I couldn't find any tasty carbs. I went by the French Fries and recalled Bixby. Nope. I went by and saw some white rice and KC. Nope. They had all you can drink mimosas for Saw (alcohol). Nope. They had some chocolate desserts for Souldude. Nope. They had an all you can drink soda fountain for jdock. Nope. So just had a little square flan. Carbs overrated anyway.

Weekly round up
Averaged around 2800 calories. 220 g protein daily. 210 g carbs. 110 g fat.
Maybe I'll lower the fat a bit next week. Find some carbs.

Strength went up.

Weight fluctuated from 154 to 151 back to 155. Don't ask, don't know.

lats as a "prime mover" in the raw bench makes absolutely no ****ing sense. i'm with evoken. and yes i don't know how to bench. you aren't rowing.

you squat like a puss. you're loose and slow. Get hard (boner), don't dance around after you unrack, and get after it with some gusto.

Video is crap for evaluating form. Is there really no way you can film e.g. from an angle from behind, to the side etc?

all you need to see is he's wearing a hat and squatting like a vag.

Would love a side view. Front or back view if the side isn't possible.

You really should tighten up and take a deep breath for each rep. Unrack / take two steps back / squat.

I took a while there because I need to make sure my foot positioning is equal. Beata noticed that my left leg tends to not point outward as much as my right leg. So wanted to make sure that was taken care of this time.


Yeah my descent is super slow. I figure its better than divebombing. Its actually harder that's for sure. But I can't just go up there and squat with more gusto til all the Ques become secondhand. My second set (not filmed) was definitely a little faster and more explosive out of the hole. I had to or else I was going to get stuck at the bottom going down that slow.

I feel like some bench monkies were kyphotic "gordon F*cks", as Brent Kim would say, and indeed benching without doing any pulling almost certainly does lead to unhealthy shoulders which would definitely weaken one's bench press so it got trendy to do upper back work. Eventually this all got out of hand and this information got misconstrued as lats being a prime mover in bench press, which is silly as I know several 300lb+ benchers who can do <10 pullups and aren't fat. in b4 300+ bench isn't a big bench obv, but I'm sure ole Scotty can't do a whole lot of pullups.