I need to increase my max bench by 40 pounds by the end of the school year

[yankeesfan]

I made a bet with a friend that I would be able to bench 225 by the end of the school year (May 15 or so). I stand to win $100.

I'm at ~185-190 or so for a max bench. What kind of routine does everyone recommend for this purpose? I'm concerned more about strength than endurance or looks. I maxed at ~160 before the summer started and proceeded to do a shit load of push-ups over the summer. When I got back to school, I found that I could bench 185. I figure its doable.

I only weigh like 140-145 pounds at 5'11, so I figure that I have a lot of room to grow.

Help please

edit: I'm especially concerned with overtraining and plateau-ing
edit 2: I am currently taking no supplements.

 

[MotF Bane]

Are you only doing pushups and bench press? That's not good for you, it overbuilds some muscles while completely ignoring others. You should consider something else. Try adding StrongLifts 5x5 or similar. If you don't ever end up stalling on SL, you'll pick up 75 pounds on the bench press in 10 weeks. StrongLifts will also be much more rounded, which will be healthier and give you more overall strength. StrongLifts is also strength oriented, not so much for endurance, and certainly not for looks. Also, you need to eat a LOT more.

 

[GenHoth]

Starting Strength or Stronglifts 5x5 + Google are great starts

Basic plan is lifting three times a week

Workout A:
Squat, Bench, Deadlift

Workout B:
Squat, Military Press, Power clean

 

[MotF Bane]

Originally posted by: GenHoth
Starting Strength or Stronglifts 5x5 + Google are great starts

Basic plan is lifting three times a week

Workout A:
Squat, Bench, Deadlift

Workout B:
Squat, Military Press, Power clean

I'm thinking he might want Inverted Rows or Barbell Rows as a counterbalance, particularly since his Bench Press is already so far ahead.

 

[yankeesfan]

Eating more is difficult. I'm on a meal plan at school and I stuff my face and eat until I'm full and then 2 hours later I'm starving again. And then I have to wait a few hours to eat again. I need to add something else to my diet. I don't know what, though.

 

[MotF Bane]

Originally posted by: yankeesfan
Eating more is difficult. I'm on a meal plan at school and I stuff my face and eat until I'm full and then 2 hours later I'm starving again. And then I have to wait a few hours to eat again. I need to add something else to my diet. I don't know what, though.

Protein shakes? 12-16 ounces of milk is around 100 calories, and protein is roughly 4 calories per ounce. If you have a microwave available, you could possibly try heavy soups, something like the Campbell's Chunky or whatever. What are you eating with your meal plan? You want to focus on meats. Bread is empty calories.

 

[yankeesfan]

I'm doing more than just bench press. I'm kind of doing a split workout with different groups but inevitably I end up focusing much of the time on chest and shoulders and completely neglecting legs.

 

[presidentender]

You need to add rows of some variety. Keep benching, and post us a form video; there's a wide range of what's acceptable for bench, but to add the most weight in the least amount of time, there is a best way. You also need (NEED) to add calories. If your school meal plan involves a cafeteria, and they have peanut butter, this shouldn't be an issue.

I disagree with using Starting Strength in this case, unless you care about the rest of your body's strength. In any case, you certainly have your work cut out for you.

 

[MotF Bane]

Originally posted by: yankeesfan
I'm doing more than just bench press. I'm kind of doing a split workout with different groups but inevitably I end up focusing much of the time on chest and shoulders and completely neglecting legs.

Post your workout please.

 

[yankeesfan]

Originally posted by: MotF Bane

Originally posted by: yankeesfan
Eating more is difficult. I'm on a meal plan at school and I stuff my face and eat until I'm full and then 2 hours later I'm starving again. And then I have to wait a few hours to eat again. I need to add something else to my diet. I don't know what, though.

Protein shakes? 12-16 ounces of milk is around 100 calories, and protein is roughly 4 calories per ounce. If you have a microwave available, you could possibly try heavy soups, something like the Campbell's Chunky or whatever. What are you eating with your meal plan? You want to focus on meats. Bread is empty calories.

Meats are my favorite food. I realize the need of increasing my protein intake. But funds are low right now.

 

[MotF Bane]

Originally posted by: yankeesfan

Originally posted by: MotF Bane

Originally posted by: yankeesfan
Eating more is difficult. I'm on a meal plan at school and I stuff my face and eat until I'm full and then 2 hours later I'm starving again. And then I have to wait a few hours to eat again. I need to add something else to my diet. I don't know what, though.

Protein shakes? 12-16 ounces of milk is around 100 calories, and protein is roughly 4 calories per ounce. If you have a microwave available, you could possibly try heavy soups, something like the Campbell's Chunky or whatever. What are you eating with your meal plan? You want to focus on meats. Bread is empty calories.

Meats are my favorite food. I realize the need of increasing my protein intake. But funds are low right now.

Somebody here can point you to cheap places to buy large amounts of protein, and then you might be able to grab milk out of your cafeteria. I don't know exactly how low your funds are, not my business. Just saying.

 

[yankeesfan]

I don't really have a set workout. Which is a problem. I can't figure out which muscle groups to rotate between to make it so that my chest isn't worked every time I go there. Any suggestions?

When I do chest, it is usually flat bench (3 sets of low reps and 1 set of high reps at the end), incline, decline, butterflys. I sometimes do upper back or shoulders with it. I usually always include pullups, which isn't much of a workout for me cause I can do like 3 sets of 15 every day if I wanted to.

edit: It's my impression that with that type of chest workout, I should only be doing it like 1.5 times a week. But I end up doing it closer to 2.5 times a week.

 

[GenHoth]

Make peanut butter sandwiches in your cafeteria and stick them in a bag for later!

 

[MotF Bane]

Originally posted by: yankeesfan
I don't really have a set workout. Which is a problem. I can't figure out which muscle groups to rotate between to make it so that my chest isn't worked every time I go there. Any suggestions?

When I do chest, it is usually flat bench (3 sets of low reps and 1 set of high reps at the end), incline, decline, butterflys. I sometimes do upper back or shoulders with it. I usually always include pullups, which isn't much of a workout for me cause I can do like 3 sets of 15 every day if I wanted to.

Seriously, my suggestion is switching to StrongLifts 5x5StrongLifts 5x5.

Squat 5x5 Squat 5x5
Bench Press 5x5 Overhead Press 5x5
Inverted Rows 3xF Deadlift 1x5
Push-Ups 3xF Pull-ups/Chin-ups 3xF
Reverse Crunch 3x12 Prone Bridges 3x30sec.

It's made up of compound lifts, so it works all of your muscles in proportion. Alternate between A and B per day. If you can do 3x15 pull-ups after the preceding Squats, Overheads, and Deadlifts, then add resistance with a belt and weight plate.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: MotF Bane

Originally posted by: yankeesfan
Eating more is difficult. I'm on a meal plan at school and I stuff my face and eat until I'm full and then 2 hours later I'm starving again. And then I have to wait a few hours to eat again. I need to add something else to my diet. I don't know what, though.

Protein shakes? 12-16 ounces of milk is around 100 calories, and protein is roughly 4 calories per ounce. If you have a microwave available, you could possibly try heavy soups, something like the Campbell's Chunky or whatever. What are you eating with your meal plan? You want to focus on meats. Bread is empty calories.

What? Where are you getting these numbers from? For whole milk, 16oz of milk is 360 calories. Also protein is 4 kcal/GRAM. Not ounce.

Also, I agree that some sort of program would be beneficial. Starting Strength or Stronglift's Beginner 5x5 would be beneficial. It really just depends on which you like more. Personally, I don't do a 5x5 because it takes too long and the weights I've gotten too are too strenuous to do 5 clean sets of. I think it would be easy to improve your max bench by 40 pounds even without gaining weight.

What are your stats now (age, weight, height)?

EDIT: Also, MotF Bane, realize that people perform well on other programs other than your's. Don't necessarily think that that's the only way.

 

[yankeesfan]

19, 143ish pounds, 5'11

 

[MotF Bane]

@ SC - there's a 16 ounce bottle of milk behind me at 90 calories. I didn't read the front though until your correction - it's fat free. As for the protein, I was thinking in ounces from the milk, and just wrote ounces instead of grams. Thanks for catching that.

I know SL 5x5 isn't the only way, it's just the one that I actually am familiar with enough to say anything about. I'm not going to recommend a method for which I don't even know its exercises.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: yankeesfan
19, 143ish pounds, 5'11

Alright then. You're kinda small. Putting on mass would make it easier for you to up the weights you're lifting. It really just depends on how much the bet means to you.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: yankeesfan
What kind of routine does everyone recommend for this purpose? I'm concerned more about strength than endurance or looks.

If you're interested in strength, you need a strength training routine. Based on the contents of the post, you are most likely still a beginner, so you need a beginner strength training routine. This means you do NOT want to use a bodybuilding style split routine, as those are typically focused on maximizing hypertrophy (muscle size/mass) rather than strength. Instead, you'll want a strength routine based around a few full body workouts each week that use compound free-weight movements with heavy weights and low reps.

One of the most popular and effective routines for this purpose is the one described in Starting Strength. The book is a fantastic resource no matter what routine you pick, as it outlines why you should do strength training, the most important lifts for building a beginner's strength, some of the best explanations of how to do the lifts you'll find anywhere, and a description of a simple, but notoriously effective routine. You can check out the Starting Strength Wiki to preview what the book & routine are all about. Alternatively, you can try the very similar Stronglifts 5x5 routine and use the stronglifts website as a great teaching resource.

Now, it's worth explaining why I'd recommend a routine that includes massive amounts of squatting, deadlifting, etc to someone primarily interested in just boosting their bench press. In my experience, even though these other exercises may seem completely unrelated to the bench press itself, your bench press will nevertheless progress much faster with them than without them. The main reason is that full body movements (especially the squat), when done with heavy weight, produce a massive hormonal/neuroendocrine response that will accelerate muscle growth and strength gains over your entire body. To put it another way, doing heavy back squats 3 times per week added more to my bench press than all the flies, tricep extensions and cable rows combined.

Of course, there are other benefits to doing these full body routines as well. For one thing, they are safer. The bench press only trains muscles in the anterior deltoid and neglects the rest. If you do too much BP, your rotator cuff becomes unbalanced, which always leads to shoulder injuries. Balanced strength routines counteract the pushing motion of the bench press with equal amounts of pulling (from rows or pull-ups) as well as overhead presses, which use all parts of the shoulder equally. Moreover, full body routines will obviously strengthen your entire body, which is not only useful in general, but will actually help your bench press still more. For example, the lats are used extensively in the bench press, so doing lots of rows/pull-ups can actually help you bench more weight. OH presses will help strengthen your upper chest, shoulders and triceps, all of which will also produce a stronger bench press.

Originally posted by: yankeesfan
I only weigh like 140-145 pounds at 5'11, so I figure that I have a lot of room to grow.

You are pretty damn light for your height. You'll find that lifting more weight becomes a lot easier if you add some mass. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is the "gallon of milk a day" (GOMAD) approach recommended in Starting Strength. You can read about it on the Starting Strength Wiki, but it's exactly what it sounds like: drink an entire gallon of milk every day, and you'll see your mass & strength absolutely skyrocket. Milk is very cheap (so yes, even you an afford $4/day on a college budget), easy to consume, rich in vitamins and is the tool Mark Rippetoe (one of the authors of Starting Strength) uses to add 40+ pounds of mass to new trainees in under a year. If you do SS + GOMAD as described, I'd be surprised if you weren't benching 225 in 4 months. And as an added bonus, you'll also have way more muscle and total body strength once you get there...

 

[KoolDrew]

Work on your form. Working on your arch, keeping the back tight, bar path, etc. could easily add 30 pounds to your bench without any increase in strength.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
Work on your form. Working on your arch, keeping the back tight, bar path, etc. could easily add 30 pounds to your bench without any increase in strength.

100%

Developing near-perfect form will allow you to push a lot more weight. I also agree with earlier posts -- switch to a more rounded program if only because it's stupid looking and unhealthy to have huge muscle imbalances.

 

[Deeko]

You're gonna have to eat more if you want to gain mass...its just how the world works. But, you don't necessarily need to gain mass to gain strength.

At any rate, I'm not going to comment on this routine or that, or strength training vs whatever, because that really is ancillary to this thread. You are asking about building up your bench. KoolDrew's point is very good - make sure you're actually benching properly, that will add a few pounds. As far as adding to your bench strength - bench heavy (2-3 reps) once a week, do your shoulders and triceps once a week as well (different day). On your bench day, supplement it with another chest exercise, but change what that exercise is each week.

 

[dealmaster00]

You don't necessarily need to gain mass to gain strength, it will make it easier to gain strength when you eat more (and thus also gain mass). So it would probably be a good idea to up the calories, you will have a better shot at increasing your bench.

 

[SKC]

I'm definitely not an expert on strength, but this has worked for me before - if you want a little variety in your workout, try flat bench with dumbbells. Your stabilizer muscles will be worked a lot more, and when you go back to the bar (after several dumbbell workouts) you'll find you can push up more. As others have stated, also focus on good technique and form.

 

[StageLeft]

Your weight and current bench that's a tall order in 2-3 months. Doable, though. I'd go on creatine now.