Bench press - How fast should I see improvements?

Whats your set/reps on the bench press?

Assuming you are a man then you could still be in noob gains. If you are a woman then depends how much you weigh- that could be a great bench or meh

What is your current programme?

Noob gains I am indeed a man

I currently aim to work out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday cycling. Sunday complete rest.

Though admittedly with work I most often end up just working out on two days rather than three. Cycling usually on all three unless is cold and rainy.

I do shoulders, triceps, biceps, and chest on all days. With varying emphasis and intensity. When I started out I had I guess a "proper" programme, as in a chest/shoulder/tricep day, a bicep/back day and a leg day. But the workouts were long and I just couldn't find the energy/motivation to stick to it week in, week out.

Now the ones I do are shorter, but I make sure to give it full intensity and cover all more groups in a day. I also don't do leg day because I cycle, I get enough from that plus I don't want to hit the legs and next day be sore cycling.

So in short, there's no meaningful sense in which you have a programme? Programmes have defined exercises, reps and set schemes as well as planned progression. When you have a good one your training in most effective. When you don't have one your half way to just pissing about in the gym instead of making progress (at least when you don't know enough to wing it well, which takes a few years experience really).

Read the FAQ, if you want to get stronger then do Starting Strength or Stronglift. Both can be done two days a week- though I'm always sceptical of work making anyone that busy. I work 9-5, have voluntary commitments, occasionally try to have a social life and I train 4-5 times per week- it's about priorities and not wasting time.

I'm also sceptical of anyone not training legs because of cycling. I do tae kwon do twice a week and if I happen to do legs day in between then so be it. If I've got a seminar or something where I want to be fresh then I'll not do legs but mostly I just don't think it's that big a deal. But if you remove all lower body work then you'd probably want to do Ice Cream Fitness 5x5 instead of SS/SL

Funny. When I first started out I spent about two weeks researching, not just different programmes out there but everything, including food, because while I was not fat, I love eating whatever, and that was hard to change.

In the end I chose a programme by one guy which I altered on my own to my own liking based on further research, including adapting his microcycles, changing some exercises based on research into which ones activate which muscles and how, and collecting everything in and Excel where I would record my achieved reps for each workout, and if the set was drop set or rest pause.

Now you might think work is easy for people, and it's 9-5, but some people have challenging work, and longer hours, and might have to travel, too. What I had started was fine at first but it got too unappealing to me to keep up when I left work, tired and hungry.

If you read my OP again you will notice as well, that I was specifically asking for bench press, because there I seem to not get anywhere, while with the others I am progressing.

I think you don't really want advice if you are going to take that attitude.

If you do want advice and just don't want to take mine then you didn't provide enough information for anyone to tell you anything meaningful- if you don't know that you need to provide this information then it suggests you don't know as much about programming as you think you do. You've actually still not managed to explain what exactly your programme is/how you train now, even just for bench.

I could have just told you to do smolov jr, I think that's the sort of thing you want to hear but you've got a noob bench so it'd make no sense for you. You almost certainly need to do 3x5 or 5x5, add weight to the bar every session, deload as required and grind that out until you are heading towards something more intermediate.

So basically what you need to do is SL or SS, you can ignore all the lower body stuff if you want. But to talk about improving bench you should be thinking about your OHP too and for shoulder balance you need to think about your pulls too.

Dude, I specifically did not mention my programme because I have read enough threads to know everyone thinks something different and I didn't want to go down that road.

I asked a simple question, to which you could possibly have answered "yea bench press is slower progress than other areas" or "you must be doing something wrong, is your form correct" or whatever along those lines.

No instead, you ask me for a lot of information that is completely irrelevant to my question. And I am taking this attitude, because you are. If you are skeptical then stop replying and maybe someone will who will actually answer my question.

Dude, I specifically did not mention my programme because I have read enough threads to know everyone thinks something different and I didn't want to go down that road.

I asked a simple question, to which you could possibly have answered "yea bench press is slower progress than other areas" or "you must be doing something wrong, is your form correct" or whatever along those lines.

No instead, you ask me for a lot of information that is completely irrelevant to my question. And I am taking this attitude, because you are. If you are skeptical then stop replying and maybe someone will who will actually answer my question.

Dude, I specifically did not mention my programme because I have read enough threads to know everyone thinks something different and I didn't want to go down that road.

I asked a simple question, to which you could possibly have answered "yea bench press is slower progress than other areas" or "you must be doing something wrong, is your form correct" or whatever along those lines.

No instead, you ask me for a lot of information that is completely irrelevant to my question. And I am taking this attitude, because you are. If you are skeptical then stop replying and maybe someone will who will actually answer my question.

What he asked is totally relevant. You may be progressing in other areas (which, given that you skip legs - terrible idea btw, cycling won't build big legs, sprint-cyclists have big legs because they train heavy for power and assistance while endurance cyclists do little weight training and have skinny AF legs - pretty much just leaves pulling muscles) but if you're a newbie then you can get away with terrible programming in some aspects. However, the bench press overlaps several different muscle groups and if your program sucks, your bench progression will suck, simple as that. You'd be asked these same questions on any lifting forum because sensible programming is vital.

Since you seem to lack knowledge (not dissing you, we all did once upon a time) I'd advice you to follow a pre-made program to a tee. There are plenty of low volume ones out there, I could make a recommendation if you were to give some details as to how often per week you can train, how many exercises you feel is too much and so on.

Who the mother**** ever said I want big legs?

For ****s sake.

Sorry, I am done.

Delete the thread.

I will never talk to gym freaks ever again. No wonder you guys have such a bad rep.

So you want to train your upper body which will put muscle on it, but want to have skinny legs, yes?

So you want to train your upper body which will put muscle on it, but want to have skinny legs, yes?

So you want to train your upper body which will put muscle on it, but want to have skinny legs, yes?

I am going to give up replying now though cause I really don't get what it is you want

Yes. Problem?

Yes, the problem is you assume my goal is to get huge. Which it is not.

And that other dude's comments. You guys are so pathetic.

But, shame on me for thinking otherwise. I shouldn't have made this thread.

If you'd given us a bit more information to start with and then not gotten all shirty when we made some incorrect assumptions based on what sort of things we normally get asked here, then we wouldn't be in this position right now, would we? We can't all be wrong, can we So what are your goals then?