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How can I increase what I bench?

Earlier this year, I started using weights at the gym.

I follow a routine someone created for me - as of now I can only bench 45 kg. At the age of 19, I find that this is very little.

How can I bench more?

I focus on chest one day a week, should I move this up to two?

I do my cardio before my weights, should I do this after the weights instead?

The diet is sorted, I have protein shakes and of course the aim is to bulk up.

Should I adapt the perform to failure method?

All advice appreciated.
Reply 1
I would also like to see suggestions....I am pretty sure I can close grip pause bench more than I can do regular. Does anyone know what I would need to work on to help my regular bench...I hate doing regular bench.
Reply 2
Original post by Lscott22
Earlier this year, I started using weights at the gym.

I follow a routine someone created for me - as of now I can only bench 45 kg. At the age of 19, I find that this is very little.

How can I bench more?

I focus on chest one day a week, should I move this up to two?

I do my cardio before my weights, should I do this after the weights instead?

The diet is sorted, I have protein shakes and of course the aim is to bulk up.

Should I adapt the perform to failure method?

All advice appreciated.


- You can bench more by challenging yourself, do your regular bench (if that's 45KG, then so be it) then maybe up it to 50KG at the end, even if you only get 1 rep out of it, at least you've upped it?

- You don't necessarily need two chest days, remember to work out your entire body, a massive chest but small legs ain't a good look.

- Yep, I would recommend maybe a 10 minute cardio warm up perhaps, then weights, then maybe a 10 minute cardio warm down. You don't wanna use all your energy on a cardio session before doing your weights, it's counter-productive.

- You can try the failure method, it won't do you no harm, just do whatever suits you. As long as it's safe and you can feel the gains, then go for it

Just advice *hodgetwins voice*
Reply 3
Original post by Lscott22
Earlier this year, I started using weights at the gym.

I follow a routine someone created for me - as of now I can only bench 45 kg. At the age of 19, I find that this is very little.

How can I bench more?

I focus on chest one day a week, should I move this up to two?

I do my cardio before my weights, should I do this after the weights instead?

The diet is sorted, I have protein shakes and of course the aim is to bulk up.

Should I adapt the perform to failure method?

All advice appreciated.



What does your chest routine consist of though? And how many reps are you managing at 45kg? Seems a very low weight (unless you're doing sets of 15 or something), especially if you've been at it a few months.

And is your diet really 'sorted'? Having protein shakes does not make your diet sorted. It's not hard for the average person to get between 1.5 and 2 grams of protein per kg bodyweight without protein shakes. If you're getting **** all calories then having a shake a day isn't going to act like some magic growth potion.



I wouldn't do masses of cardio before lifting simply because **** doing masses of cardio at the gym. But I don't think my bench would be much lower at all even if I'd been running for an hour before doing it, maybe if you're going straight from some HIIT stuff into lifting it'll have an effect but if you're just on a treadmill then meh.

It isn't 'necessary' to bench twice a week but I like to Monday and Friday with OHPs on Wednesday. Providing you're getting adequate rest and nutrition it may well help you.
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 4
Original post by zKlown

Just advice *hodgetwins voice*


DO WHATEVER THE **** YOU WANNA DO!

Seriously though these guys sometimes come up with some pretty laughable bro-science. :biggrin:

It doesn't matter how much you can, its all about the individual so just focus on yourself and goals. So don't get all caught up in the X can do Y weight at Z age so should I blah blah blah. I'd make sure not to any intense cardio as a warm up even if its only 10mins, perhaps some light rowing.
Reply 5
How to increase your bench?
Answer: bench.
Reply 6
Build a good base before going for 'big',
Improving cardiovascular fitness will help you somewhat to improve in lifting,
Strong core muslces are neccessary for progress with bench and pretty much every other major lift,
You need balance, aim for improvement in all areas and look at your succcess as a whole,
If your back isn't at the same level as your chest your going to have difficulty moving your chest up to the next (two levels higher) than your back.
Bodybuilding success is buillt upon knowledge, sleep/rest, nutrition, and exercise.
If you're working out several days a week then experiment with taking one week off (rest) every three weeks and see if it helps in the long run. Perhaps it gives your body time to relax and grow the best it can without inducing daily micro-tears


Don't train to failure or do 1 rep max's unless you have a strong, trustworthy spotter.
Reply 7
it's not little, later on you'll increase
Reply 8
Original post by McHumpy92
I would also like to see suggestions....I am pretty sure I can close grip pause bench more than I can do regular. Does anyone know what I would need to work on to help my regular bench...I hate doing regular bench.


Continue to do close grip. It's less nasty on your shoulders long term and a narrower grip just suits some people better.

I bench narrow grip and have never had any shoulder problems. I also have a reasonable (still pretty awful tho) bench for my BW (130 @ 82kg paused)

Getting your bench up isn't hard provided you know how to bench properly. Just train it more and hammer out an obscene amount of volume. Don't get tied up in minutia.

The only lift that correlates closely with bench for me is the standing OHP. When one goes up the other generally does too.

Eat, bench, repeat.
Reply 9
Original post by Old School
Continue to do close grip. It's less nasty on your shoulders long term and a narrower grip just suits some people better.

I bench narrow grip and have never had any shoulder problems. I also have a reasonable (still pretty awful tho) bench for my BW (130 @ 82kg paused)

Getting your bench up isn't hard provided you know how to bench properly. Just train it more and hammer out an obscene amount of volume. Don't get tied up in minutia.

The only lift that correlates closely with bench for me is the standing OHP. When one goes up the other generally does too.

Eat, bench, repeat.


This is why I started doing it...I want a big-ish bench, but I also like to train consistently so decided on close grip...also read on sugden pausing bench actually gets you strong because touch and go just uses general momentum to do it, a lot like bouncing out of the whole in a squat.........then just do silly weights on weighted dips to get rest of pressing strength.

I definitely need to do more bench volume...I hate going over triples on any exercise apart from maybe pull-ups.
(edited 10 years ago)
Reply 10
Original post by Sylosis
How to increase your bench?
Answer: bench.


You say that, but pretty much everyone in the gym benches and very few have got big benches.

Personally I think the best way to get a big bench is not to screw up your shoulders by doing lots of wide grip bench with very few pulling movements in your routine. Just gaining weight...muscle or fat, leverages and a good spotter.

I have non of the above really.
Original post by Lscott22
Earlier this year, I started using weights at the gym.

I follow a routine someone created for me - as of now I can only bench 45 kg. At the age of 19, I find that this is very little.

How can I bench more?

I focus on chest one day a week, should I move this up to two?

I do my cardio before my weights, should I do this after the weights instead?

The diet is sorted, I have protein shakes and of course the aim is to bulk up.

Should I adapt the perform to failure method?

All advice appreciated.


Shift it up to twice a week

Stop the cardio it will reduce the cardio, keep cardio on separate days when you don't lift

And you could do to failure but that will reduce your recovery time.

Ok so personally from experience i went from 2 reps of 100kg on bench press to 10 reps in exactly 2 months, doing chest 2 times a week (monday+Thurs)
My routine usually goes something like this

Warm up -just the bar
60kg x 10
80kg x 5
100kg to failure
100kg to failure

Dumbbell press
6-10 reps 3 sets

Dumbbell flies 3 sets

So thats what worked for me, fastest gains ive ever had because i sorted my routine out from january


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Original post by McHumpy92
This is why I started doing it...I want a big-ish bench, but I also like to train consistently so decided on close grip...also read on sugden pausing bench actually gets you strong because touch and go just uses general momentum to do it, a lot like bouncing out of the whole in a squat.........then just do silly weights on weighted dips to get rest of pressing strength.

I definitely need to do more bench volume...I hate going over triples on any exercise apart from maybe pull-ups.


Increasing volume doesn't mean increasing reps per set if you don't want it to.

I find that microloading ascending triples has worked great for bringing my bench from **** to suck.

Example from 100kg to a daily max triple:

60xwhatever
80x3
90x3
100x3
102.5x3
105x3
107.5x3
110x3

etc etc up to 125 or so.

That's a lota quality reps and so long as you don't arse about in between sets you should get a good pump from it too.

As for assistance work, just do moar benching (multiple (6+ sets) triples at 80% give or take if you don't like higher rep sets for compounds) and high rep dips and back stuff.

Do that 2x/week and your bench will go up.

Do paused bench if you like but it's not essential unless you have hurt pecs/shoulders and need to drop the weight and slow things down to avoid injury or you want to do a PLing meet. T+G is fine for everyone else. Those who say otherwise are the same sort of people who cry A2G or bust! when it comes to squating as a way to justify and rationalise their crappy squats (no WAY could he do dat much if he went A2G!!!!111!). Well, obvs.
Original post by Lscott22
Earlier this year, I started using weights at the gym.

I follow a routine someone created for me - as of now I can only bench 45 kg. At the age of 19, I find that this is very little.

How can I bench more?

I focus on chest one day a week, should I move this up to two?

I do my cardio before my weights, should I do this after the weights instead?

The diet is sorted, I have protein shakes and of course the aim is to bulk up.

Should I adapt the perform to failure method?

All advice appreciated.


Stop doing cardio before lifting, cardio should be done after, when you do cardio before lifting you expend all the energy.

Learn how to bench press, go on youtube and look at elitefts and westside barbell videos on how to bench with good form.

You're diet isn't sorted otherwise you'd be increasing your bench. You need to eat more calories, also protien shakes aren't some magical drink that make you big and storng, clearly, otherwise you'd be increasing your bench. Personally I would say don't even buy protien shakes they're a waste of money at this stage because you actually don't need that much protien. When you start getting much stronger and bigger shakes will be a good way to effectively increase your protien intake on top of any natural protien you will be eating but atm it's a waste of money.

You don't need to adapt to any faliure method. If you have a good program then all you need to do is stick with it. When you start benching a decent weight you can worry about other routines and programs but atm just keep it as simple as possible.

In summary, eat more calories, do cardio after lifting and keep the cardio a minimum on lifiting days (better option would be to just do cardio on non lifitng days). Learn how to lift and stick to a simple program.
Original post by Foghorn Leghorn
Stop doing cardio before lifting, cardio should be done after, when you do cardio before lifting you expend all the energy.


I'm pretty sure that it's better to do cardio before lifting.

I don't have an article to link but lifting releases chemials which help you build muscle and speeds up your metabolism in the long run. Doing cardio afterwards stops the production of these chemicals.
Original post by therisenmitten
I'm pretty sure that it's better to do cardio before lifting.

I don't have an article to link but lifting releases chemials which help you build muscle and speeds up your metabolism in the long run. Doing cardio afterwards stops the production of these chemicals.


Nope you are wrong, just google cardio before weightlifting and you will find an endless supply of sites telling you the same thing, cardio before lifting is a bad thing to do. Now it might be ok for someone that goes to the gym to keep fit and lifts the same weight week in week out because they want to "tone", but if you are a serious weightlifter or bodybuilder and want to make significant strength and mass gains then cardio before lifting is bad.

When you workout before lifitng you expend all your glycogen, meaning you have less energy to lift any significant weight, which in turn means you will make little to no strength gains. You need energy to lift heavy, you need to lift heavy to get stronger.
(edited 10 years ago)

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