Originally Posted by phreezer
West side is more for competetive powerlifters.. It may not necessarily be that good of a program for helping a guy who only wants to focus on getting his bench up and it's realy a complicated routine (perhaps too complicated at times) and probably wouldn't suit a guy who’s biggest concern is bench press not competeing in the next PL meet coming up in six-eight weeks.....
Personaly, I think you need to focus on strength building exercises.. and look at what ancillary work can make your bench stronger.. and how to apply exercises to a functional routine...
NUMBER ONE: You need to work on explosiveness.. This is first and foremost, you won't believe how much you can increase your bench by just increasing your speed. I assume you have access to heavy chains.. These are awesome for building speed... I will assume you know the basics of the chain (the chain is long.. so the higher you move the weight the more chain comes off the floor making the bar heavier the higher you go) This way your body learns to use and recruit more fast twitch muscle fiber to get the weight moving a lot faster, and thus using momentum to aid you in the lift..
If I were you, I’d look at doing a two day a week upper body split that focused on making my bench bigger..
Workout one may look something like this ( I don’t feel the need to set up the entire workout.. you can figure out how many curls to do)
*Flat Bench Press (3x5… After four weeks you’ll drop this to 3x3..then in week six you’ll drop these to heavy singles 3X1 ) Your warm ups don't count.. You use a weight that you can do for no more than 5 or 6 reps and that weight will be used for all 3 sets..etc.. for each following week as well.. when you do 3x3 you use a weight you couldn’t do 5 reps with..etc..
*Board Presses if you can have a partner help you..if not just do Lowgrade Incline barbell Press (3x5) same rules apply as above..
*Bent over barbell rows.. REAL bentover barbell rows.. 3x5
*Push PRess 3x5
*Rear Lateral Raises
This workout focuses on your raw strength… This second workout works on explosiveness..
Workout 2:
Bench press 5x3 with chains (60% of 1RM.. This will increase by 3-5% every week for a total of 6 weeks) (1 minute rest in between sets) Concentrate on making this movement as explosive as possible.
Decline dumbbell press 3x5
Lat Pulldowns 5x5
Powercleans 3x5
I hope this gives you an idea of what I’m talking about.. The muscles that have the biggest impact on your bench are Triceps…Pecs.. Lats.. and front Delts.. (rear delts help a great deal in stabelizing the weight) Increase the strength of these muscles and your bench will improve on that fact alone.. increase the speed and raw explosiveness and your bench will increase simply because of that.. Combine the two, and you’ve got a fairly good program that highschool senior could use to add 30-40 lbs to his bench max with inside of 12 weeks…
