I read this article on Yahoo! Sports...The PostGame.
The article is titled "Want to bench press more? Stop benching"
It's an article about bench pressing. Now I agree with alot of it that the author talks about, but there are a few things that I don't agree about.
It seems that he is saying that when you do your bench presses, you do reps of your max weight. If that is true than how is it your max if you are doing reps?
I always believed your max to be was you made 1 rep that is almost a failure, but you finish the rep. That puts your muscles for that lift exhausted just by that 1 rep. Whether it's doing bench presses or squats or whatever.
The way I have done my bench presses is progressive. You start off with a weight that's less than what you are used to doing, then you do 25 reps of it. (If you are not used to doing 25 reps than
make sure you go lower in weight)
For your second set, you up the weight, (you can go 5 or 10 pounds each side) then do 20 reps.
For each set, you up the weight 5 or 10 pounds and drop five reps.
You should do 5 sets with the last set being of 5 reps. One minute rests in between each set. Let your spotter add the weights for you.)
What I would do when I reached that last rep of the last set, I would add my 20 pounds and do 1 last rep.
Or I should say I would try to do that last rep. (Some of you that have done it this way are thinking yea he's nuts)
Now when I do that one rep, it is no where near my max, but if you do your presses progressively,
it will feel like that is your max.
You dont want to be doing anywhere near your max on that last set, your muscles are exhausted and pumped
up, you would be lucky to finish your last five.
I would set my weight on my last set at where you normally do your other sets at.
Example... if you do 5 sets of 15 at 250 pounds, when you do it progressive, then make your last set of 5 around 250 pounds. Just do the math to get your first weight set.
Now I do agree with the author about you need to warm up before doing your bench presses.
There is always gonna be a disagreement about how long to warm up before lifting weights.
I believe a good warm up depends on the weights your lifting. I would warm up 15 to
20 minutes before I did my bench presses if that was the first exercise I went to.
Normally I have done other exercises before doing my presses.
Just make sure you warm up properly before doing any lifting.
I will put up the address below if you would like to read that other article.
I would like to hear from you.Tell me what you think about progressive lifts, or if you have another way of doing your sets.
I'm sure other readers would like to try them out.
Thanks for reading.
Here's that link...
http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/training-day/201105/how-increase-your-bench-press
if you can't click it, copy and paste it to your browser.