I've been doing weightlifting for a few years, and my focus during quarantine has been to try and lift 225 lbs on bench press for five reps. I was making some decent progress, but I'm stalling close to the finish line. I've written out an outline of my routine as it pertains to bench, and I'm curious if anything stands out as off or deficient:

I do a push day about twice a week where I work bench press first, moving over five sets of five reps from an initial weight to a final weight. At the moment, the initial is 185 and the final is 205. Lately I get to the final set, and I fail when my arms are parallel with my body, straight out, at the third or fourth rep.

After bench I do a mixture of tricep, shoulder and chest exercises, normal stuff. I also try to do a couple sets of bench at the end of the push day, going for ten reps at a lower weight. The whole routine probably takes an hour and a half. I've put on a bit of weight, not much, during quarantine, so I don't think the issue is a lack of nutrition (I could probably be a little smarter about what I'm eating, don't know much about that honestly).

I don't know, I'm fine with plateaus, I know how these things go, but I'm just wondering if there's anything obvious that I could be missing in the routine or that I'm doing wrong. And if anyone has found a good routine of their own for making progress on this front, I'd love to hear it.

  • quartz242 [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    If you have someone who can spot you after you do a warmup set of 5 aim for a small rep set like (2-3) at something like 210, even if you can't complete the entire range of motion for the lift you are still stressing the muscles at a weight that expands your plateau. Idk if that makes sense its what a competitive weight lifter told me when he was helping me break my squat record last year. Kinda sad as he was nice but I noticed some of the nazi tats on him after that and hard ignored.

    • corporalham [none/use name]
      hexagon
      ·
      4 years ago

      Yeah I don't generally have a spotter, particularly these days. Trying to go for higher weights with fewer reps makes sense, part of the reason my progress is slow is that I'm nervous about failing on bench, so I'm taking it kinda slow.

      • LangdonAlger [any]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Rolling the heavy ass bar down to your hips is just giving your torso a super-deep tissue massage