Bench Press Advise

F

FireFighter

New Member
Guys and Gals I need a bit of advise and help.

A guy on my fire dept has decided that it is time for him to conquer his current weight problem and get back to being healthy. He's 27 and has a baby on the way.

Through diet and adapex (sp?) he managed to drop from about 330 to 305 lbs.

He started working out with me in my basement about 2 weeks ago and has dropped another 10 lbs.

So here's where I'm puzzled.

The first time he came over and worked out I had him bench press 135lbs for 3 sets of 10. He did ok on it and didn't really struggle till he got to the last 3 reps on the last set. The weird thing is now he can barely do 95lbs for 3 sets. He says as soon as he unracks the weight it feels like a 1000 lbs. He also seems to have a lot of difficulty doing any weight on shoulder presses.

So...am I doing it all wrong by having him do 3 full body workouts a week? I have him doing 2 exercises on large muscle groups and 1 exercise on smaller muscle groups. Am I not giving him the proper amount of recovery time? Is his CNS not able to handle this? Could it be that he's too tight and needs to stretch the chest, shoulders, and triceps better?

He's not really that sore the next day. I'm not worried about how much weight he pushes...I'm more concerned about having him lose the weight and keeping his diet in check...but it's killing him mentally (he's a big strong guy..won state with his high school football team back in the day). He does extremely well on all the other exercises (squats, deads, rows, etc) and his treadmill is increasing steadily.

Any help to keep my buddy going is great appreciated.
 
If he's not in any discomfort or pain then it's most likely something to do with a build up of fatigue and/or depletion of glycogen stores (if he is on a low-carb diet). If he's low-carbing have him try a few more carbs and lower fats on a workout day.

If you have him benching and pressing 3 x weekly, try alternating the two instead. This will allow his delts a bit more recovery time.

Also, 3 sets of 10 is probably a bit much for someone new to all this. I'd drop the volume to 2 x 10 x working load.

Check that his form is good.

Put 1000lb on the bar and have him try to unrack it. That's what 1000lb really feels like!

Kick his wussy butt!
smile.gif
 
Lol already got it covered but I'll just add in that if the problem is only on the bench press you can check somethings like the order of the exercises (move the bench press to before other exercises) and if he's doing both presses and bench, specially if he is doing bench AFTER presses. Also I'd like to emphasize Lol's suggestion: check the form.
 
He's not on a low carb diet...his bench press form is good. We worked out last on Tuesday. Tomorrow being Friday I'm going to have him come over and I'm going to have him do some good stretching and then we are going to hit the weights on Saturday again.

It boggles my mind on why everything else is going up in weight except for his bench and military presses.

None the less, I told him at this point in time that it's not the amount of weight he pushes, it's more about getting his weight down since that is his primary focus for now.

I'll keep ya'll updated on his progress.

Thanks and I hope the hollidays are good to everyone.
 
Oh, one other thing: could it be he's pushing to failure (or close to it) for the shoulder work? That would probably knock his strength back, esp. noticeable if he's training delts 3 x weekly.

You mentioned that he struggled on the last few reps of the last set; just get him to skip those reps, so maybe do one set of 10, then two sets of 8, or 10, 8, 6. Something like that. If it's CNS related, you should see an improvement as his strength levels are restored.
 
All of the above assessments sound correct. He wasn't conditioned to working out, probably did chest, shoulders, and triceps. Then combined fatigue caught up to him. Especially if he is doing cardio, weight training, and on a "diet".

My son came home from Navy boot camp and ran straight downstairs to our gym. He immediately wanted to "push weights", even though I tried to convince him to start with higher rep ranges/lower weights to build himself back up. Being hardhead, he didn't listen and immediately went into a full blown workout to almost failure on everything.

Well, two days later he went to work out again and was simply amazed at how weak he was! Now he's listening to me and is structuring his first HST cycle. He is also amazed at my growth - even though I am working with sub-max weights. As a former state-ranked powerlifter, he doesn't understand how I'm growing while working out with "such light weights".

Personally, if your friend is trying to lose weight, while keeping in mind calories in versus calories out, and as long as he's doing ample cardio, I'd only have him do one set per bodypart, HST style, possibly in a "circuit" type fashion, until his strength catches up to his working out, then increase the sets if need be.

Working with weights, while expending calories, will help him lose "weight" while keeping his muscles in shape. Doing the higher rep ranges, total body, three days a week will lend to the calorie expenditure he needs to lose that weight, IMHO...

With weightlifting, this is one time that I believe in setting your goals LOW to start, then building up. It's easier to kick it into higher gear than try to recover from doing too much...

Take it from a former Special Forces trainer! Good luck!
 
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