Not done bench press for ages, gave it a go today, up to 80kg from 60kg last time I checked, progress!

Weird as I can hit 105kg seated press in the gym, weird how changing the parameters of a movement alters things somewhat (probably some muscles isolated on that that aren't on bench!)

138kg squat, 118kg deadlift (yeah weird I can squat more) and 80kg bench is pretty decent I reckon for where I'm at, and big increases on where I was not so long ago.

The voyage continues!

@ljs bench is surprisingly technical for me. if I haven’t done high weight/low reps for a while it takes 3-4 sessions until I can actually push a lot of weight again. If you haven’t done bench in ages I’m sure you could easily add another 5-10kg to that just by getting used to it again.

That squat/deadlift ratio is very weird though. 120kg deadlift is something I can do for 8+ reps but I can’t even squat 130kg once to depth :D

@sven I suspect lower back issues are why, had problems with that in past.

Been a deload week which might have affected things... I don't normally straight bench in my routine at all!

@ljs then you can probably easily get another 10kg.

for squatting 130kg I just lack the strength at the very bottom to get out of the hole again. It’s always been my least favorite exercise as well which doesn’t help.

@sven funny thing is I tried 88kg (this bar weighs 8, to hit 80 I had to do some really weird plate arrangements lol), and no bueno.

But I sort of felt like I could. The derack movement feels easy at 88kg, I could derack and hold up way more, the press from chest is where it's tricky.

But on a seated chest press I can rep 105kg.

That is another one actually that can get harder if not regularly in rotation though that is a thing...

@ljs it’s weird, I don’t even know what changes in those 3-4 sessions doing high weight bench again. After my last bulk in January I couldn’t I even bench my previous one rep max. Now after the cut is essentially done and after only doing high weight/low reps for a while I can get three reps of that old one rep max. I’m very sure I didn’t gain any muscles while cutting though so it has to be some kind of technique thing.

@sven this shit is weird man. I find some workouts I suddenly can't do a weight I could 2 days ago, but same session I can do 20kg more on something else, it's like what?

I think different muscles get tired, there are small muscles in compound movements that maybe didn't get much love before, etc.

@sven @ljs I've always found that bench can be pretty finicky. Grip width, where you bring the bar down to on your chest, elbow flaring and the height of the bench all make a pretty significant impact to how much you can move.

@conor @sven yeah that's true, and I find the derack is weird as fuck too, where your head is relative to bar, that forward movement, and the rest.

I used to have a ton of problems with that, now weirdly my derack is great the press was the fucked bit, but when I'm seated I can press 25kg more, what?

@ljs "105kg seated press" - seated press to me usually means a shoulder exercise with dumbbells. Do you mean some sort of thing with a machine, or a free weight exercise?

@conor @ljs true, bench also takes me the longest to setup and get in a good position

@conor machine seated chest press.

Which of course, hilariously, can mean quite a few different configurations of machines.

So to be specific right now - a hammer strength isolateral chest press machine (not the wide one, the normal one)

https://www.ukgymequipment.com/strength-training-c8/plate-loaded-machines-c72/plate-loaded-iso-lateral-chest-press-p1824

Wow my gym spent a lot on that!

@ljs Oh right, ye that's gonna be totally different! One is purely isolated, but benching requires stablisation of the weight and that takes a significant portion of your strength.

@conor yeah, but in 'theory' it's meant to be the same muscle group right?

But of course there's lots of mechanics beside the pecs and whatever else that machine does that you use on the actual flat bench press.

Also my incline smith machine press is fucking 45kg? WHAT?

@ljs

> but in 'theory' it's meant to be the same muscle group right?

Ye it is, but it's kinda akin to trying to stand up and stand up on a tightrope.
Also, some of those machines don't have linear loading, so the same number of plates doesn't mean the same effort is required.

@ljs > Also my incline smith machine press is fucking 45kg? WHAT?

I dunno, incline is a harder exercise. It uses your shoulder muscles not just your chest. When I was benching 130 my incline was only around 100.

@sven @ljs Personally I find that the height of the bench makes a massive difference, worst thing about new equipment or gyms!

@conor yeah, my shoulders are pretty decent when isolated but they're a 'slow' muscle group to develop in general so figures.

Nice numbers btw ;) I hope I can hit 100kg flat bench press by end of this year!

@conor @sven every time I change gym a TON of my exercises end up at lower weights, it's ridiculous.

I HATE switching gym. Have found a really nice one that's like 20-40 minutes drive away (depending on traffic) and if they do a refurb or close for some reason I WILL CRY, had to switch 3 times recently due to that lol.

@conor @sven one classic example of this was a gym where my chest fly went up by 30kg or something because the machine was obviously miscalibrated...

I actually got some of that back in genuine gains but got corrected back at current gym. STupid...

@sven @ljs

> for squatting 130kg I just lack the strength at the very bottom to get out of the hole again.

Could always cheat and buy sleeves!

> It’s always been my least favorite exercise as well which doesn’t help.

Used to be my favourite, always had lots of confidence in being able to get out of the hole or bail safely. Failed one forward a few years ago and lost all of it :/ Definitely a scarier exercise as you push the weight.

@ljs @sven different leverages make a huge difference, the weights on a lot of machines for the same exercise are hard to compare - but 30 kg does seem like a lot.

@conor @sven shit scary one.

Safety arms help but the abort is still fucking horrible anyway.

Not having them could genuinely result in injury though

@conor @sven new gym is good, an independent with good kit (really like hammer strength for instance) so I'm pretty confident their stuff is decently configured, or at least I'll be consistent against any misconfiguration there :P

@conor @ljs see, that’s what I love about deadlifts: just drop the weight at any point and the worst that will happen is people looking at you like you’re an idiot.

@sven @conor for some reason deadlifts fuck with me mentally more than squats lol.

It's weird.

@sven @ljs Yup, my feelings exactly!

@ljs @sven

> Safety arms help but the abort is still fucking horrible anyway.

I used to be a lot more cavalier about it, now I refuse to squat without them. The normal abort of dropping the bar backwards is something you can practice if you're worried, it's a good confidence builder :)

@conor @sven I have some kit in my car port, concrete floor and one thing I can tell you is that if you fuck around with your bar and the 25kg plate falls off and hits the concrete you can end up with a lovely chunk of it smashed off :P

This may or may not have happened to me this morning

@ljs @sven the bench you have though is pretty nice, most benches in gyms don't even have safeties

@conor @ljs yeah, failing forward even with safety arms isn’t much fun. I always try to drop the bar to the back onto the safety bars. takes a little bit of practice though

@conor @sven yeah I know! I hate that! I guess the expect we all go with friend WHAT FOOLS lol.

I specifically got the kit with safety arms on, I started off with some without and thought 'you know what, nah'.

There's power cages with arms often at least.

@sven @conor hm I've assumed my abort would be me to squat super low and drop the bar onto the safeties and kind of hobble out, but maybe I've got this all wrong...

I've not had to abort a squat yet thankfully

@ljs @sven If your safeties are high enough, yup. If not, you just push your elbows & chest forward and kinda hop out as it falls off your shoulders.

@conor @sven my short height and arms that go up quite high mean the former should be feasible.

The latter i'd worry about hurting my fingers + forearms!

@ljs @sven This is a pretty good example of the latter method: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bC1JV4iSsjA

@conor @sven yikes, nice work by that dude, but that could go wrong...

@sven @ljs heh, I found a video. Was a max attempt at like 2.25x bodyweight at time time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxdyN5i5JtQ

@ljs @conor it looks much scarier than it is. I prefer that (with safety bars) to sitting down (again, with safety bars) because I’ve tipped over and almost fell on my face before

@sven @conor yeah I'm definitely going to practice this!

I've seen a vid of a guy falling back and the thing toppling and it's not nice... and my rack isn't bolted down...

@conor @sven nice will use that for practising the abort!

@ljs @sven /do not/ practice doing that, failing that way was not something I ever want to do again. Failing by going really deep so that bar lands on the safeties or the hop forward are the way to go, what's in that video hurt my shoulder and I never wanna do it again.

@conor @sven lol ok I'll maybe practice doing the deep squat abort instead then.

Wondering if I should go so far as to bolt the fucking thing into the ground... I guess if done slow toppling less likely

@ljs @sven idk, if you can bolt it down you probably should...

@conor @sven anyway I found another tool in the arsenal.

Meet Bob! Bob helps me with cardio and also dealing with frustrations in life.

He does this by being punched in the face and body, quite a lot!

Recommended

@ljs @sven maybe the order of my replies was confusing, but that was a reply to the bit about a fail that caused me to lose a lot of confidence.

@conor @sven sure, squat aborts are grim anyway, but I'll definitely prefer the squat out of it approach.

Sorry that abort got so squirly like that! Squats be scary man

@conor @ljs ouch.. that looked gnarly. glad you made it out okay because that could’ve gone much worse as well!

@ljs @conor if your bars are high enough and you can just squat down and get out I’d probably do that. I have to set the bars somewhat lower probably and I have this weird thing where I kinda fall forward if I try to bail from a max attempt and that just isn’t fun. That’s why I prefer to drop the bar backward and just hop out.

@sven @ljs Yeah, if you've got the spare depth (or fine enough safety increments) to place the safeties where you can just get lower and out it's the best option for sure.

@ljs I dunno if I mentioned it, but kinda follows from the leverage stuff - the angle of the incline can make a big difference, the ratio would vary.

> Nice numbers btw

It's a long time since I did barbell incline, so I had to look back at my logs to get a ratio, I don't do those numbers at the moment, but hopefully I'll be back there soon... GL with the 100! :)

@conor @ljs impressive numbers!

I kinda hope to hit 120 flat bench this year but progress has slowed down a lot since ~100kg there.

@sven @ljs same thing happened to me actually, hit a wall just past 100. Took a switch of program to break through.

@conor @sven these gainz love to tease don't they?