How to Bench 225 w/ Show Up Fitness

Want a stronger bench without the burnout cycle of “max out Mondays”? We dive into the real drivers of pressing strength—scapular mechanics, intelligent frequency, and targeted accessories—then map them onto five influential programs lifters actually use: Sheiko, Smolov Jr, Westside Conjugate, Wendler’s 5/3/1, and the Bulgarian-style daily max approach. Along the way, we explain how to spot and fix sticking points at the chest, midrange, and lockout, and why bar path, elbow angle, foot pressure, and a controlled thoracic arch can add pounds fast without beating up your shoulders.

I walk through a practical hybrid template I use with clients chasing 225, 275, or 315: straight-set specificity for bench, CCA blocks to round out pressing angles and back strength, and a weekly wave of heavy work, volume, and speed. We cover warm-up that actually potentiates—foam roller push-ups, cuff activation, med-ball slams—plus reps in reserve, rest intervals that respect the ATP-PC system, and how to use heavy eccentrics, pauses, boards, and pins to train your nervous system above goal weight. You’ll hear clear cues for breathing and bracing, how to line up on the bench, and why a slight arch is a tool, not a sin.

This conversation is built for coaches and serious lifters who want outcomes, not fluff. You’ll get actionable progression ideas, a retesting timeline that protects momentum, and a simple method to choose accessories by reviewing video and training the exact range where your lift slows. We also talk shop about creating a PR culture in your gym—monthly focus lifts, leaderboards, and community Saturdays—so clients stay engaged and keep showing up.

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Transcript

Welcome & Mentorship Setup

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showuffitness.com. Also make sure to check out my book, How to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy all. Welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. Today we're coming at you live with our mentorship program where you get access to the belt buckle trainer himself. And we had some reach outs from the qualified personal trainers community on Facebook asking about how you would set up a program for a client who specifically wants to improve their bench press. So before we get into the most influential bench press programs, and we break those down, and then we're going to give homework for next week to review this with actual specific numbers based off of intensity. But we got to start with the basics. And when we look at the basics, you got to start with the anatomy. So who could tell me the 17 muscles around the shoulder? Let's begin there.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Okay. Um, so uh let's start with the rotary cuff muscle. So infraspinatus, um uh supraspinatus, teres minor, and the subscapularis, teres major, rhomboid minor, rhomboid major, this is the dorsi, trapezius, deltoid, pec major, pec minor, levitor scapula, biceps brachialis, triceps brachialis, uh corco brachialis. Um I'm missing right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Yeah, one more.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Umterior.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Nice done. So those are the 17 muscles, and then let's take a look at the 17 actions. Who can name the nine at the humerus?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

I don't want to take the spotlight, but I'll do it if no one else is.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Let's do it, Luke.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Okay, humerus. So we got adduction and abduction, horizontal abduction, horizontal adduction, internal rotation, external rotation, I'm at six, and then extension and flexion and uh scaption. There you go.

Why Scapular Motion Matters For Bench

Needs Analysis And Energy Systems

Bottom Mid Top: Sticking Points

Bar Path Cues And Competition Rules

SPEAKER_02 2:08

There you go. Nicely done. So those are the nine at the humerus. So in the sagittal plane, we got flexion, extension, frontal plane, AB, A deduction, and then we have five in the transverse, of which scaption is 30 degrees inside of horizontal adduction. That's the scapular plane, they'll refer that to. And then for the scapula, we have eight actions, which we can go up and down, elevation, depression in the transverse plane. We can protract and retract, upwardly rotate, and then downwardly rotate in the anterior posterior tilt. Now you may be thinking, well, why is that important? The foundation of movement is what's really important when you get into the programming. And so each one of these actions has muscles that are going to be associated with it. And when we look at the setup for a bench press, this isn't gonna be about form and everything, because there's different takes on that and grips and so forth. But when you look at common injuries that are gonna take place, a lot of times it's because we just bench press. And if we bench press four, six times a week, that barbell can fix in and the scapula doesn't get to go through all those other actions. And especially when we bench press, we want to retract and depress and keep the scapula down because when you lock it in, you're going to be allowed to produce more force. We want that. But when you do something like a push-up, that stability, taking the scapula through more of a range of motion is advantageous. So when we get into the avatar moving forward next week, and then the 30-day program will also address common injuries that are associated with that fixed position with the barbell and why it's advantageous to sprinkle in, you know, as we say, correctives as whether if it's part of the accessory, the warm-up, or at the end, instead of doing like a METCON, you could do correctives that would help prevent any type of future injuries. So we got to look at what the NSCA would call like the needs analysis for the athlete. Now, it's up for debate. Some people say, you know, powerlifters aren't athletes, whatever. But when it comes to the sport of power lifting, which is gonna be bench press, squat, and deadlift, we need to look at common injuries that are gonna take place, which you're gonna see at the shoulder, also the thoracic region, the elbow, the wrist. We got to look at the bioenergetics, which is the ATP PC or fossiocreatin system, because you're doing it less than 10 reps. It's type two recruitment, fast explosive. And then we want to look at the actions that are associated in the muscles. So when we bench press, the main muscles that are gonna be working on the bottom part, it's gonna be your anterior deltoid due to horizontal adduction. So getting it off your chest. You will have some lat engagement, which is up for debate. And there's a great instructor when I was teaching at NPTI, Tim Enriquez, and he wrote a powerlifting book. If you just search that on Amazon, it's a great, great book to reference. I think he has the world record in like a strict curl. The guy's an absolute stud. Great person to have on the NPTI team. As when I was teaching, you had some NASAM heads who were bouncing on BOSU balls and stability balls, but then you had great instructors like Tim who in the trenches move in serious weight. I'd highly suggest taking a look at that book. And he references in the bottom because if you had a stick on your chest and then you engage your lats, you will see the bar will come off a couple inches. So there is some lat engagement because of when your humerus is extended that far behind the body, the pec major is actually at a mechanical disadvantage. So it's more of your anterior deltoid, and the lats help assist in that deep extended position. In the middle, it's gonna be more of your chest as a weakness. And then at the top, if you can't lock out, that's more triceps. These are all important things to consider when looking at the muscle activation. I'm not going to get too much into bar path, which would be good for you to look up if you're listening to it like Luke is when he's driving. You can look at professional power lifters and the bar path. And that's why when I cue how to bench press, I'll have someone stand up and I'll cue them to if you were to push me over, if I've just made fun of your hair or said you had stupid shoes and you were pissed off me and you wanted to push me over, you wouldn't flare your elbows up like a T. You would tuck them closer to the body, more like a V. And that's where we would get more force production, like alignment, how they push off. So that setup and that bar path. So when I coach people, when I'm behind them spotting, I will tell them to push the bar back towards me because from the side, it's not just straight up and straight down. It's actually more of a curve and then it comes back towards the rack. And that form is really, really important. You know, keeping the feet on the ground. You'll hear a lot of debate with people posting videos of whoever it may be, and oh, they're arching their back. When it comes to the professional competition, they have their specific rules. You have to have your glutes on the bench, you need a pause, but you also can have that arch because you're lessening the range of motion. So a thoracic arch isn't necessarily bad. It's part of the competition in the form. So ask yourself, who's coming in? Our goal here is the bench 225. I'm taking this from a case example that I personally did as a trainer. I incorporated the top five powerlifting programs that are out there, which we'll review here in a second, but also added my own salt in there that was my you know special salt because I have my experience and I wrote an article that I was actually talking to chat this morning. I don't know why, but stack.com is no longer around. At one point in like the late 2000s, it was one of the most popular youth and athletic websites. I was one of the contributing writers, but actually, my article was one of the top for that year. I think it was 2013, I believe, and it was how to bench 315. You can take a percentage like 315 and just downregulate it to match up with 225. So if you had someone who came in specifically, maybe it's a high school kid and mom and dad are gonna be paying for the sessions. Obviously, we want to start with, well, how many days a week do you want to train with me? What does the rest of your programming look like? And in this case, the kid wanted to train with me three times. So I made the whole workout still a variant of CCA, but the first part was strictly straight sets. So I'll get into what the warm-up looked like and what the weight looked like from day one, day three, and day five. But after that first straight set, which was just a C because that's the main goal, we got into a CCA complementing with you know dumbbells, incline press, but then we would do back. And then last CCA, we would get into some legs because we wanted to get a full body, even though the emphasis was still bench press. And I think that's the beauty behind the programming with the CCA, is you can modify it to make it more advanced, like someone who wants to bench 225, 275, 315, whatever that number is. Make that the main emphasis first. And then the second CCA, the third CCA can be hitting the other muscles, whether if it's shoulders, back, chest again, legs. You make that decision. You could have day one, which I would do more squat specific in that third CCA. Day three would be hinge, day five would be unilateral. So we're getting all the movement patterns within the program to complement it because I don't want to just only do bench press unless they're doing stuff outside. So I've also worked with clients who would say, can you just train me one day a week specific only to chest? Because I'm doing a back day, a leg day, shoulder day, an arm day, and so forth. You just have to learn from the client what they want. And so when we look at the most popular programs, what are some that you've heard of that people would implement when it comes to increasing your bench?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Frequency.

Case Study: Programming Around 225

Know The Big Five Bench Programs

Specificity Warm Ups And Potentiation

Force Velocity And Set Structure

Speed Work And Heavy Eccentrics

Safety Setups And Pause Variations

Weekly Progressions And Variability

Testing Mindset And Overload Tricks

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Okay, so not the acute variables. I'm talking actual names. So, like there's Mark Bell, who is known in the powerlifting world, he created the how much you can bench, like that vest. There's specific programs that have names from people. For example, the most popular one is probably the Wendler 531. And that is one of the top five that is out there. Have you heard of any other bench programs that people would go through? That's just awesome. So this is just going to educate you. So if you had someone who came in, knowing that language, and that's the great thing about being a strength coach, is I may not be one of the first athletic groups that I worked with was field hockey. I don't have a background with field hockey. I never coached field hockey, but I understand the needs analysis and I can look at the sport, I can analyze the sport, and I let that person talk. So when it comes to maybe benching, you may hear people say like a five, three, one. And if you go, what the hell is that? I've never heard of it before. You're gonna sound uneducated to that lifter. So that's why I wanted to review the top five, just so you can tell, yeah, I've heard of that one. I personally haven't done it recently, but what have you done within that program? Because it's very common what people do, which you shouldn't do, is they take pieces of the program and they already start adjusting it from the get-go. It'll be like Wolfgang Puck giving me a recipe and I start adding in my salt and everything and the way I like to do it. You have to follow it to a T and go through that four, eight, 10-week program, sometimes longer, to see how your body responds, which I've done with all of these personally. And then you can add your two cents when you create your own. And that's exactly what I did for this client. So the five most influential bench press strength programs over about the last 60 to 70 years. You're gonna have the Boris Scheiko, S-H-E-I-K-O, the Scheiko method. He's a legend in the powerlifting community. It's gonna be frequency three to four times per week, sometimes twice per week, a lot of sub-maximal lifts, pause lifting, uh, different grips, and really big in really big with bench as the sports skill. The second one's gonna be these small. I'm gonna butcher a lot of these names, but they're a lot of eastern-based. This is uh the small of approach, really big in the squatting community. That's where I actually got its technique from the small bench. Sorry, the small of um, the small of squat program, but they also have a small of junior bench, sm-o-l- and this one's gonna be about in the 90s, and it was pretty much four times a week. Monday you'll stick to like a six by six, Wednesday, seven by five, Friday, eight by four, Saturday, ten by three. And those variables will have percentages based off of whatever the week is gonna be on. And there was a great chart that Dr. Waterberry found and used within our slides within the SUF CPT. And it's at the end of the first group of slides for periodization, and they looked at these Russian lifters because they owned about a six Olympiac period block, which was 24 years. And when they looked at the numbers that they were using, 80 to 85 percent of their lifts were not one rep max. And I think that's really important. When you're working with a novice lifter, they may even say they're intermediate. The common approach, for example, with like a 225, you're gonna put the wheels on for 135, you do it for 10 reps. You put a 10 on, you do it for eight. You go to 185 and you do it for three, two oh five for a couple, and then you do a one rep max with 225. And you do this every single week. And typically you'll do bench one time. That's not very structured, but if you've been lifting since high school, that's a pretty common approach to take and you will get stronger. Imagine how much testosterone is flowing through a 16, 17, 18-year-old. Just by showing up and being consistent, you're going to get significantly stronger. But the question needs to be is it the most optimal? And that's why these programs are really important because they optimize based off of frequency as well as intensity and central nervous system fatigue. The third most popular in some circles, it may be even be the most popular, it's Louis Simmons and the Westside Barbell, which is West Side Conjugate. Really big into also a lot of these, the common thing is is gonna be frequency, how many times you're doing it. So two to three times per week, max effort, dynamic effort, and optional repetition work. They do a lot of like speed pressing and board pressing, and you know, for the low body, because he's really big into you know squatting and deadlifting, a lot of like low back extensions and so forth. A lot of great people I've interviewed on my podcast, they went and learned for weeks at a time with Louis when he was around. And it's just like you're in front of one of the best strength coaches in the world, and so you just soak up everything. And Louis is a legend. So you definitely would want to be familiar with his name if someone came in and said, Oh, I tried the conjugate Westside, and you're like, Oh, never heard of that, never heard of Louis Simmons. Be kind of similar to someone talking about basketball, and they say, Oh, Michael Jordan, and you're like, Oh, who's that? Is that a popular person? It's not to say that your methodology and your foundation for programming isn't sound, but you're gonna lose a lot of credibility in the eyes of that person if you don't know some of these basic programs. And then, like I said earlier, the 531 by Wendler, Jim Wendler, two to three times per week with supplemental work, auto-regulation, submaximal lifting, long-term progressions. These are just some cliff notes from each one. And then we have the Bulgarian influence daily max model, which is an interesting one because you're benching four to six times per week. You'll do like daily max singles, 80 to 90 percent back off work, low exercise variation, very, very high specificity. So you're benching all the time, sometimes even twice within that session. So you start out with bench press and then you get into accessory work and you come back to bench press. And so those are the three, sorry, the five most uh popular ones that you will hear people talking about. Now, how do you program for a client? And so I would start out with a straight set specific to bench press taken from the Bulgarian method. It's very specific. If you want to increase your bench press, we need to be bench pressing, not on a fucking stability ball, not doing stability work. We're getting into the meat and potatoes. So you need to have a pretty good warm-up. You know, hit the upper body checkpoints, so get the wrist in the elbow, the shoulder, taking it through all planes of motion, but you got to look at the thoracic region as well. So make sure you have a good two to three drills that you like to do. I really, I'm not joking either. I really am a big believer of foam roller push-ups because the instability, and when you have instability drills, it just activates the nervous system optimally for upper body. So the rotator cuff, as Luke mentioned earlier, we're gonna start firing up. I like getting partial reps just for some work because if you can bench 225, you can do you know 30 plus push-ups pretty easily. So I'll do some partials just to kind of get my heart rate up there. I want to the ramp methodology in the US the NSCA textbook is you raise your blood pressure and your body temperature, you activate, and then you get into mobilization and potentiation. And potentiation is like exciting the nervous system. So it'd be like doing jumps before you bench press because that's potentiating the system. You'll see some people grab a med ball and throw it down into the ground that's no, maybe five or 10 pounds, but as hard as you possibly can, that potentiates the system. It gets you ready, especially if you do any type of foam rolling. Nothing wrong with foam foam rolling within reason, but if you were to foam roll your chest and your lats and you do some you know mid-back stuff, what are you doing to the nervous system? You're calming it down. That's exactly what you don't want to do when you're lifting extremely heavy. So if you did want to do some foam rolling, which in some cases you may need to because they they lack shoulder flexion, external, internal rotation, whatever your diagnosis is when it comes to movement competency, foam roll, sure, but then you need to get into some potentiation stuff. Now it's gonna be throwing something out of wall, jumping, you need some banded rows or presses where you're going maximal when you look at the force velocity curve. Now, the force velocity curve, as I'm drawing it right here. So if you're listening, just think of like an X almost. When the weight is really high, the velocity is extremely low. So think of a one rep max, you're not pushing it very fast. You are struggling. That may take five, 10 seconds to complete that one repetition maximum. A lot of force, which power is defined as force times velocity. On the other side of the spectrum, think of a baseball. You can throw that significantly faster. The velocity is gonna be very high, but the load is not very heavy. You're not gonna throw a bowling ball very fast. So you're gonna dance around this force velocity occur when it comes to maximal intensities. So, as I said earlier, with I think it was the west side, or maybe it was the small of, and they have percentages, so like a 10 by three, whereas 90% is roughly three reps, but you're not doing 90% to volitional fatigue. You may be using 75%. So, what that would look like with the bench press is I can do 155 for 10 reps. That would be roughly 75% of my one rep max. I would take that 155 and do 10 sets of three, resting two to as much as five plus minutes, pending on the environment. You know, Dr. Waterberry is a professor at USC and he's an expert in bioenergetics and and neurophysical therapy stuff. And he's talked about how optimization for glycogen and ATP replenishment for maximal lifts can sometimes take up to 30 minutes. But that's not realistic. You're not going to do a set and then have your client wait 30 minutes. But as a bro who's always in a gym, like I am, and most of us are, I've done that before. I've worked out for three or four hours to optimize to go from that 98% to that 99%. So if we're getting at least three minutes, you're getting pretty damn close to full replenishment. Five would probably be more optimal, but you need to factor in that 60-minute session. And that's great with when you do CCA, is if you were to do like a bench and do a lap pull down into a plank, by the time you come back to the bench, it's been two or three minutes. But mind you, we have to look at what the client wants. So that's why I chose to do straight sets to optimize the force production. Now you could do something with the CCA similar to the small volt where you're you're doing that first CCA and you do three of those 10 by three. And the second CCA, you do three more, and the last one, you do three more. So you're getting nine total and you're still completing that program. I wouldn't take someone A to Z through one of these because of optimization with time as a personal trainer. And that's an important thing to understand there. I'm talking from the perspective as a personal trainer with that client in front of me. So I want to sprinkle in based on their goals. That's why you assess them to see what they want and just be very open. I can take you through just, and I've done this before. I had a guy pay me a lot of money in West Hollywood, and he would come in because he wanted to bench 315 one day a week, and we would only bench press. We would warm up, optimize the warm-up, we do some good power potentiation stuff. We would sit for five to six minutes and we would just talk about life, love, happiness. That was the rest. And then we get back into working up to the working sets. So a warm-up set would be like that 135 for 10 reps. I don't count that as a working set. So then you rest. If you want to do some mobility drills, that's perfectly fine. Then you add on a 10 for the 155. As I said, he could do it or she could do it, say 10 times. I'm not going to volitional fatigue. And that's really important with power lifting because when you go to volitional fatigue, it's going to take a long Longer to recover. The goal is maximal force production. This isn't hypertrophy. It's a whole nother conversation. So I want to save stuff in the tank or what we call reps in reserve. So if you were to do something like a 10 by 3 at 75%, you will notice that you could do eight more reps. I don't want you to. It's all about force production. Take that example I said earlier with the baseball player. Could a baseball player have 35 balls and just take them and throw them as fast as he can? Sure, he could, but that's not optimal. You throw the ball, you rest 30 seconds, and then you do it again. It's kind of in the same token of we're going to be doing one to 10 reps. Typically, we're not going to do much more than 10 because that's going to be more local muscular endurance, type one fiber recruitment. And if you're trying to go one rep max, which would be type two X, you need to train those fiber types specifically, which require longer rest periods. And so pending on that day, one day will be more higher load. So, like I said right there, 75% for three reps. And then the next time they come in, maybe you're going to go 85%, which would be roughly five reps, and you do that for doubles or triples. Typically won't see a lot of singles because of the neural adaptation that takes place. Two and three are the most common rep ranges that you're going to see when it comes to power lifting. And then on that third day, or on like a Friday or Saturday, what I like to do is sprinkle in speed work. So that means I would go 30 to 45%. So if the goal is to hit 225, you could A use that percentage-based training, or B, you could go off of what their current one rep max is. So what I mean by that is you take 185 and just type in the Google Machine 1RM bench press calculator, and then you would take those percentages and use that, or you could use it based off of the 225. I like to go off of 225 because I'm big into teaching the nervous system where you're going to be. And that's just a coach-by-coach approach. So on that speed day, the last two or three sets, working sets, I would do heavy, heavy eccentrics. So I would be doing 225 for three reps eccentric. I, as the trainer, I would lift them up with rest. And then I'll probably get into that next CCA. Maybe I'll do some back work. Then I'll put on a 10 on each side. So do 245 for two reps on eccentric. And then I'll go up another 10 as well. And we'll come back and hit 265 for a couple more eccentrics. Because again, what that does eccentrically, we are stronger eccentrically when the muscle lengthens. We are creating more force eccentrically. But the biggest thing comparative to what most people do, most people ramp up and they never go above where they want to be. So if you really want to be bench pressing that load, you got to expose yourself to a heavier load you've ever seen before. Because when you take it off and you're trying to hit that one rep max, I don't want you to freak out. I want you to be controlled because you've felt this load before. And for a lot of people, that first time when they experience a 225, 275, 315, whatever it may be, they freak out and they'll start wiggling their body, and that's where you get hurt. It's not to say that heavy lifting is always where you get hurt, but if you've never been exposed to that load before, it's natural for your system to lose that proper form and you're going to start lifting your butt up or moving your feet. And so you lose the force production. The feet are really, really, really important when it comes to bench pressing. The example I like to give is try to push someone sitting in a chair with your feet off the ground. You don't have a lot of force. So when your feet are on the ground, you get a lot more leverage. And that's why it's a closed connect, it's an open connect chain exercise, but your feet are closed on the ground where you're going to get your glutes, you're going to get more posterior chain activation. So we do not typically like to retest for at least four weeks. A lot of these programs will be day one, you'll test, and then maybe 12 weeks later, you would test again. I would not hit that one rep max for 12 weeks. And there's a there's a question here: how do you do this as a solo lifter? It is challenging when it comes to the heavy eccentrics. You have to have like a safety rack or some type of support. In my gym here in Santa Monica, I'm looking at our rack, and we have little uh metal rods that you can just eccentrically come down, and then I can get out of it and then I take the weight off and I bring it back up. They do have some clamps where like these hooks that you can put on there. So for if you're trying to bench 225, you could have 225 on there. So you have a 45 and then you have uh a 10, a 10, and then a 25 on this little um device. So when you lower it down, the weight will hit the ground and then the the hooks will unhook. And so then you're pressing up 165. So that's that's a great way to get that exposure. Pin pressing is another variation, Luke's asking there, or you would start just on the concentric. A lot of these plans will also incorporate a dead stop and playing around, taking away the eccentric uh momentum that a lot of times that we'll use. You'll see people just bounce off their chest. So if you really want to get a true one rep max, you need to pause for a good second. And so doing pause reps, board pressing, those are all different techniques to help you overcome that one rep max. So I would each week I would change the percentages. As I said earlier on day one, if we were doing 10 by 3 at 75%, the following week, I maybe do 10 by 3 at 80%. So I'd go up five or 10 pounds. Then the following Monday, I may do five by five at 80%. So I'm changing up the volume and the frequency for that specific lift. And that's exactly that chart that Dr. Waterberry shows. 80% of the lifts are constantly being varied. And as he would classify it, is it would be like the same as going into like these um these Russian lifters, it'd be like the same going to the gym, taking a die, and you roll it. And you get nine. Great. And you roll the next die and you get three. Okay, we're doing nine sets of three, and then you have a random board of percentages, and then you just take a percentage and then you incorporate that, but you have to be resting at that three-minute marker minimum. So I've gotten up to 110 for two reps using most of what you're saying, but then it just gets challenging because you don't have to spotter. That is definitely the reason why, and the value of working with a trainer is you will constantly be pushing to that maximal intensity because you have that security. So when you come in for that first day, I just meet you and you say you want to get a bigger bench, we will do a one rep max. Now, mind you, if you're a beginner and you've never lifted before, we need to strengthen ligaments and tendons, neuromuscular communication, movement competency for at least a month. Then I would do a one-rep max. I'm taking this as the case example that I had. A client came in and they've been benching for numerous years. This is a 20-year-old, still trying to bench 225. And so I could talk bro to him, but we went and did a one rep max and he got 195. And then we went to 225 and had him control it down. Don't push up eccentrically for two reps. Then we went up to 245. And that's really powerful because they're invision, they're visualizing doing and completing that rep. And that's really, really important because that whole mental side of it can really throw a wrench in the equation. Now, I forget the fella's name, but he's a legendary strength coach. He works with high school athletes, and he did a YouTube on benching 315. And I forget the guy's name. I'll have to put it in here when I find it later. But it's just, it's this awesome video. And he talks about the difference between your central nervous system and peripheral nervous system and your mental nervous system. This is like your stereotypical Beavis and Butthead PE coach. This guy's like your quintessential. I mean, he says a lot of crazy stuff in the video. He's like with the kids bench pressing and he takes a breath. He's like, no, no, no, we're not breathing like we're in ballerina class. Take a big, big, deep breath. He's just he's funny in that regard. But he's doing a lot of this super overload. And it's really neat to hear him talk about the mental nervous system. And that's where you'll see some people get like those smelling salts. You know, when I go heavy for that one rep, it's usually at seminars because that's when I get my spotters. I'll have people slap me in the chest. And the harder you slap, the better because it's stimulating your nervous system. It's like boom, you get a little stinger. So you're heightened. And that's what you want when it comes to that maximal lift for that one rep max. Again, take this with a grain of salt, because if you have someone who comes in and they say, I want to get stronger, and they're bench pressing once or twice a month, just by bench pressing more once or twice a week, they're going to get stronger. We don't need to be slapping our clients and getting lawsuits. But for those more serious, intermediate to advanced lifters who want to hit that number, I want to hit 225, I want to hit 250, I want to hit 275. Knowing that approach on how to get there and having some tricks and you know, put some music on Blair, you know, Metallica, Master of the Puppets, whatever it is, get them fired up for that one rep max. We will do that on day one, but I'll set very clear expectations. We won't retest this for four to six weeks until we finish this plan. So I like to take a variation of you know the West Side or the 531 Wendler, and I'll do one on one day, and then two days later, we'll do another one. And then that third day I get into speed work and more super overload. That's my approach. Your homework for this is to look at those five, choose one, and start playing around either with your personal records, or you can do a hypothetical with a client. So you go in, like I said, the Google machine, bench press calculator, put those numbers in. So then you can take it to the program and get the exact numbers for that day. So by writing this out and doing a four to eight, sometimes 10-week program, and if you've written it all out, you've essentially gone through that repetition for that hypothetical client. Now, Paul was just talking about how he got hired at EOS and he's starting today. Is that something that he needs to really focus on? Most of his clients being in their elderly? No, that's but it's kind of a fun exercise for those hypotheticals. If you did have someone who said, I want to hit this specific weight. So again, just to review those five programs that I want you to go and take a look at in more thorough detail, because I'm just giving you the cliff notes right here. We have Boris Schecko and the Scheiko method. It could be Scheiko. I'm butchering that one. And then we have the small off, which is S-M-O-L-O-V, butcher that one as well. Junior bench program, West Side Conjugate by Louis Simmons, 531 by Windler, and the Bulgarian Influence Daily Max Models, which is an interesting one because you literally bench press six days a week over the course of that block. When I say block, that's pure periodization. Each week will be the microcycle, and then we have the month, which would be the meso, the that would be the block that we're looking at, and then the time period of when you want to get there. People who've been lifting for a while, they'll do a one rep max once or twice a year, and they tailor it to peak at that event. So they literally do not do a one rep max. They may do it in January, and their meet is in June or July. They won't hit a one rep max until the meet. They specifically will progress. They'll have some D-training and deloading, which is really, really important when you get into the more fine details. I have never in my professional career ever deloted with a client because my clients don't need to. They need to just show up regularly. I've seen trainers that will spend so much time getting into the, you know, the nuances of the perfect program, but your clients constantly canceling. So that's that's where we're drawing the line right here. These are really fun hypotheticals to review because it's awesome to train these types of individuals. The realistic scenario when you're at a big box gym, you're not going to come across it very much. When I worked at Renaissance Club Sport, I was there for about three to four years. I think there were two people in my whole entire time that I was there that specifically had weight-oriented goals, like I want to squat this, I want to bench this, I want to deadlift this. These programs can be tailored for those three lifts. That's why they call them the power lifts. But these are the top five most popular ones that would be good for you to do some homework. Choose one. That's your homework assignment. Get into the acute variables by putting in the hypotheticals either for yourself or for that client who's trying to bench 225. I wanted to open it up for any questions that you have.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Anything at all around benching 225? Chris, can you spend a minute maybe just a little bit more expanding on just the form and technique? I know you talked about the motion of the bar, uh, feet planted, uh, glutes engaged, but I think you want to just like I struggle like really keeping my like scapulas, you know, pig pressed together and things like that. But are there other things that you'd be aware of, is particularly when you know putting a little bit more load on the bar?

SPEAKER_02 35:05

Absolutely. So the the technique that I like to teach, you'll see some crazy techniques. And it's like if someone comes up and they set up like in this unique way, I love it. Get after it. That's your unique way, especially like with the warmups. Some people may start out with the bar. I'm not going to change much of their routine, but if you have someone who doesn't have a routine and you're setting them up, I like to cue your scapulus back and down. And that's what's important with the liftoff, is because when you go back and down, if you then have to unlock the bar or unweight the bar, you are then getting your scapulus out of that position. So that's why it's important to get in your position. I usually like to have, if I'm looking down at you, the top of your head will be at where the bar would be if you would go straight down. Some people will line up their eyes. And when you line up their eyes, you're more likely to hit the pins and it just kind of screws up the lift. So I want you to be further away from me, with your top of the head being right where the bar would be. So when you lock down your scapulas, I will then unrack it for you, get you in the position, and then you would do your reps. And that's where IQ, push the bar back towards me. That's a better bar path for more optimization. Squeeze the glutes because that's going to prevent any type of anterior tilt or your butt coming off the bench. And you can have that thoracic arch. So if you were sitting back in classroom days, you had those station desks and you were just to lean back full extension, the chair would be right around like T6. That's the thoracic extension that I'm referencing. It's okay to get that arch because if you're squeezing your glutes, you're not compromising your core and your shoulders will be fine. And then when you're pressing away, you want to drive back towards the spotter. And again, that's just cueing that optimal bar path, which you should definitely take a look at for some of the world-class lifters. And you can see their bar paths are different. Just like a basketball player, Steph Curry has a different shot, then give me another name.

Retesting Windows And Session Design

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Raymond Green. There you go. Exactly.

Form Setup Grip Feet And Breath

SPEAKER_02 37:09

There you go. Booker, Green, whoever maybe LeBron James, they have different shots. It's not to say that everyone needs to shoot like Steph Curry, it's what works for you and how you can perform comfortably. And the breathing, when it comes to maximal lifts, you want to pretend like if with squatting, they'll say like you're going underwater. You want to hold your breath to create that interabdominal pressure. And it's not again, I'm not against I'm a big believer of using a weight belt when you're getting into that 80 plus percent, because you create more intra abdominal pressure and you're just going to support your low back. I'm not putting on a back brace for set one. I'm doing it when I get to those sub-lifts of 80 plus percent. And that's just going to help create more stability in your core. People out there that make, you know, oh, it's going to make your core weak. You're doing it for a set. You know, later on in the program at the end, you can do specific core work and farmers' carries to build your core up. I'm not talking about a two-hour workout with the back brace on the entire time. So you want to breathe in eccentrically. At the top, you'd hold the bar, take a big deep breath in. Then when you're coming down, your breath is held. You're not breathing in like a beginner would. And then when you press up concentrically, you push little parts of air out. You're not doing that. It's bars up top, big breath, hold, bring it down. You hear that grunting because I'm just pushing out a little bit of air so I don't pass out. It's common for people to get you know lightheaded because your blood pressure actually dips lower when you hold your breath via the vagal nerve. And so there's pressure against that nerve, and your parasympathetic nervous system kicks in. So your blood pressure shoots down. So then when you rack it, your blood pressure shoots up rack rapidly. And that's where you see those stars. So usually when you go with that one rep max and you press it up, whether if you get it or not, I'm gonna have you stay there for a couple of seconds just to get your breath so you don't shoot up quickly and then get up and pass out. Now, with that being said, I think it's important to film some of these sessions. So then you can find out where they're typically the weakest. And then that for accessory work, that's where you can complement to help those areas get stronger. So if you're having a hard time getting the bar off your chest, doing a lot of front raises. If you can't lock out, that's your triceps, doing a lot of tricep work. The middle part, it's gonna be more chest that's underdeveloped. So getting more chest flies and complementing that with dumbbell work, and you can vary where you see the weakness. So you could have them do partials and hold isometrically where you found that weakness. On the back end, I like to complement, even on that third day, is to make it speed work and super eccentric, but also do more accessory on where you find them the weakest. What I mean by that is if you have a hard time getting it off your chest, I may do um a speed rep with some bands for you know three sets of three, but then I'm gonna have you get on the ground and hold for 30 to 60 seconds where I found you the weakest. So we can strengthen that area that's more underdeveloped. So that complementary work or accessory work on the back end is really great to fine-tune where we're not getting that full range of motion. We will talk about injuries in the classes to come, because it is common when you do one of these plans, just like when someone starts running a lot, you get runner's knee, jumper's knee, Achilles tendonitis. It's common to get injuries. So, how can we prehab, but also potentially rehab if you do come across some common injuries at the shoulder? And we'll talk about that in the weeks to come. Does that help, Paul?

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Yeah, that was great. Thanks, Chris.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

For some of your lifters who are a little smaller, and if they can't get their feet on the ground, I would put some plates so then their feet can be elevated, but they're still locking it down. If you put it on the bench, you're just compromising force production. The grip is important as well. Some people like the suicide grip because it's just more comfortable for them, but they call it a suicide grip for a reason. I like the lock position because studies are actually showing you're like a it's like a quarter percent or three quarters of a percent stronger by keeping that locked grip. And that's the way that I'm gonna teach my lifters because I'm not an Olympic power lifter working with uh a bunch of athletes. I'm working with general pop who want to hit that 225, 275, 315, 365, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Yeah, I want that 225 back, man. This is very timely. So this is good. I love it. That's great.

Accessory Work By Weak Point

Managing Injuries And Prehab

SPEAKER_02 41:35

And then you you'll never see yourself get stronger by incorporating those heavy eccentrics or working out with someone who's stronger than you. Uh to this date, I get the strongest when I worked out with my brother in high school and college, because he was benching 405, and he would just make me bench 315, even though I couldn't, because he was lazy and he just like big brothers do. It's like, no, I'm not taking off another plate, just do 315. But you get so much stronger because you're exposing your nervous system to that load. And the bench press for ladies, you're gonna be at the upper uh percentage if you're hitting 80% of your body weight. I think, in my professional opinion, I would consider like 225, 275 for dudes, 135 for females. You don't see a lot of ladies in the gym hitting 135. That's uh plate on each side, that's pretty impressive. Megan's one of the strongest girls that I've met, and she's she can do 135 for 10 plus reps. That's impressive. So those are things that you know, you're not comparing yourself to other people, right? Because that's the thief of joy. But what are you currently at? And could you get stronger? And and you could, and that's the fun thing about this as a coach, you could have months where you put this on your clients. This month, we're gonna focus on getting stronger on bench press. And every Saturday, you tell them to come on in on Saturday, bring a friend. We're gonna master the art of bench pressing, and we're also gonna do you know, three to five or eight rep maxes every Saturday. So then your community is bringing people in. Next month you do squats, next month you do shoulder press, next month you do pull-up. So every month you can have a goal and everyone is improving. You have a wall with the names on there and you show their PRs, you have a bell. Josh has a weight belt. Sorry, he has a like a WWE belt that he has people sign when they hit PRs. That's how you get your community involved. And when you're benching with your client, if you're at an Equinox for a lifetime, give them high fives, get them fired up. If someone's next, hey, give them a little slap on the chest, get them fired up. Let's go. Come on, Bill, you got this. Get other people involved because that's the community that people are seeking. And if they see you having fun with your client, that's some good weight that that client was moving. That's pretty impressive. You know, what's the strategy? Oh, why don't you come in on our Saturday workshops? They're free, and I'll give you some pointers. But now that's a Lead. And then you can take that lead into an assessment. You find out their goals, and that's how you grow your business. I don't see that at these big box gyms I go to. I see trainers with their arms crossed. I see them sitting on the wall. They have their iPad out and they're just making everything a straight set. If your client specifically asks for it, that's fine. Make exercise fun. I'm a big believer in PR. Some people will say, oh, your client should never go to a one rep max. I challenge that and say, why not? We'll only live once. Why not see how much you can bench? Would it be hypothetically safer to do three or five? Sure. But if my client wants to do a one-rep max, I'm not going to say you are more prone to injury because that's not true. So get them really good at the mechanics and overload appropriately and have fun with it because we're all great coaches. Squatting, deadlifting, Bulgarians, pull-ups, there's so many of these exercises that you can program via undulating periodization, which is changing up those variables every workout versus linear, which is fine, but undulating has been shown to be more superior. So this one it's fun to really incorporate the programming for your client that has these goals. But like I said earlier, it's probably out of a hundred clients, you might get maybe two who would want a specific goal like that. All righty. I want to see those bench presses in your story. If you don't follow the qualified personal trainers community, hop into there. We'll always love those five-star reviews thrown into your story so more people can follow the podcast and hear about the fastest growing certification in fitness. You will learn how to program for all different types of clients. We have three different certs. So if you need to get certified for life, that's your basic CPT. We have the soft tissue, which gets a lot more into programming around pain and helping clients who have pain get out of pain. You link up with a physical therapist, and then we have our nutrition cert, which you learn to link up with a registered dietitian. As Mel will be talking about how to reach out on Thursdays at 11 o'clock. Anything else you all want to chat about today before we call her a day?

SPEAKER_03 46:00

I had a quick question. Um so for Gen Pop, the client that comes in that doesn't have a very specific goal after training them for a while. Do you encourage maybe like, hey, let's try to hit a PR on a bench or a squat or a deadlift or hip thrusting?

Community PR Culture And Business

SPEAKER_02 46:18

Absolutely. And I think just like what I said earlier, you can try to get them involved in the community. So, Virginia, I've been playing I've been training here for the last three months. You've gotten so much stronger. How about we start setting some specific goals for some lifts? Which ones do you find most enjoyable? Which one are you frustrated with that you don't hate, but we can incorporate, let's do three of them. So let's do an upper body push, upper body pull, and a lower body. Or if I'm working with a lady and she wants to focus more on lower body, let's do a five rep max on a hip thrust, let's do an eight rep max on a goblet, and let's do how many push-ups you can do. And let's track this over the next 30 days because you said you're a little frustrated because the scale hasn't been moving that much. But let's focus on these goals as you get stronger, you're gonna be a lot more confident in your movement capabilities, and you're not gonna get so much hung up on that number on the scale. So, which three exercises would you like to focus on? You can proposition it in a way where they get to make the decision versus the coach saying you have to bench squat and deadlift, which I've never done, nor would I ever do. I encourage people to find lifts that they're good at and get them to be consistent so they can see those numbers moving. Okay. Well, I'll be back on Wednesday. Uh, we'll start looking in for next Monday's class, go over those five, look at those acute variables, start putting in those numbers, and let's see what we can do. Have a great day.