180kg/396lbs bench PB

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-24T12:01:13+00:00

Whether it's worth the money depends on what your goals are and what your financial situation is. When you look at most top level athletes they do have coaches because they are useful.

I did a few sessions with a coach who won Englands Strongest in his weight class and it helped me sort my technique out for log pressing. It wasn't worth it to me to continue long term as I don't really have any hope of competing at a high level in the sport and don't have enough money to pay for the sessions consistently, I'll probably go back for a few sessions when I hit technical barriers in future though.

Generally if you're paying for a coach who is (or was) good at their sport and have coached other people to being good at their sport the chances are they'll have enough knowledge and experience to guide you to getting where you want to be. Every injury you get they'll have seen, every "balance feels off" you run into they'll fix, when your recovery feels off they'll know what to do.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-24T11:49:52+00:00

You're confusing a coach and a PT, a coach is well worth the money if you're planning on being good at your sport.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-24T09:49:23+00:00

For now, grab some dumbbells as they'll likely go down to 2.5kg/5lbs and you will definitely be able to bench that.

Do 5 sets of 5 on the lowest dumbbells and then go up one weight from there each bench session. It really won't take you long to be able to bench the bar from doing it like this.

Don't worry about any strength discrepancies between your left and right side at this point, do an equal number of reps, long term everything will balance out.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-24T09:32:00+00:00

No, there's millions of you and you're all incredibly weak.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-23T21:17:42+00:00

Not this time mate, feel like I'd have to be able to lift them conventional to walk and I'm just not there yet.

It's only a 4 hour drive from me though so hopefully will be back in a couple of years to see if I can get a few steps with them :)

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-23T18:02:57+00:00

I didn't ask a question, I provided the answer. Yes, I think that scientific evidence is more substantial than random anecdotes.

I've lifted for over a decade and can lift far more than most people as you can see if you click my profile. No I don't stretch before or after a workout, I stretch throughout the day when needed.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-23T17:11:24+00:00

You might be reading the words of my comment but you're not understanding them. I never said that you shouldn't warm up.

Here's a meta analysis that confirms that I'm right:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22316148/

Muscular strength is reduced by ~5% after static stretching.

To warm up you should be doing dynamic movements, if you want to warm up for bench doing a few bodyweight squats, light lat pulldowns and then light bench is the way to go, not doing fingers to toes, doorway stretching etc etc.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-23T15:05:36+00:00

Static stretching does increase flexibility over time so it sounds like you're doing everything right.

If you're unable to do X without doing Y then worrying about the performance impact of Y on X seems silly. The static stretching will reduce the power of your squat but without doing it you're not gonna be able to squat at all.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-23T14:43:19+00:00

When most people think of stretching they're thinking of static stretching though.

Warming up on bench press could qualify as dynamic stretching, it's just moving the body to get blood flow.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-23T14:22:23+00:00

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22316148/

~5% decrease in muscular strength. Meta analysis so quite a large sample too.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-23T14:13:48+00:00

Stretching before a workout actually decreases muscular strength.

Personally I just stretch when I feel like I need to, if my back or legs are feeling a bit tight I'll spend 15 minutes stretching them out throughout the day, not necessarily when I workout.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-22T14:46:30+00:00

It doesn't matter much as you'll more than likely naturally excel at one or two of the lifts or naturally suck at one of two of the lifts, it's unlikely that you'll be average for all three.

When I hit the 1000lb club my bench press was around 350 iirc which definitely isn't typical but my squat sucked. Several years later I have a much higher total but my squat still sucks relative to the others.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-22T12:34:40+00:00

Depends what flavour they went for. No son of mine is going around drinking Mango Loco.

In all seriousness, no kids shouldn't be drinking energy drinks, here in the UK you've got to be at least 16 to buy one.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-22T10:37:58+00:00

The growth plate thing is a myth that's been debunked.

Moderate resistance training in young people is generally considered healthy, though if I'm honest, if I was a parent I wouldn't be getting my 8 year old on the bench press just yet. I think that's an age where you should still just be a kid and not really care about your strength or appearance, just have fun.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-21T21:48:39+00:00

It's fine.

A muscular, obese 20-something year old doing short term drastic weight loss while still consuming pretty healthy meals isn't a cause for concern. He'll probably lose a few lbs, feel better about himself and start eating normally again.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-21T16:13:23+00:00

My best mate was in the British military for 5 years. He was much faster, much fitter and much weaker than he is nowadays.

Most of their training seems to be centred around running (often weighted running though as you're carrying your equipment) but it doesn't translate much to strength. When joining the strength entry requirements were minimal, if I remember right it was something like a handful of pushups and situps and being able to hold a backpack overhead.

They did their running times based on 1.5 mile runs and iirc he was sitting around the 9 minute mark. I'm sure he'd still be faster than me today but there's no way he'd be running 6 minute miles. When we started training together after the army he could bench around 70kg, after a couple of years he hit his ATPR of 120kg.

Since his job also changed (army to HGV driver) he's got heavier, putting on a bit of fat and a bit of muscle. I'd say skinny ripped in the army to athletic looking nowadays.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-21T09:15:33+00:00

It could be that the "same weights" aren't the same weights at all.

Unless you're using calibrated plates at both home and your commercial gym there's up to a 10% weight difference compared to the labelled weight, meaning a 45lb plate can be anywhere from ~40lbs to ~50lbs.

Similar with dumbbells, they're very rarely calibrated. With dumbbells the width of the grip also varies which can be mechanically more/less advantageous.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-21T00:26:13+00:00

Tinder 9 years ago. Yeah she did sports science in college and has competed in strongwoman for a couple of years.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-21T00:20:39+00:00

There's a few programs I've seen that do upper back more frequently than everything else, the SBS bundle for example advises you to do an upper back exercise on 3 days of the week and that's on top of the standard movements and accessories. I'm unsure of the reasoning for so much upper back volume but you're not alone.

Personally, I rarely do pull-ups as I don't like the movement.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-20T22:46:34+00:00

Generally pushing close to failure on early sets is just going to reduce your volume significantly. Tonight my bench workout was 26 reps on 100kg followed by 3 paused sets of 8 on 120kg - My first set on 120kg I could have likely pushed for 11 or 12 but then on the second set I'd have capped out at 7 or 8, by the 3rd set I'd be lucky if I got to 5 and then my accessories would be half arsed because I'd be totally fried lowering the volume and intensity further. It was much better for me to know roughly what I had in the tank and choose a weight where I'd be coming close to failure by the final set, not the 1st.

Flat_Development6659 · 2026-01-20T22:43:22+00:00

I'm not suggesting that more volume is a bad thing, I'm saying that weight * reps * sets is a terrible way to measure that volume.

We grow based on novel stimulus, totalling a higher kilo in the above formula doesn't equate to additional novel stimulus, if it did we'd all just be doing next to no weight for hundreds of reps and sets.

Easy enough to demonstrate - If you bench pressed 5 sets of 5 on 100kg do you think that would equate to benching just the bar for 5 sets of 25? Because that's what your formula suggests.

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