Bodybuilding Forums

hello everybody. I would like to ask your advice. I have plateaued on my bench press. And I know everybody has heard this one a billion times, but, and I've looked it up before, but I've never really found anything that has helped me. My chest routine is that I start out with 3 sets of incline barbell benchpress. then I got to 3 sets of flat barbell bench press. then I do 2 or 3 sets of flat flyes, and 2 or 3 sets of incline flyes ( I change the degree of incline on these about every workout to try to get a broader range of development ). My goal is to develop my chest, and to increase strength at the same time. Basicly I would like nicely developed pecs, but I also want the strength to back it up. I would like as much help as i can get. thank u for ur time, and plz comment. thank u.

ok so the first thing i would do is to put flat bench first. that way you are stimulating your entire chest while the muscles are still fresh. ideally i would suggest cutting the incline flyes at the end, in order to avoid overtraining, but if you absolutely are adamant about it, do something that will really pack on mass, like weighted chest dips.

as far as weight and reps go, mark's THT program puts you right in the ideal range for strength and development. 3 sets with as much weight as you can do for 8 reps will really stimulate some growth. i've plateaued in the past, and one thing that did help me that mark doesn't say to use are negatives... you put about 90% of your 1 rep max, and then lower it as slow as humanly possible, and then have someone basically help you explode the weight up as much as possible... i did 2-3 sets of 6 with this and it busted my plateau out the water

Have you tried just lowering your reps so you can increase the weight? Use a weight that lands you around 4-6 reps, since you primarily want strength right now. I would just try that, on the same exercises you are already doing, before looking into more complicated alternatives.

Also, isolation exercises like flies are not prone to building large amounts of strength, that's what big heavy compound exercises are for. If you are going to change any exercises I would replace flies with another press of some sort, maybe an incline or flat dumbbell press since you already do both with the barbell.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the help. I'm just confused on what to do. I will look into what yall said! so thanks! I would appreciate any more comments from anybody who would like to comment. Thank you for your time.

Gidday, at 14, I would be recommending training really differently. I would get you to learn the clean and jerk really well, and make that exercise one workout. I would keep reps between 8 - 15, for 5 sets. 2 sets x 12-15 reps, 2 x 10 -12, 1 x 8 -10. Then finish with 2 sets of hanging leg raises, 8 - 12 reps. Next workout, 2, or 3 days later, chinups and dips. 5 sets of each. Reps between 8 - 12 adding weight as you get stronger. If you aren't strong enough, two sets of negatives (just the lowering) lowering for 6 - 8 secs, until you can get 2 sets of 10 reps x 8 secs. Then hang weight. When you can get 2 sets of 10 x 6 - 8 secs with 15 kgs, start doing normal chins and dips. 2/3 days later, clean and jerks. Do that style of thing for a couple of years, eat really well, lots of water, lots of good sleep, you'll be awesome. Then you can start on bodybuilding style routines, heavier weight for lower reps, etc.