Author: Stuart McRobert. Bench press 180 kg

Hello fan! Before you is a bench press power training course, written by the very famous Stuart McRobert, who is well known to you from the book "Think!". It is worth recalling that Coach.
Champions Joe Weider called it "the best bodybuilding book of the 20th century." Thanks to the fundamentally new, revolutionary principles of training outlined in it, thousands of desperate jocks really added strength and mass. Anyone who has tried the Stuart McRobert system on himself knows for sure: it works! And this is a guarantee that the course that you hold in your hands will also work. The author guarantees you that, following his methodological recommendations, you will confidently come to a bench press of 130-140 kg! But this is provided that you are a beginner bodybuilder. And if you have many years of training experience behind you, you can master the bench press of 180 kg!
In this manual there is no place for theoretical reasoning - only practice!
Need to clarify, bare practice! Specific complexes / specific loads and / as a result / specific results!
ONLY FORWARD !
Since the age of 18, my close friend Chat (who looks like a real prisoner of the death camp) has been sweating in one of the city's many rocking chairs. However, in those days I didn’t even know him, just as I didn’t know anything about his main dream of life - to become a bench press champion. It happens, you know, that a person gets stuck on something, so much so that he can neither sleep nor eat calmly. So, this was just the case with.
Chat. He once saw how experienced guys were squeezing from their chests - around the ahs and oohs of the rest of the frail audience! - Well, I fell for this case. In short, by the beginning of the fourth year in this exercise, he finally got to 80 kg. According to local jocks, with his complexion, it was already something of a miracle - for example, walking on the ceiling. Then Chat was firmly "frozen" at this point, and I don't know how his story would have ended if a happy accident had not led him to the gym to my fellow coach Flynn.
“You should have seen him when he came to me to record,” Flynn said with a grin. - Imagine: height 180, and weight - 72 kilograms! And, as they say, from the threshold, he dumped his problem on me - they say, I want to squeeze 135 kg, I'm ready to die for it! He detailed his program. My eyes popped out of surprise! Never heard of anything like it! Estimate, "chest" training - five days a week! Weight is almost always the limit. First 20 or 25 sets of the regular bench press, then 10 with the incline up, and another 5 with the incline down. Plus 10 sets of crossovers, then 10 sets in the machine (last 3 sets with negative reps). Horizontal and inclined breeding lying - 5 sets each, and to the eyeballs 10 or 15 sets of bench press in the "Hummer".
He trained the lats, maybe once a week, and then somehow, biceps - from case to case. And that's it! I didn’t think about squats and deadlifts at all for the last two years. He ate like after a stomach operation, and spent all the cash on some kind of branched-chain amino acids that a cunning trainer from his gym pushed him for 40 bucks a can ...
- He probably immediately asked your opinion about his program?
Flynn laughed.
- Of course, but I told him that today is Sunday, and I have a vow not to swear on weekends. Today I can honestly confess to you, I could not even imagine then that I would be able to forge a bench press champion out of this crazy khanurik!
CHARLIE'S FIRST PROGRAM AT FLYNN'S HALL
Flynn went to his coaching office, took a folder with the name Charlie from the shelf (he has such a folder for each of his students), and pulled out a sheet of paper with an initial program for 12 weeks.
Monday 1. Squats: 5x5
2. Bench press: 5x5
3. Thrust of the upper block behind the head: 5x5
four. Twisting: 1x30
Wednesday
1. Press from behind the head (sitting): 5x5
2. Lifting the bar for biceps: 5x5
3. Rise on toes standing: 5x5
four. Twisting: 5x5
Friday
1. Squats: 5x5 (weight - 80 percent of what Chat squatted on Monday)
2. Bench press narrow (40 cm) grip: 5x5
3. Deadlift: 5x5 - I understand what you were trying to achieve, - I said to Flynn. - You wanted to "stir up" the entire musculature of Chat, so to speak, entirely, and above all the large muscle groups. And you "prescribed" five sets of five repetitions because he used to exhaust himself with long "marathon" workouts - intense in terms of total loads, but not weights. And therefore, he was simply not ready for heavy strength training with a low number of repetitions. Well, the "5x5" system is ideal for a smooth transition to real strength work!
Flynn chuckled contentedly in agreement with my reasoning.
- With this scheme, I have already "pulled out" more than one guy, - he launched into explanations.
- Today, many amateurs drive themselves into corner, practicing the "steroid" techniques of champions from a large number of sets. At first, both strength and volume seem to grow, but then a complete stagnation of results inevitably sets in. What to do here? A competent way out is this: sharply drop the number of sets and, due to this, raise the training weights. After all, muscle growth directly depends on the weight with which you swing. Think for yourself: the more weight, the more muscle fibers are "turned on" to work! Well, most guys believe that the main thing is the number of sets, not weight. From here, it seems to be a logical conclusion: if the muscle has stopped growing, then it turns out that there is simply not enough load. So you need to "bomb" it harder - add another five or ten new sets. In fact, the cause of stagnation was the depletion of all muscle growth resources from an excessive amount of exercises and sets. It doesn't take much imagination to imagine what happens if you do even more sets. Exactly! Then the muscles come full p...!
If in detail, then according to the "5x5" transition system, you first need to do 2 "different" sets with increasing load, then 3 "working" sets of five repetitions. You might think that as you progress, the number of "working" sets will increase. But no, the number of such sets remains the same. It is only necessary that they steadily “get heavier” over time, and in the end the student gets to his maximum weight. (I mean the ultimate result in the bench press that he can show by the end of the initial training period.) By the way, if at first you can’t master the 5x5 scheme, you can try 4x5, then only 2 sets will be “working”.
Of course, Chat was not without difficulties. The guy could not comprehend in any way that you only need to go to the gym three times a week, and do the bench press - only two times. But then I got used to it, and the process began.
SECOND CHAT PROGRAM
Flynn dug through the folder, looking for the second Chat program. "Aha, there she is!" He handed me a sheet. The second program, like the first, was designed for 12 weeks.
Monday
1. Squats: 5x5
2. Bench press: 2x5 ("warm up" with increasing weight), then 5/4/3/2/1
3. Bent Over Row: 5x5
four. Twisting: 1x40
Wednesday
1. Seated Dumbbell Press: 4x6
2. Lifting dumbbells for biceps on an inclined bench: 4x6
3. Rise on socks sitting: 2x10
four. Наклоны в стороны: 1х15 (в каждую сторону) Friday
1. Deadlift: 5x5
2. Bench press: 4x5
3. Thrust down: 4x5
four. Incline (30 degrees) dumbbell press: 4x5
5. Twisting: 1x40
“The 5/4/3/2/1 circuit,” Flynn said, “is another step in the transition to real heavy training with low reps.
I nodded. I am familiar with this system. At the time, I experienced it myself.
So Chat isn't the only one of Flynn's students who benefited from it. “First,” Flynn continued, “you do a couple of warm-up sets. Then you go to "workers". For the first, you take such a weight to do five good reps. But not your maximum for five - otherwise you will immediately run out of steam. Then you increase the weight a little and do the second set: four repetitions. In the same way - hard, but not to blackout. Once again you add weight - and do a set of three repetitions. Then again you add - and you press a set of two. You add more - and you do one last bench press. By the way, such a stepwise increase in load is a very useful thing, not only in terms of mass and strength! A guarantee that you won't end up in a wheelchair.
- You didn't let him try training with his maximum weight right away?
- Of course not. The whole point here is to forget about your best records for the first 6 weeks. No, you start "chest" training from scratch - with small, almost warm-up weights. Even in the last single set, you're benching a clearly frivolous weight. But then you increase the load from training to training and by the end of the sixth week you are approaching your previous maximum. And this is where the real hard work begins.
Remember: in order to jump high, you must first sit down a little. So it is with training -