Feel like your squats and deadlifts have no worries getting stronger but you just can’t crack how to build your pressing strength up to keep in check.
Everyone’s always joked about not wanting to be an upside down triangle… big upper body and no legs. But it’s no cooler to have strong legs and spaghetti arms.
It’s not just normal gym goers either. I competed in powerlifting last year and started out with tonnes of guys out lifting me in the squat. I thought that was going to be one of my better lifts so I was worried I wasn’t going to be in the game after that only to watch many of the same guys who squatted close to 200kg struggle under bench presses less 120kg.
I’ve seen many guys like this and honestly, for a long time I put myself in the same category. Fortunately, through experimenting with different training methods I’ve figured out a few of the best ways we can combat this:
- Multi-Plane Pressing
- Undulating Periodisation
- Late Phase Specialisation
Hitting all your angles
As the great Arnold would say “You have to hit the muscles from all the angles”. There’s this big focus now on specialisation training, you want to get good at bench… bench more often, more volume, intensity, everything bench. There’s a good reason too, you get pretty good at bench press. Notice I didn’t say you get pretty strong.
When you lift with higher frequency on one lift you get super efficient at the ONE lift, not all round stronger. I fell victim to this when I was younger constantly wanting a bigger bench that now I’m still way stronger there than any other pressing variation.
Don’t make this mistake… When I competed in powerlifting I noticed an interesting thing when it came to bench, the biggest benchers had the biggest chest, shoulders and triceps. They often didn’t have the best bench technique (at higher levels the guys have both muscle and technique and that’s the big separator) but they looked like no matter what pressing exercise you have them they were still going to smash it.
I took this back to my own training and that of my clients. Bench Press, Incline Presses, Dips, Overhead Press, Handstand Pushups, Rings Training, Specialty Bars, Dumbbells. Things started to come together. I started hitting PR’s in all movements, not just the one. The only one problem that started to come was how did I use all these different movements at different rep ranges to get strong in everything without neglecting some of the movements again. Taking me to come about my next tip.
Train all rep ranges
So when it comes to getting stronger, nobody simplifies it better than Louie Simmons the man behind Westside Barbell. There are 3 ways to get stronger, lift heavy weights, lift weights faster, lift weights for more reps. Most of us only ever do one of those at a time or worse ever…
So a few years ago I came across Brandon Lilly’s Cube Method. A program that rotated between Maximal Effort, Dynamic Effort and Repeated Effort training for Powerlifting… each week you would do one session of each on method on a different lift to the week before. This was a super interesting way to apply the different methods within the same program.
I passed this program onto Nathan my now business partner at Newstrength and he decided he was going to do each of the lifts at each of the methods in a single week. I thought he was crazy and missing the point but, one thing happened that we didn’t expect… his Bench Press skyrocketed up in that program. His other lifts still improved but not nearly at the same rate.
There was clearly something to pressing 3 days per week at different intensities and volumes. Later we were game planning how to train pressing for strongman (for those who don’t know, in strongman there are many different pressing variations you can have in a competition so you can’t just get good at one). We began testing out this same Cube inspired program with our varied movements and watched one of our client’s Jacks in just a few months go from struggling to log press 120 to easy on the minute sets.
Press More By… Pressing More
As I mentioned earlier the strongest guys have both a combination of extremely great technique and the muscle to lift big weights. There’s definitely still a place for specialisation style programs. Benching two or three times a week will get you incredibly good at benching, and when it comes down to maximising performance we want to be super efficient.
The problem has always come when everyone starts focusing on specialisation without building their foundation first. There’s no point being a super efficient 80kg Bench Specialist. But on the other hand being a 120kg bench that hasn’t focused on efficiency can potentially turn into a 140kg bench after a 8 week specialisation program that maximises timing, technique and leverages.
That’s the concept of peaking that people talk about in training but yet do very poorly…
Start by hitting all angles at multiple rep ranges for a few months then specialise and crush massive PRs
Where to now?
Find your weak points…
Is it Overhead press? Dips? Close Grip Presses?
Put emphasis on building strength through a wide range of reps within your weak points.
Transition back slowly to a high-frequency program with your main press you want to improve.
Crush PRs.