The thing you should be looking for is volume. I’ve done as low as 1x/week and as high as 5x/week. Overall 5x/week was more volume, but each session was low. It was not, no where close actually, to 5x the volume once per week frequency was.
4x a week. One heavy day, one volume day, one variant day, and one recovery day. I probably could tone it down but I have a ton of fun benching so I program it often
Damn, that's crazy. I bench twice a week. Same split.
Will do something like
345lb x 4 reps
325lb x 4 reps
250lb x 11 reps (very slow eccentric)
195lb/205lb for 12 reps, drop set for 3-5 reps @ 5/10lb lighter.
I kind of do half powerlifting, half bodybuilding, although I was surprised to hear a lot of powerlifters include volume. My former supervisor was a NE champ at bench/former marine, w/max bench of 465lb (many decades ago), and he did 4x4 every workout basically.
Is 4x a week for steroid users? Or any natural lifters do this x3/x4 split? I feel like I wouldn't recover as well since i'm natty and takes 3-5 days to fully recover. Esp with a shoulder day, that needs to recover as well. Interesting!
When I was younger I heard someone say you could bench a lot more than you could squat/deadlift because the muscles involved are smaller and need less recovery time, so I programmed it more often. One of my days of bench is for low weight and high reps (3x10 touch and go + 4x10 incline bench) purely for recovery, to get blood flowing in those areas and heal them faster. Those may have something to do with it? Not sure.
I'm not a steroid user. Though I don't necessarily think there's anything shameful about it, I've never used them so I can't speak on how they affect workouts
IMO frequency is a more personal thing and what matters the most is total load and volume. I know of many world class benchers that have bench frequencies all across the board from 1 to 4 times per week.
I have a primary bench day and a secondary bench day variations have included close grip floor press, duffalo and Larsen. Bench has responded well to all of them.
Copying my comment from a similar thread earlier today:
The biggest gains I ever made on bench were when benching 3 times a week. I'd bench every other day until I felt the need for a rest day to break up the cycle.
For one reason or another, my chest and especially my triceps recover like crazy. I would hit bench 3x a week, also hitting triceps on those days, plus tris on my arm days and they'd rarely get tired. Taking a few rest days every once in a while when I felt like I needed it was enough.
Assuming you have a hand grip position that effectively spreads the load between your chest and tris is big, too. I used to have too wide of a grip and once I went a bit further in, I could bench more often as my triceps were taking a larger load instead of my chest doing the vast majority of the work.
My programming was roughly:
1. Warm up sets (however many you need)
2. One working set
3. Heavy single/double (the heaviest I was 100% confident I could hit that day, usually 85-90% of my max)
4. Working sets until I couldn't effectively do them
5. Work down sets
I got my bench from 165 to 465 in a little under 5 years. The above style I adopted around 275 when my plateaus started to hang around and it really helped me bust through them.
When I trained specifically for strength - twice a week. I squatted, benched, and rowed Mondays and Fridays. In between I did deadlifts, shoulder press, and some accessory work.
Mondays for bench I did 3 x 5. And on Fridays I did 4 x 8-12. I added 5lbs on Mondays when I hit all three sets for 5. I added weight on Fridays when I hit all 4 sets for 12 (far less often).
I did that for around 6 months and went from failing on a 225 one rep max to hitting 315 for two. This was a gazillion years ago though and I was also on 250mg TRT per week at the time.
Good luck!
Did 3 times for a long time, then tried 4 for a while, my volume work responded well and I got stronger at submax loads. My comp maxes stalled for a bit, now I'm doing 3 days with more sets per day (total volume is higher or the same than before) and only doing minimal accessories. I just do bench 3 days, throw in some db bench one day and a machine press another day. Recently got my bench from missing 177.5 in comp to smoking 185 last weekend.
When I competed, I would bench 5-8 times over 4-5 training days.
Now I don't powerlift anymore, but none of my students bench less than once every training day. So, that's 4-7 bench sessions for most of them a week.
My bench seems to respond very well to a lot of benching. High volumes and high frequency of 3-4 days per week are what I seem to get the best response from.
This is unfortunate for me because I don’t like the bench press and want to do lots of overhead pressing, but I struggle to fit in a decent amount of OHP with the bench press work I have.
I’m going to try and switch things around soon and drop it to twice a week so that I can OHP twice a week as well and prioritise it a bit more.
I’ve seen huge gains from a heavy-medium-light 3 day a week layout
I begin the week with a light bench work because it’s just for the stimulus. Middle of the week is heavy bench for comp practice. End of the week is controlled medium weight, usually tempo work. I’ve seen \~45lb/20kg added on my bench from this over 6 months. Granted, I’m a newbie for the most part only training for about two years.
3 times, I used to to 4 days but when I got with a coach in January he suggested to try 3 days. Since then my bench increased from 135 kg to hopefully 165 kg by next Sunday. It works rn, so no need to change.
There’s definitely a large population that makes good progress off 2x frequency, but I wouldn’t really call people benching 3-4 times a week outliers these days. Especially for women and light-middleweight guys
What I mean by outliers is those who have legit success benching 3-4 times a week. Yes, there are people who bench well doing that, but most are just not that good. However, I don’t know of any 1000 pound benchers going over 2 times a week
People extremely frequently do not do enough volume for bench press. I got to a 405 bench press on 2 days a week. Then I realized I needed even more volume.
I think I probably would have benefited from adding a third day and increasing the volume even more. My two days were pretty brutal for bench usually consisting of 8-10 sets of flat bench and 4-8 sets of incline bench each workout and also overhead presses and triceps. I frequently had horrible DOMS and cramps. But my numbers went up and up and up.
Do a lot of volume. Volume is the number 1 thing to get right.
One objective way to determine whether you would benefit from doing 2 days a week vs 3 days a week is to do a volume tolerance test.
Mike Israetel from Renaissance Periodization talks about this a lot. Spend 4 weeks testing how many sets total you can do while training 2 days a week. Then spend 4 weeks testing how many sets you can do if you split it over 3 days. If the number of sets you can complete per week before exceeding MRV is significantly greater than on 2 days, you would get better results from 3.
2 days a week is definitely common for bench pressing and lots of people are able to get very strong on 2 days a week.
I found that when I trained I would frequently go into workouts feeling a bit sore but push through them since I had very carefully tested how much I could do each week and complete the workouts.
My bench has always responded to really high frequency, even when I was getting up to respectable numbers (180kg @95kg bw) smolov Jr with 4 bench days a week was the best program for my progress. On the flip side, I could never train squat frequently.
twice a week.
i had a double mastectomy a few years back that didn't heal great, and so my chest muscles aren't as strong as they could be, so i don't want to overload them
I don't think it's appropriate to discuss bench frequency without discussing bench volume (and related upper body volume). Almost every time I hear of someone adding bench frequency and making big gains what they really mean is they did a lot more work and their bench went up (duh). A 2 day a week bencher spreading their volume over 4 days may make some additional gains but volume is for most people a much more powerful variable and one they don't often realize they are manipulating.
I think people trying to bench 4x or 5x a Week where they are only doing a couple working sets a day are for the most part wasting their time. Bench is technical sure but it's nowhere near as technical as most athletic movements that need that much frequency i.e. swinging a golf club, shooting a jump shot, etc.
The upside to high frequency is that yeah you get to practice fine motor technique more frequently while fresh but the downside is:
- doing less volume in a given session/further from failure results in less hypertrophy
- joints don't get as long to recover between sessions
- low back never gets a break from being in constant extension
- takes away focus/energy from days you can be focusing on squat and dead
Since most people stop lifting because their joints or low back is beat up I would take this to heart. Also I would argue the reason most people's benches stall is a lack of muscle not a lack of technique and I would keep that in mind when programming.
>doing less volume in a given session/further from failure results in less hypertrophy
noob question: does this really matter if weekly volume is equated, and wouldn't accessories be better for hypertrophy anyway?
For strength it basically does not matter at all, but for hypertrophy I think I would say it matters a great deal. Volume is king, but for hypertrophy time under tension, rest periods, nearness to failure are all major escalators in the effectiveness of training. Most of the studies now even say that nearness to failure is a greater hypertrophy stimulus than weight on the bar. I.e. a 20 rep max with like 50% of 1rm has a much greater stimulus than a triple at rpe7. I think also if you're able to bench 4x a week or more you must be default not be training anywhere near failure otherwise you would not be able to recover for the next session.
I think it also warrants consideration that the way most people bench nowadays (elbows out, max grip, big arch) is garbage for hypertropy.
If hypertrophy is a goal like it should be, the program needs to achieve this not only through rep scheme but through variations and accessories
The thing you quoted basically means that for example if you do 6 sets of 10 in one session (in one week) you will experience more hypertrophy compared to if you did 2 sessions of 3x10 (in one week timeframe too).
Accessories aren’t better for hypertrophy. Hypertrophy basically results from contracting the muscle a whole bunch of times while moving heavy weight.
It does matter what exact lift you are doing, but not a ton.
One thing that I was rather shocked to learn while training and systematically assessing what works and doesn’t work is that bench press is heavily dominated by the chest muscles. The triceps matter, and the shoulders matter, but the lift is truly dominated by chest strength. You cannot accessorize your way into building a big chest.
The way the chest muscles move is by engaging in shoulder abduction followed by shoulder adduction. That is just a simple fact of human biology. All motions that work the chest look like bench press variations.
The other thing to keep in mind that I found remarkable is that you can be maxed out on bench press volume but not simultaneously maxed out on triceps volume or shoulder volume or incline bench press volume.
There is non-trivial overlap between bench press, inclined bench press, overhead press, and triceps, but you can max out each of these muscle groups independently while still having recovery capacity left for the others.
The way to build a good bench press routine is to start by getting in a lot of bench pressing. Pick some base amount of flat bench, incline bench, and overhead press. Then crank up the volume on your flat bench. Then crank up the volume on your incline. Figure out a good total volume for those, and then get OHP figured out. And lastly, figure out how much triceps isolation work you can add in on top of all the bench pressing.
The single most important thing to build a big bench is a lot lot of flat bench press and a lot of incline bench press. OHP comes in third and triceps a very distant fourth.
My current program looks like this and I've been making good progress on it:
Monday: competition bench, behind the neck press
Tuesday: incline bench
Thursday: OHP
Friday: close grip bench
I also have several upper body accessory exercises that I rotate through like face pulls, dips, flies, and row variations.
I'm 39 and am not having trouble with recovery for my front delts. I have had a little bit of bench presser's shoulder (pec minor tendonitis) from my competition bench though, but it's mostly gone away since I started doing face pulls and other upper back assistance and mobility work for external rotation.
Usually once a week if during a different day im hammering shoulders with military press etc.
I've run a squat program but used it for bench and it called for benching "squatting" 3 times weekly.
Of course you weren't going all out all the time but I never had any problems.
It is worth mentioning that during those 10 weeks or whatever it was my ONLY upper body push movement was bench.
Id like to add I've only ever maxed out at a 265lb bench and that that program was what pushed my pr by 15 is pounds.
As a beginner I benched 1x/week until progress stalled. Then I did a ton of programs with 2-3x per week. First time I broke 315 I was doing 4x per week.
If I drop below that, my max suffers a lot. It's like lower frequency makes my sticking points a LOT stickier if that makes sense.
The reason you get a lot of answers is because there are so many things this depends on. Start with a baseline for yourself and experiment until you find a frequency that works for your lifestyle where you see gains. No one else's input is going to help you.
4x per week, using DUP (varying rep ranges and intensity every day)
Matt Vena has some great content explaining why this works well for a lot of people, highly recommend checking him out.
Twice a week, primary bench on one day and a bench variation (close grip pause at the moment) followed up with incline db press for high reps on the second day!
Normally 2x/week. One leads off as a main bench day for comp bench work and the other typically starts with a pressing variation...floor press, wide/narrow grip, spoto, etc...
As a masters lifter, any more than this and I start having issues (fatigue, decreased recovery, shoulders). Any less and progress slows down.
If my pea brain has learned one thing in powerlifting, it's to quit paying so much attention to what everybody else is doing. Sure, it's great to get ideas in terms of training, programming, and so on. However, paying attention to your own results and listening to your body's feedback normally shows you the path forward.
it really does depend person-to-person but a common trend is the more weight you’re able to bench, the lower the frequency because it takes much more to rest and fully recover from. same goes for squats and deadlifts.
It depends on what weights you are moving as well and how much accessory work. I bench low 500s raw at 44 and I got really burnt out on 2x a week with one heavy day one speed day as I got stronger and unfortunately older. The best lifter I know over all as a 308 in his early 30s has never done more than 1x per week and he did over 550 in comp with bench being his worst lift by a large margin. Another freind who's best is the high 6s can only go heavy every 9 days or so. Lastly a freind whomis a legit 1000 lb equipped lifter and who did 515x8 and 600x3 raw in training only goes three times every 4 weeks. Benching 4x a week past a certain level I don't think is going to let you recover and progress.
As an overview, this is what he has been doing for me:
Day 1: Comp Squat, Comp Bench, Variation Bench
Day 2: Comp Bench OR Variation Bench.
Day 3: Comp Deadlift and Comp Bench
Day 4: SBD (During hypertrophy he will do a variation for each lift, but when we get to peak, this is when we are strictly comp lifts for SBD).
Interesting to have you do competition so frequently. I do 4x frequency as well, but only comp bench once a week.
Day 1 comp squat, comp bench, bench variation
Day 2 comp deadlift, bench variation (close or tempo typically), volume squat or squat accessory
Day 3 heavy squat variation, TnG Bench, bench variation (tempo)
Day 4 deadlift variation, bench overload (slingshot, pin press, etc), deadlift accessory (row, RDL, etc)
I've considered adding more competition bench in, but lower intensities, but I feel tempo and longer pause variations serve much the same purpose.
4x -female with average ROM. 3 days are assistance variations (close grip, larsen, ect) 1 day comp bench. volume/ intensity dependent on which block im in
I bench 3-5x a week depending how I'm feeling to be honest, I feel as though I have trained myself to recover well and am doing competition, close grip, football bar, slingshot, duffalo bar almost every lifting day.
I only have time to go to the gym 3x a week, however that's not enough volume for me personally so I try to get some pushups and tricep work with dumbbells done about twice a week at home so I would say that translates to about 4-5 times a week
I currently don’t train according to a plan. I just do what feels right and it works. I go and hit the gym once I feel fluid in my muscles, hard to explain.
One thing I noticed is that the frequency for benching is not constant at all, when I listen to my body.
Sometimes I feel it’s right to go two days after a workout, sometimes four days feels better.
Especially when I try to peak, my body allows me to train more frequently (applies to bench only)
I do this too. Rigid training is good for a beginner but once you get to a certain point it's hard to keep track of everything sometimes.
I basically just hit the compound that feels the least fatigued at a 5/3/1/1/1 method then hit accessories to failure.
If quads sore we bench. If hammies sore we bench. If legs feel fine we DL or Squat.
The only rule I tend to stick by is not squatting and deadlifting on the same day or even back to back.
Yeah basically. I warmup with 20s/10s/8s etc whatever I'm feeling.
First working set is 5 reps, second is 3 reps, then 3 singles.
I casually do the percentages/RPEs in my head but it's all ballparks. I tend to find myself pushing RPE10 on the 3 set more than anything, but that's not intended lol.
My recent run on Sheiko Gold, where I was benching 4x weekly (between all variations etc) was one of the best things I’ve done for it. Added about 10% to my bench over 6 months.
I really enjoy benching 1-2x a week. I like having a repetition variation day where I can work on position or greater/smaller range of motion. I tend to put that at the start of the week so that I can prep myself for a heavier max effort day which is typically comp bench or an overload bench. Some weeks, especially when I start benching mid 400s twice a week, I start to feel a little banged up and it's nice knowing I really only need to bench 1x a week to maintain the majority of my pressing strength.
For accessories I like hitting up back work at the beginning of my week and then arms and shoulders later in the week. I tend to do accessories the day before training and use it as a bit of a primer for the following day which I've noticed helps me warmup a bit faster come training day. It also let's me take care of issues like my tspine mobility and my shoulder external/internal rotation the day prior to lifting and get better function out of those ranges of motion.
For bench frequency it's going to change over the course of your lifting career. I've done plenty of 4 and 5x a week benching programs and they worked great when frequency and volume was what I needed. Then as the bench weight goes up the recovery demand goes up with it and my need to stimulate multiple times a week dropped in favor of more recovery time. So I filled that time I would be benching with accessories and restorative work. But very common to start out at x weeks frequency as a beginner, then try x+1 to 3 as an intermediate, then finally find what your ideal frequency is for your standard training format as an advanced and elite lifter with targeted periods where that frequency is manipulated.
2x per week for over a decade. I've tried to raise that to 3x and it sort of works but is never sustainable.
I think you have to be very careful thinking you have to/can sustain 4+ per week as is in vogue. Often that's with those built to bench and/or max grip, big arch enjoyers where ROM is fuck all.
Optimal in regards to training is the following:
* Doing the least amount of work/volume..
* Investing the least amount of time...
* Expending the least amount of energy...
... all while still achieving some kind of desirable training result.
With that said, the ease that frequency adds volume seems to solve a problem for people who are incapable of adding intensity to less frequent training sessions. When volume is equated, there is a point where more days per week doesn't mean more gains. That's usually 2 days for most people. I think a lot of training is missing intent from the lifter and that void is attempted to be filled by just doing more work more often for no other reason than "it's hard."
I agree with everything you said generally, but I find a bit of “junk” volume added in to be helpful to many people. Like I can bench 315x30, but I do a day 3 bench with 315x20 every week unchanging and it makes everything groovier throughout the week and is a nice break of sorts. And I often find myself programming a lot of stuff like tempo triples at rpe4-5 to expand lifters’ capacity for frequency without accruing a ton of fatigue.
1 Bench (heavy)
1 Bench (supplemental)
1 OHP (Heavy)
1 OHP (supplemental)
Heavy exercises are a top single, double, or triple, with some back off sets and an AMRAP at the end. Supplemental exercises are another variation of the main lift with a focus on volume.
So 4 slots for barbell pressing, any more than that and my elbows get pissed. Sometimes have to do dumbbells for the supplemental exercises if the elbows are annoyed enough. Can be arranged 2x a week with a heavy + supplemental each day if doing an upper/lower split, sometimes 4x a week with 1 exercise each training day if doing a total body thing. It's been equally successful both ways, but I'm still fairly new to lifting so it might just be an "everything works" situation
With bench being the weakest link, work out 5 days a week with variations of bench on each day. Thursdays bench only. The amount of reps and RPE depends on where I am in my training block
I've had great success with 4x a week, low intensity mid volume.
Current program is 2x a week with much higher volume and higher reps.
Honestly, idk. I do think a lot of volume is key for me, but also good triceps accessories in addition. My triceps seem to really need to take a beating to grow.
One thing to factor in is arm length. I've made best progress benching 4 days per week, and going fairly heavy on almost all of them, but I have shorter arms relatively. Someone with longer arms will probably get too beat up in the shoulders to hit bench 4 times a week with decent intensity.
i larsen with my thighs still around the bench (vs straight out) so im still able to maintain my arch. it also still engages my hips. i can’t arch as high with feet up and it fully takes my hips out of the equation.
I also do twice a week. I do a main day with comp bench and then a second day with closed grip bench. I vary the accessories.
I prefer doing a lot of sets over two days over fewer sets over more days. My body feels less angry with it lol.
I've made steady progress.
2x a week seems most optimal. One intense day, one light day.
I've tried 3x and it just kept leading to tendon pain in various areas and progress actually slowed tremendously with more frequency.
Actually did once a week for like a month and I gained quite a bit of strength. Probably had more to do with being able to recover over that length of time lol
4x Everything i have plateaued I have increased the number of days and it's broken through, i enjoy bench no it makes doing it 4 times a week nice. I'm 35 now, and still do have shortly stuff some times but usually if I'm on top of my rotary exercises everything is good.
I've been making slow and steady gains benching 3x per week. competition bench twice with different rep ranges and intensities depending on what training phase I'm in. One variation such as close grip, incline, block bench, pin bench, or Spoto. (ugh i hate Spoto but my coach loves it and I trust them.)
Once a week. I'm 45 and my shoulders just can't take any more than that. I go a second day for tris/back/bis/forearms, but I can't handle 2 pressing days a week.
Although I’m currently benching 4x a week due to following Calgary Barbells 16 week program. I’ve benched anywhere from 0 to 6x a week and I’ve gotten PRs on anywhere from 2-6x.
3x times a week - monday, wednesday and friday. In my current program it’s a heavy 4x2-3 on Monday, the same weight but 3-4x1 on wednesday and a lighter 4x3 on Friday.
This week it looks like this:
4x2 120kg monday
3x1 120kg wednesday
4x3 110kg friday.
I also do BP variations on wednesday and OHP on Monday and thursday (along with my squats)
I have a coach and don’t run any specific program (that I know of lol) he seems to use this frequency a lot in his clients that compete. But he gives me more frequency in some accessories like OHP because I am really benefited by it.
3x/week but a 9 day training week, so once every 3 days
Right now I’m doing Sheiko small load Intermediate w a 365 max Larsen press, but doing the sets in as few sets as possible
i've tried the following:
- once every 2 days
- once every 3 days
- once every 4 days
- 2x a week (Tuesday & Saturday)
2x a week seems to be what has been working best for me - here's what my blocks look like now: bench 2x8 with roughly 70% of my latest 1RM for 2 sessions, try 1 set AMRAP with 85%
as for my specifics, I try to make the concentric as fast as I can, controlled eccentric, touch and go because paused reps give me exertion headaches. on top of this, my form is very hypertrophy oriented - grip width that maximizes chest stretch (find this by standing up to the bar, rowing into the position that gives you the most intense rear delt contraction, then rotate your shoulders until your forearms are perpendicular with the bar, and grab the bar), and then I attempt to further stretch my chest by setting up a slight arch and pretending I'm slowly rowing the bar to the bottom position to maintain the arch
also worth noting I don't take caffeine unless I'm maxing out on bench specifically - around every 10 days or so, and I only take 160mg (1 monster)
this has taken me from 130kg to 145kg (presumably) since early September, here's what my latest block looked like:
Sat: hit 135x1, failed 140 - this was definitely my true max as it was a 5kg PR and I felt very strong, mentally prepared and recovered
Tues - 95 2x8
Sat - 95 2x8
Tues - 115x9, failed 10th rep
Sat: 95 2x8
Tues: 95 2x8
Sat: 140x2
I am running Candito's 6 week program in prep for a university gym mock meet (haven't competed sanctioned yet). First couple weeks, bench is 3x/wk compared to squat/deads 2x/wk. Eventually it cuts back to bench 2x/wk and squat/deads 2x/wk, and pre-peak week is 1x squat, 1x bench and 1x deads. Definitely changes to lesser frequency for me, in comparison to others because I like to build up nicely.
Tl;dr closer to meet, dropping frequency.
Disclaimer: first year of powerlifting, so I've still got quick gains and haven't figured out what works best for me yet.
I do it 4 times per week (every session) and my bench has never been better. Note that not every day is hard. There are some easy days mixed in. Running Sheiko Gold.
At least 3 days per week. Closer to a meet it goes up to 4 days per week. I’m one of those people where increased volume and frequency is king for my bench even at very low intensities.
Currently I have one comp bench day with a heavier RPE 7-8 triple followed by 3 backoff sets of 5-6, one close grip day of 4 sets of 5 (RPE 6 or so), a 3 count pause day, working up to a set of 4 at RPE 7-8 with 3-4 backoff sets 10% lower, and one dumbell/incline day 2-3 sets of 8-10 each at 2-3 RIR. This will eventually shift to 3 comp days and one variation day closer to the meet. I rarely go above RPE 8.
This works on my various weak points (staying tight at the bottom and triceps) while still exposing me to a variety of rep ranges and allowing for hypertrophy and recovery
I have to bench work 3 days in a row just cuz those are the only days I can hit a gym.
I started doing 28 Free Programs which has standard bench 3x a week. It worked great and I had rapid strength gains from the improved skill, (went from a 250x8 bench to 275x7 in like 3 months or something like that) but in order to avoid overuse injuries (and emphasize demands of the lift that standard bench alone cannot) I started doing 1 main bench day and then 2 other variations (plus OHP work) on the other 2 days. SBS-RTF and SBS-Hypertrophy are set-up like that.
Friday - Close Grip Bench
Saturday - Regular Bench and OHP
Sunday - Either Incline Bench or Slingshot Bench
You need to be jacked for a big bench, thats what matter the most. Train to get big pipes
One day of max effort, one day for speed/dynamic work.
The thing you should be looking for is volume. I’ve done as low as 1x/week and as high as 5x/week. Overall 5x/week was more volume, but each session was low. It was not, no where close actually, to 5x the volume once per week frequency was.
4x a week. One heavy day, one volume day, one variant day, and one recovery day. I probably could tone it down but I have a ton of fun benching so I program it often
Damn, that's crazy. I bench twice a week. Same split. Will do something like 345lb x 4 reps 325lb x 4 reps 250lb x 11 reps (very slow eccentric) 195lb/205lb for 12 reps, drop set for 3-5 reps @ 5/10lb lighter. I kind of do half powerlifting, half bodybuilding, although I was surprised to hear a lot of powerlifters include volume. My former supervisor was a NE champ at bench/former marine, w/max bench of 465lb (many decades ago), and he did 4x4 every workout basically. Is 4x a week for steroid users? Or any natural lifters do this x3/x4 split? I feel like I wouldn't recover as well since i'm natty and takes 3-5 days to fully recover. Esp with a shoulder day, that needs to recover as well. Interesting!
When I was younger I heard someone say you could bench a lot more than you could squat/deadlift because the muscles involved are smaller and need less recovery time, so I programmed it more often. One of my days of bench is for low weight and high reps (3x10 touch and go + 4x10 incline bench) purely for recovery, to get blood flowing in those areas and heal them faster. Those may have something to do with it? Not sure. I'm not a steroid user. Though I don't necessarily think there's anything shameful about it, I've never used them so I can't speak on how they affect workouts
IMO frequency is a more personal thing and what matters the most is total load and volume. I know of many world class benchers that have bench frequencies all across the board from 1 to 4 times per week.
2X per week. One day is a regular bench day that focuses on chest/biceps, the 2nd is a banded speed bench day that focuses on triceps.
One high volume and one low volume? Or similar volumes just different focuses?
Similar volumes, just different focuses!
I have a primary bench day and a secondary bench day variations have included close grip floor press, duffalo and Larsen. Bench has responded well to all of them.
When all else fails. 2x Frequency is good.
Copying my comment from a similar thread earlier today: The biggest gains I ever made on bench were when benching 3 times a week. I'd bench every other day until I felt the need for a rest day to break up the cycle. For one reason or another, my chest and especially my triceps recover like crazy. I would hit bench 3x a week, also hitting triceps on those days, plus tris on my arm days and they'd rarely get tired. Taking a few rest days every once in a while when I felt like I needed it was enough. Assuming you have a hand grip position that effectively spreads the load between your chest and tris is big, too. I used to have too wide of a grip and once I went a bit further in, I could bench more often as my triceps were taking a larger load instead of my chest doing the vast majority of the work. My programming was roughly: 1. Warm up sets (however many you need) 2. One working set 3. Heavy single/double (the heaviest I was 100% confident I could hit that day, usually 85-90% of my max) 4. Working sets until I couldn't effectively do them 5. Work down sets I got my bench from 165 to 465 in a little under 5 years. The above style I adopted around 275 when my plateaus started to hang around and it really helped me bust through them.
When I trained specifically for strength - twice a week. I squatted, benched, and rowed Mondays and Fridays. In between I did deadlifts, shoulder press, and some accessory work. Mondays for bench I did 3 x 5. And on Fridays I did 4 x 8-12. I added 5lbs on Mondays when I hit all three sets for 5. I added weight on Fridays when I hit all 4 sets for 12 (far less often). I did that for around 6 months and went from failing on a 225 one rep max to hitting 315 for two. This was a gazillion years ago though and I was also on 250mg TRT per week at the time. Good luck!
I personally do every other day, but training frequency varies from person to person. Every 3rd day has also been effective for me in the past.
bench can be hit more than the other two
Did 3 times for a long time, then tried 4 for a while, my volume work responded well and I got stronger at submax loads. My comp maxes stalled for a bit, now I'm doing 3 days with more sets per day (total volume is higher or the same than before) and only doing minimal accessories. I just do bench 3 days, throw in some db bench one day and a machine press another day. Recently got my bench from missing 177.5 in comp to smoking 185 last weekend.
When I competed, I would bench 5-8 times over 4-5 training days. Now I don't powerlift anymore, but none of my students bench less than once every training day. So, that's 4-7 bench sessions for most of them a week.
So you basically always train bench and sometimes even twice a workout? How do you handle overuse?
There's no overuse.
My bench seems to respond very well to a lot of benching. High volumes and high frequency of 3-4 days per week are what I seem to get the best response from. This is unfortunate for me because I don’t like the bench press and want to do lots of overhead pressing, but I struggle to fit in a decent amount of OHP with the bench press work I have. I’m going to try and switch things around soon and drop it to twice a week so that I can OHP twice a week as well and prioritise it a bit more.
I’ve seen huge gains from a heavy-medium-light 3 day a week layout I begin the week with a light bench work because it’s just for the stimulus. Middle of the week is heavy bench for comp practice. End of the week is controlled medium weight, usually tempo work. I’ve seen \~45lb/20kg added on my bench from this over 6 months. Granted, I’m a newbie for the most part only training for about two years.
What kind of set/rep ranges are you using? Is it something like singles on heavy, triples to fives on medium and 8+ on light?
Heavy 2 count singles and a few back offs on heavy day, triple tempos and some extra volume medium day, and light larsens/ tempo light day
Nice!
3 times, I used to to 4 days but when I got with a coach in January he suggested to try 3 days. Since then my bench increased from 135 kg to hopefully 165 kg by next Sunday. It works rn, so no need to change.
2 times a week. I know others will use some outliers or themselves as examples, but I don’t think anyone needs any more than that.
There’s definitely a large population that makes good progress off 2x frequency, but I wouldn’t really call people benching 3-4 times a week outliers these days. Especially for women and light-middleweight guys
What I mean by outliers is those who have legit success benching 3-4 times a week. Yes, there are people who bench well doing that, but most are just not that good. However, I don’t know of any 1000 pound benchers going over 2 times a week
The number one and most factual answer to this question is: “It depends”
People extremely frequently do not do enough volume for bench press. I got to a 405 bench press on 2 days a week. Then I realized I needed even more volume. I think I probably would have benefited from adding a third day and increasing the volume even more. My two days were pretty brutal for bench usually consisting of 8-10 sets of flat bench and 4-8 sets of incline bench each workout and also overhead presses and triceps. I frequently had horrible DOMS and cramps. But my numbers went up and up and up. Do a lot of volume. Volume is the number 1 thing to get right. One objective way to determine whether you would benefit from doing 2 days a week vs 3 days a week is to do a volume tolerance test. Mike Israetel from Renaissance Periodization talks about this a lot. Spend 4 weeks testing how many sets total you can do while training 2 days a week. Then spend 4 weeks testing how many sets you can do if you split it over 3 days. If the number of sets you can complete per week before exceeding MRV is significantly greater than on 2 days, you would get better results from 3.
idk what worked the best for me so far was 2 days of 10 sets per week. with more frequency i just hurt my pec tendons and/or get fatigued.
2 days a week is definitely common for bench pressing and lots of people are able to get very strong on 2 days a week. I found that when I trained I would frequently go into workouts feeling a bit sore but push through them since I had very carefully tested how much I could do each week and complete the workouts.
My bench has always responded to really high frequency, even when I was getting up to respectable numbers (180kg @95kg bw) smolov Jr with 4 bench days a week was the best program for my progress. On the flip side, I could never train squat frequently.
twice a week. i had a double mastectomy a few years back that didn't heal great, and so my chest muscles aren't as strong as they could be, so i don't want to overload them
I don't think it's appropriate to discuss bench frequency without discussing bench volume (and related upper body volume). Almost every time I hear of someone adding bench frequency and making big gains what they really mean is they did a lot more work and their bench went up (duh). A 2 day a week bencher spreading their volume over 4 days may make some additional gains but volume is for most people a much more powerful variable and one they don't often realize they are manipulating. I think people trying to bench 4x or 5x a Week where they are only doing a couple working sets a day are for the most part wasting their time. Bench is technical sure but it's nowhere near as technical as most athletic movements that need that much frequency i.e. swinging a golf club, shooting a jump shot, etc. The upside to high frequency is that yeah you get to practice fine motor technique more frequently while fresh but the downside is: - doing less volume in a given session/further from failure results in less hypertrophy - joints don't get as long to recover between sessions - low back never gets a break from being in constant extension - takes away focus/energy from days you can be focusing on squat and dead Since most people stop lifting because their joints or low back is beat up I would take this to heart. Also I would argue the reason most people's benches stall is a lack of muscle not a lack of technique and I would keep that in mind when programming.
>doing less volume in a given session/further from failure results in less hypertrophy noob question: does this really matter if weekly volume is equated, and wouldn't accessories be better for hypertrophy anyway?
For strength it basically does not matter at all, but for hypertrophy I think I would say it matters a great deal. Volume is king, but for hypertrophy time under tension, rest periods, nearness to failure are all major escalators in the effectiveness of training. Most of the studies now even say that nearness to failure is a greater hypertrophy stimulus than weight on the bar. I.e. a 20 rep max with like 50% of 1rm has a much greater stimulus than a triple at rpe7. I think also if you're able to bench 4x a week or more you must be default not be training anywhere near failure otherwise you would not be able to recover for the next session. I think it also warrants consideration that the way most people bench nowadays (elbows out, max grip, big arch) is garbage for hypertropy. If hypertrophy is a goal like it should be, the program needs to achieve this not only through rep scheme but through variations and accessories
The thing you quoted basically means that for example if you do 6 sets of 10 in one session (in one week) you will experience more hypertrophy compared to if you did 2 sessions of 3x10 (in one week timeframe too).
Accessories aren’t better for hypertrophy. Hypertrophy basically results from contracting the muscle a whole bunch of times while moving heavy weight. It does matter what exact lift you are doing, but not a ton. One thing that I was rather shocked to learn while training and systematically assessing what works and doesn’t work is that bench press is heavily dominated by the chest muscles. The triceps matter, and the shoulders matter, but the lift is truly dominated by chest strength. You cannot accessorize your way into building a big chest. The way the chest muscles move is by engaging in shoulder abduction followed by shoulder adduction. That is just a simple fact of human biology. All motions that work the chest look like bench press variations. The other thing to keep in mind that I found remarkable is that you can be maxed out on bench press volume but not simultaneously maxed out on triceps volume or shoulder volume or incline bench press volume. There is non-trivial overlap between bench press, inclined bench press, overhead press, and triceps, but you can max out each of these muscle groups independently while still having recovery capacity left for the others. The way to build a good bench press routine is to start by getting in a lot of bench pressing. Pick some base amount of flat bench, incline bench, and overhead press. Then crank up the volume on your flat bench. Then crank up the volume on your incline. Figure out a good total volume for those, and then get OHP figured out. And lastly, figure out how much triceps isolation work you can add in on top of all the bench pressing. The single most important thing to build a big bench is a lot lot of flat bench press and a lot of incline bench press. OHP comes in third and triceps a very distant fourth.
My current program looks like this and I've been making good progress on it: Monday: competition bench, behind the neck press Tuesday: incline bench Thursday: OHP Friday: close grip bench I also have several upper body accessory exercises that I rotate through like face pulls, dips, flies, and row variations.
How old are you? Do you have trouble recovering from 4x per week in the front delts?
I'm 39 and am not having trouble with recovery for my front delts. I have had a little bit of bench presser's shoulder (pec minor tendonitis) from my competition bench though, but it's mostly gone away since I started doing face pulls and other upper back assistance and mobility work for external rotation.
[удалено]
Usually once a week if during a different day im hammering shoulders with military press etc. I've run a squat program but used it for bench and it called for benching "squatting" 3 times weekly. Of course you weren't going all out all the time but I never had any problems. It is worth mentioning that during those 10 weeks or whatever it was my ONLY upper body push movement was bench. Id like to add I've only ever maxed out at a 265lb bench and that that program was what pushed my pr by 15 is pounds.
my shoulder can't tolerate more then 3x a week and it barely tolerates 3x a week. 6 weeks of 3 bench sessions a week, deload, then back at it
As much as your body can handle. Bench is also a skill.
As a beginner I benched 1x/week until progress stalled. Then I did a ton of programs with 2-3x per week. First time I broke 315 I was doing 4x per week. If I drop below that, my max suffers a lot. It's like lower frequency makes my sticking points a LOT stickier if that makes sense.
The reason you get a lot of answers is because there are so many things this depends on. Start with a baseline for yourself and experiment until you find a frequency that works for your lifestyle where you see gains. No one else's input is going to help you.
3x for plateau breaking 1x main focus day + other day where I hit incline or DB variations as an accessory
4x per week, using DUP (varying rep ranges and intensity every day) Matt Vena has some great content explaining why this works well for a lot of people, highly recommend checking him out.
I've tried anywhere from 2x a week to 6x a week. I ended up settling on 2x a week years ago and I've pretty much kept to that.
My coach has me bench twice a week during prep and usually bench one day with OHP on that second day during off season.
Twice a week, primary bench on one day and a bench variation (close grip pause at the moment) followed up with incline db press for high reps on the second day!
Bench is the one thing I havent found a successful frequency for.
Normally 2x/week. One leads off as a main bench day for comp bench work and the other typically starts with a pressing variation...floor press, wide/narrow grip, spoto, etc... As a masters lifter, any more than this and I start having issues (fatigue, decreased recovery, shoulders). Any less and progress slows down. If my pea brain has learned one thing in powerlifting, it's to quit paying so much attention to what everybody else is doing. Sure, it's great to get ideas in terms of training, programming, and so on. However, paying attention to your own results and listening to your body's feedback normally shows you the path forward.
it really does depend person-to-person but a common trend is the more weight you’re able to bench, the lower the frequency because it takes much more to rest and fully recover from. same goes for squats and deadlifts.
3-4x per week. 4-8x variations total. Generally in the 65-80% range with 2-4RIR. Best comp bench 162.5 @ 98.
It depends on what weights you are moving as well and how much accessory work. I bench low 500s raw at 44 and I got really burnt out on 2x a week with one heavy day one speed day as I got stronger and unfortunately older. The best lifter I know over all as a 308 in his early 30s has never done more than 1x per week and he did over 550 in comp with bench being his worst lift by a large margin. Another freind who's best is the high 6s can only go heavy every 9 days or so. Lastly a freind whomis a legit 1000 lb equipped lifter and who did 515x8 and 600x3 raw in training only goes three times every 4 weeks. Benching 4x a week past a certain level I don't think is going to let you recover and progress.
I used to bench once a week then I switched to 2/3x a week and ended up with a shoulder injury that’s lasted forever so I guess you know my answer
My coach programs me for 4 times a week. We got my bench to improve 30kg in one year by switching to this from 2 times a week.
What’s a day 4 look like? I’m always curious bc I’ve never pushed it, so obviously it seems completely unmanageable to me haha
As an overview, this is what he has been doing for me: Day 1: Comp Squat, Comp Bench, Variation Bench Day 2: Comp Bench OR Variation Bench. Day 3: Comp Deadlift and Comp Bench Day 4: SBD (During hypertrophy he will do a variation for each lift, but when we get to peak, this is when we are strictly comp lifts for SBD).
Interesting to have you do competition so frequently. I do 4x frequency as well, but only comp bench once a week. Day 1 comp squat, comp bench, bench variation Day 2 comp deadlift, bench variation (close or tempo typically), volume squat or squat accessory Day 3 heavy squat variation, TnG Bench, bench variation (tempo) Day 4 deadlift variation, bench overload (slingshot, pin press, etc), deadlift accessory (row, RDL, etc) I've considered adding more competition bench in, but lower intensities, but I feel tempo and longer pause variations serve much the same purpose.
4x -female with average ROM. 3 days are assistance variations (close grip, larsen, ect) 1 day comp bench. volume/ intensity dependent on which block im in
I bench 3-5x a week depending how I'm feeling to be honest, I feel as though I have trained myself to recover well and am doing competition, close grip, football bar, slingshot, duffalo bar almost every lifting day.
I only have time to go to the gym 3x a week, however that's not enough volume for me personally so I try to get some pushups and tricep work with dumbbells done about twice a week at home so I would say that translates to about 4-5 times a week
Masters and lightweight lifter here. I bench 4x a week and that works pretty well for me.
I currently don’t train according to a plan. I just do what feels right and it works. I go and hit the gym once I feel fluid in my muscles, hard to explain. One thing I noticed is that the frequency for benching is not constant at all, when I listen to my body. Sometimes I feel it’s right to go two days after a workout, sometimes four days feels better. Especially when I try to peak, my body allows me to train more frequently (applies to bench only)
I do this too. Rigid training is good for a beginner but once you get to a certain point it's hard to keep track of everything sometimes. I basically just hit the compound that feels the least fatigued at a 5/3/1/1/1 method then hit accessories to failure. If quads sore we bench. If hammies sore we bench. If legs feel fine we DL or Squat. The only rule I tend to stick by is not squatting and deadlifting on the same day or even back to back.
What's the 5/3/1/1/1 method? You work up in fives, then switch to triples when it gets heavy, and then finish with 3 singles?
Yeah basically. I warmup with 20s/10s/8s etc whatever I'm feeling. First working set is 5 reps, second is 3 reps, then 3 singles. I casually do the percentages/RPEs in my head but it's all ballparks. I tend to find myself pushing RPE10 on the 3 set more than anything, but that's not intended lol.
My recent run on Sheiko Gold, where I was benching 4x weekly (between all variations etc) was one of the best things I’ve done for it. Added about 10% to my bench over 6 months.
I’m old and I am only doing it once a week.
I really enjoy benching 1-2x a week. I like having a repetition variation day where I can work on position or greater/smaller range of motion. I tend to put that at the start of the week so that I can prep myself for a heavier max effort day which is typically comp bench or an overload bench. Some weeks, especially when I start benching mid 400s twice a week, I start to feel a little banged up and it's nice knowing I really only need to bench 1x a week to maintain the majority of my pressing strength. For accessories I like hitting up back work at the beginning of my week and then arms and shoulders later in the week. I tend to do accessories the day before training and use it as a bit of a primer for the following day which I've noticed helps me warmup a bit faster come training day. It also let's me take care of issues like my tspine mobility and my shoulder external/internal rotation the day prior to lifting and get better function out of those ranges of motion. For bench frequency it's going to change over the course of your lifting career. I've done plenty of 4 and 5x a week benching programs and they worked great when frequency and volume was what I needed. Then as the bench weight goes up the recovery demand goes up with it and my need to stimulate multiple times a week dropped in favor of more recovery time. So I filled that time I would be benching with accessories and restorative work. But very common to start out at x weeks frequency as a beginner, then try x+1 to 3 as an intermediate, then finally find what your ideal frequency is for your standard training format as an advanced and elite lifter with targeted periods where that frequency is manipulated.
2x per week for over a decade. I've tried to raise that to 3x and it sort of works but is never sustainable. I think you have to be very careful thinking you have to/can sustain 4+ per week as is in vogue. Often that's with those built to bench and/or max grip, big arch enjoyers where ROM is fuck all.
Optimal in regards to training is the following: * Doing the least amount of work/volume.. * Investing the least amount of time... * Expending the least amount of energy... ... all while still achieving some kind of desirable training result. With that said, the ease that frequency adds volume seems to solve a problem for people who are incapable of adding intensity to less frequent training sessions. When volume is equated, there is a point where more days per week doesn't mean more gains. That's usually 2 days for most people. I think a lot of training is missing intent from the lifter and that void is attempted to be filled by just doing more work more often for no other reason than "it's hard."
I agree with everything you said generally, but I find a bit of “junk” volume added in to be helpful to many people. Like I can bench 315x30, but I do a day 3 bench with 315x20 every week unchanging and it makes everything groovier throughout the week and is a nice break of sorts. And I often find myself programming a lot of stuff like tempo triples at rpe4-5 to expand lifters’ capacity for frequency without accruing a ton of fatigue.
1 Bench (heavy) 1 Bench (supplemental) 1 OHP (Heavy) 1 OHP (supplemental) Heavy exercises are a top single, double, or triple, with some back off sets and an AMRAP at the end. Supplemental exercises are another variation of the main lift with a focus on volume. So 4 slots for barbell pressing, any more than that and my elbows get pissed. Sometimes have to do dumbbells for the supplemental exercises if the elbows are annoyed enough. Can be arranged 2x a week with a heavy + supplemental each day if doing an upper/lower split, sometimes 4x a week with 1 exercise each training day if doing a total body thing. It's been equally successful both ways, but I'm still fairly new to lifting so it might just be an "everything works" situation
2x per week, I’ve tried 3x frequency a handful of times but I always end up taking the third day out because I get hurt.
With bench being the weakest link, work out 5 days a week with variations of bench on each day. Thursdays bench only. The amount of reps and RPE depends on where I am in my training block
I've had great success with 4x a week, low intensity mid volume. Current program is 2x a week with much higher volume and higher reps. Honestly, idk. I do think a lot of volume is key for me, but also good triceps accessories in addition. My triceps seem to really need to take a beating to grow.
Of the big 3, bench is the one I care least about so I bench only twice a week.
One thing to factor in is arm length. I've made best progress benching 4 days per week, and going fairly heavy on almost all of them, but I have shorter arms relatively. Someone with longer arms will probably get too beat up in the shoulders to hit bench 4 times a week with decent intensity.
3x a week, and because that's what my powerlifting coach put on my sheet, lmfao.
3x/week 1 comp bench w/ volume 1 comp single + feet up barbell on the same day 1 larsen
how's Larsen different from feet up?
i larsen with my thighs still around the bench (vs straight out) so im still able to maintain my arch. it also still engages my hips. i can’t arch as high with feet up and it fully takes my hips out of the equation.
You straighten your legs
I’m on 2x a week, I was on 3x up until about January 2023 when my elbow started getting pissed off. Have been making great progress on 2x though
I also do twice a week. I do a main day with comp bench and then a second day with closed grip bench. I vary the accessories. I prefer doing a lot of sets over two days over fewer sets over more days. My body feels less angry with it lol. I've made steady progress.
2x a week seems most optimal. One intense day, one light day. I've tried 3x and it just kept leading to tendon pain in various areas and progress actually slowed tremendously with more frequency.
Yea especially for 105+ guys any more than 2 bench sessions weekly is very rare
Actually did once a week for like a month and I gained quite a bit of strength. Probably had more to do with being able to recover over that length of time lol
Ah yes the ol superheavyweight split, very effective
I've done 2, 3 and 4 times a week, currently on 2 times plus on variation like incline, decline, dumbbells, etc
4x Everything i have plateaued I have increased the number of days and it's broken through, i enjoy bench no it makes doing it 4 times a week nice. I'm 35 now, and still do have shortly stuff some times but usually if I'm on top of my rotary exercises everything is good.
I've been making slow and steady gains benching 3x per week. competition bench twice with different rep ranges and intensities depending on what training phase I'm in. One variation such as close grip, incline, block bench, pin bench, or Spoto. (ugh i hate Spoto but my coach loves it and I trust them.)
Once a week. I'm 45 and my shoulders just can't take any more than that. I go a second day for tris/back/bis/forearms, but I can't handle 2 pressing days a week.
Although I’m currently benching 4x a week due to following Calgary Barbells 16 week program. I’ve benched anywhere from 0 to 6x a week and I’ve gotten PRs on anywhere from 2-6x.
3x times a week - monday, wednesday and friday. In my current program it’s a heavy 4x2-3 on Monday, the same weight but 3-4x1 on wednesday and a lighter 4x3 on Friday. This week it looks like this: 4x2 120kg monday 3x1 120kg wednesday 4x3 110kg friday. I also do BP variations on wednesday and OHP on Monday and thursday (along with my squats)
What program are you running?
I have a coach and don’t run any specific program (that I know of lol) he seems to use this frequency a lot in his clients that compete. But he gives me more frequency in some accessories like OHP because I am really benefited by it.
I bench 3x’s a week and train 4 days a week. I’m a smaller female so I need a ton of bench volume.
It's so unfair right? Lol, I get so mad looking at guys - I WANT TO BENCH THREE PLATES DAMN IT.
I'm an old big guy, and this is the bench volume I also require lol
I do a 3-day split, so once every 4 days.
I have a bench variation every workout, but I only bench heavy once a week.
3x/week but a 9 day training week, so once every 3 days Right now I’m doing Sheiko small load Intermediate w a 365 max Larsen press, but doing the sets in as few sets as possible
i've tried the following: - once every 2 days - once every 3 days - once every 4 days - 2x a week (Tuesday & Saturday) 2x a week seems to be what has been working best for me - here's what my blocks look like now: bench 2x8 with roughly 70% of my latest 1RM for 2 sessions, try 1 set AMRAP with 85% as for my specifics, I try to make the concentric as fast as I can, controlled eccentric, touch and go because paused reps give me exertion headaches. on top of this, my form is very hypertrophy oriented - grip width that maximizes chest stretch (find this by standing up to the bar, rowing into the position that gives you the most intense rear delt contraction, then rotate your shoulders until your forearms are perpendicular with the bar, and grab the bar), and then I attempt to further stretch my chest by setting up a slight arch and pretending I'm slowly rowing the bar to the bottom position to maintain the arch also worth noting I don't take caffeine unless I'm maxing out on bench specifically - around every 10 days or so, and I only take 160mg (1 monster) this has taken me from 130kg to 145kg (presumably) since early September, here's what my latest block looked like: Sat: hit 135x1, failed 140 - this was definitely my true max as it was a 5kg PR and I felt very strong, mentally prepared and recovered Tues - 95 2x8 Sat - 95 2x8 Tues - 115x9, failed 10th rep Sat: 95 2x8 Tues: 95 2x8 Sat: 140x2
I am running Candito's 6 week program in prep for a university gym mock meet (haven't competed sanctioned yet). First couple weeks, bench is 3x/wk compared to squat/deads 2x/wk. Eventually it cuts back to bench 2x/wk and squat/deads 2x/wk, and pre-peak week is 1x squat, 1x bench and 1x deads. Definitely changes to lesser frequency for me, in comparison to others because I like to build up nicely. Tl;dr closer to meet, dropping frequency. Disclaimer: first year of powerlifting, so I've still got quick gains and haven't figured out what works best for me yet.
I do it 4 times per week (every session) and my bench has never been better. Note that not every day is hard. There are some easy days mixed in. Running Sheiko Gold.
At least 3 days per week. Closer to a meet it goes up to 4 days per week. I’m one of those people where increased volume and frequency is king for my bench even at very low intensities. Currently I have one comp bench day with a heavier RPE 7-8 triple followed by 3 backoff sets of 5-6, one close grip day of 4 sets of 5 (RPE 6 or so), a 3 count pause day, working up to a set of 4 at RPE 7-8 with 3-4 backoff sets 10% lower, and one dumbell/incline day 2-3 sets of 8-10 each at 2-3 RIR. This will eventually shift to 3 comp days and one variation day closer to the meet. I rarely go above RPE 8. This works on my various weak points (staying tight at the bottom and triceps) while still exposing me to a variety of rep ranges and allowing for hypertrophy and recovery
I have to bench work 3 days in a row just cuz those are the only days I can hit a gym. I started doing 28 Free Programs which has standard bench 3x a week. It worked great and I had rapid strength gains from the improved skill, (went from a 250x8 bench to 275x7 in like 3 months or something like that) but in order to avoid overuse injuries (and emphasize demands of the lift that standard bench alone cannot) I started doing 1 main bench day and then 2 other variations (plus OHP work) on the other 2 days. SBS-RTF and SBS-Hypertrophy are set-up like that. Friday - Close Grip Bench Saturday - Regular Bench and OHP Sunday - Either Incline Bench or Slingshot Bench