A simple but hard bench cycle that I'm running at the moment. I wanted a boost to my numbers, but I didn't want to run Smolov Jr again because I'm prepping for a meet and I want to push my squat and deadlift as well. Don't get me wrong, its no 4x a week job, but its still fairly hard. No more preamble BS, here it is... Determine your 1rm, either directly, or estimate through say a 3x5 or other rep scheme. Now either take 105% of your 1rm, or a sensible jump for an 8 week cycle. It could be as much as +10kg, just plan for something realistic. Now using the projected max, the max that you want at the end of the cycle, calculate the %ages: 1st Day 2nd Day Week 1 6x6@70% 5x5@75% Week 2 4x4@80% 3x3@85% Week 3 7x5@75% 5x4@80% Week 4 4x3@85% 5x1@90% Week 5 5x5@80% 5x3@85% Week 6 5x2@90% 4x1@95% Week 7 4x4@85% 3x3@90% Week 8 2x2@95% 1x1@100% Since I am actually running this for a meet, on week 8, instead of 1x1@100% I am going to take my opener with 1x1@90% (general rule 90%, 95%, 100% of what I think my max will be for 1st 2nd and 3rd attempts). The meet I am doing is sunday of what would be week 9 in the above template. I do the 1st session on Monday and the 2nd on Thursday which leaves adequate time for recovery, both session to session and week to week. Here is an example with 100 so you can see the percentages:
We see there is a mid intensity, high volume week followed by a high intensity, reduced volume week, this repeats and as it does so the overall volume reduces and the intensity increases. wonderful. straight from prilepin's guidelines. Anyone who faps to sheiko will have noticed that you are working up to rep schemes that should equate to the projected max you desire and you are actually ascending through them by intensity i.e. 5x5, 5x3, 4x4, 3x3, 2x2 in order to peak. The reason I made this program is that I have found that my top end bench doesn't really correlate as well as it should to what I can do for sets of 5 or more. I wanted the chance to do top end work with heavy weights, without fatiguing myself with the miserable torrents of volume of a smolov cycle. I am currently running it in the hope of getting a meagre 110kg paused bench out the other end. I am typically pausing the last rep of most sets, or just the last rep of the session. I tried to pause all 5 on the 7x5 day and that resulted in a sad spot for the last rep. lesson learnt. Ive actually missed a couple of reps so far but hopefully that won't be an issue because both times I was running on about 3 hours sleep. Anyway, I hope some people can run it to get some bigger numbers than me, and enjoy a lot of benching without murdering their shoulders. I do the following:
Rows - all kinds of rows, pendlay, yates, kroc, chest supported, DBs etc you get the picture
Chins or lat pulldowns
Rear Delt Swings, face down on a moderate incline bench, meadows style
High rep and heavy face pulls
High rep rotation (external and internal, horizontal and vertical) on a cable machine
At the end of week 4 and no problems so far. Stretching and soft tissue work would also be recommended, but frankly I haven't got enough time to do as much as I should, so I do a bit when i can. I should add, this is the assistance I do: Day 1 (Chest assistance) Bench Incline DBs 3x10 Incline Flyes 3x8-12 Rows External Rotation phaggy time Day 2 (Shoulder assistance) Bench Chins Seated DB Press 3x10 Delt Swings 1-3x20 Face Pulls usually 5 sets in a pyramid working up the cable stack Throw some curls in too. I don't like posting a template I haven't actually finished but me and my training partner are running it seems to be going well. Ive probably pushed my numbers a bit too hard (as usual) but he is smashing it and is on course for 120 or 125kg paused. Its fun and hard, but not insane, so I thought id share it.
I did this for my bench around August last year, there are very little resources on this program other than some forum discussions so here are my thoughts and advice on how to do this program. It took my bench from 85kg to 100kg, and shortly after my friends from 110kg to 120kg both in just 3 weeks. I originally wrote this as a guest article for his website http://propanefitness.com/, but they haven't edited and posted it yet so I'm putting it up here.
Smolov Jr is a 3 week volume intensive training cycle where you attempt to rapidly increase your strength in a certain exercise. It can be done for either the squat, bench, or deadlift. If you were careful with the weekly increases I'm sure it would be possible to do it for the press as well. I don't believe in doing this kind of training for multiple exercises at once although bench and either squat or deadlift can be done simultaneously - if you can do this it might be worth running a simple 3x5 style template however. I view this kind of training as a specialisation in a lift, so running two in conjunction defeats the purpose. I would choose the one you want to run it for - if its for either deadlift or squat, then do not perform the other exercise i.e. don't squat if you are doing it for deadlift and vice versa and run it with a sensible bench template, if you do it for bench, running a normal template for squat and deadlift is fine, for example I did bench running alongside the coan phillipi deadlift routine, and a simple 6 week squat program designed to give you +5% over 6 weeks.
Bench has always been the worst lift for me and after seeing two incredibly scrawny bros benching 90kg with traditional “its all you” discourse, this had to change. I was also planning to do my first meet in about two months time and the thought of benching anything less than 100kg was simply embarrassing. So after around 6 months of not benching I started again and within a few weeks I maxed out. I did 85kg ok, and 90kg didn’t budge.
I wanted to get this lift up as fast as possible, and being familiar with the idea that if you want to get good at something you have to do it more Smolov Jr seemed to fit the criteria:
Potential for a big jump in your 1rm
A challenging program (and bad-ass because its Russian)
Benching 4 times a week
Needless to say, I was up for this, so I made a spreadsheet using this resource for Smolov and Smolov Jr, plugged in my very poor 85kg 1rm and went for it. You can find the spreadsheet with an explanation at the end of this article so you can just plug your numbers in and go. These are the numbers I used for the three weeks:
Week 1
Week 2 +5KG
Week 3 +7.5KG
Monday
6x6x60 (70%)
6x6x65
6x6x67.5
Wednesday
7x5x65 (75%)
7x5x70
7x5x75
Friday
8x4x67.5 (80%)
8x4x72.5
8x4x77.5
Sunday
10x3x72.5 (85%)
10x3x77.5
10x3x80
(all weights in kg and sets x reps format)
The first thing that might stand out is doing 5kg less than my max for ten triples in three weeks. It is doable. The first week is taken from percentages of your one rep max (70%, 75%, 80%, 85% for M W F S respectively), then in the second week you simply add 5kg to all of these lifts. In the third week you either add 5kg again (+10kg total), or you add another 2.5kg (+7.5kg total). In the second week I missed reps all over the place and it was very tough – in hindsight this was because my eating and sleeping suffered not because of the weights, so my 3rd week of +7.5kg rather than +10kg was easier than it should have been.
At the end of the third week my 10x3x80kg felt fairly good. I maxed out the next week and ground out an ugly bum off the bench 100kg. I swear this rep took about 5 seconds to lockout the last inch. It was a true 1rm.
The rep scheme 10x3 is commonly used with 85% of your 1rm (for Olympic lifters squat programming in particular) so if you do this program I believe taking the weight you did for 10x3 in week 3 and dividing by 0.85 will give you a projected max that you should be able to do. This will serve as a good guide what to go for. This is why I advised my friend Yusef to aim for 120kg in his training log on the propane fitness forum (102.5/0.85 = 120). Lo and behold he got 120kg!
This is the reason I believe my third week was too easy, my 10x3 was at 80% (80kg and I maxed at 100kg the next week). I attribute this to noobie gains, because I started with a low bench, it will go up faster and easier than someone who starts with 100kg or more.
With this style of training there are a few things to bear in mind:
1)Failed reps here and there don’t mean shit
You are training this lift 4 times a week for 3 weeks. It is the volume and intensity from this program that drives up your lifts. I believe the rep schemes are very clever and push you just the right amount each session. I know John Broz has said the rep schemes on this kind of program do not matter and to an extent I agree – this is why occasional failed reps are unimportant – but, each sessions leads into the next and thinking in week 3 ‘well, I did 7x5 of that so I will be able to do 8x4 of the next weight’ is a real confidence boost.
2)Disregard form, Acquire kg’s
Although you will be working very hard on your bench form and set up – and over the 3 weeks of this program you will find your technique becomes truly honed in due to very regular practice – if getting that last rep or set means your bum coming off the bench or wriggling as you struggle to lockout the bar on the last set of ten triples then do it. Don’t stop a rep because you couldn’t maintain form on it. With this in mind 80-90% OF YOUR REPS WILL BE DONE WITH GOOD FORM. That’s in capitals so you don’t read this paragraph as an excuse to have awful form on bench.
3)Look after your shoulders:
“Good luck with your shoulder destroying goals in 2011.” – MongSquat after realizing I was benching 4x a week on the same forum.
Benching four times a week will take its toll on your shoulders. I did the following every bench session (ok not every session but over 80% I would say).
Take a resistance band and tie it to the squat rack about two feet above your head. Take hold of the band so your arm is 45 degrees from your head. Turn away from the band but push your whole body forward from the hips, don’t lean forward. This will stretch the upper chest (pec minor especially). 2mins each side. (if you don’t have a band, just hold the squat rack – the distraction (the band gently pulling your joint apart) from the band is really good though.
Lower the band tied to the rack to just above shoulder height and do the same thing but this time the focus is on the mid lower chest (pec major focus). 2 mins each side
Get a tennis ball or pvc cricket ball or hockey ball or even a golf ball if you are a masochistic nutcase and do two things. Work the chest and shoulders against a wall/on the floor. Lean your back on a wall, stretch your arms out in front of you, protracting your shoulder blades, and put the ball between your upper back and the wall. Say hello to pain but goodbye to trap and rhomboid tightness that will undoubtedly accumulate over the program (trap tightness induced headaches were standard for me over the 3 weeks).
Doing the above got me through the program with only mild shoulder pain and aches. I would strongly recommend anyone considering Smolov Jr for bench to follow this procedure as zealously as they follow the program itself – even if you look like an idiot doing these things. The bench press is very taxing on your shoulders and the first step to minimizing these issues is learning solid technique - elitefts: SYTYCB, the second is stretching and soft tissue work like I have detailed here. You must also balance benching with rowing/pullups but this is not covered in the scope of this write-up as it is fundamental to any weightlifting programming.
4)Don’t overdo any assistance work
If this is your first time running smolov jr for bench, I would advise not doing any assistance work for bench, none at all. You have to really understand your own limits, especially in terms of recovery, to add any extra chest or tricep work on this program. You will also find because you are benching so often, your weak points will be brutalized by just the main exercise – for myself this was my traps, and I believe they were brought up more than my chest/shoulders by benching four times a week.
It is fine to do smolov jr for bench in conjunction with squat and deadlift, I would say it is preferable to split them into an am and pm session if you can, but many times I did both (bench first though) in one session. I would include at least one rowing movement and one pullup/chinup movement per week to balance against benching. Light face pulls are a good idea, but don’t go heavy on them here, you don’t want to tire out the secondary muscles.
5)Prioritize bench
You are going to commit four days a week and a lot of effort to benching, don’t kid yourself and make sure you get the most possible progress out of it. What does this mean:
Eat above maintenance, you will be doing more volume and thus need more calories. It would be a good 3 weeks to gain a bit of weight but it is not necessary. Just don’t under eat and impede your recovery. Trying to lose weight in a calorie deficit alongside this program would be Fu…oolhardy (to phrase it lightly and not include too many profanities)
Do bench first in a session with more than one big lift in
Focus especially on the 10x3 session every week, this is the important one
Now that food is covered, get enough sleep
If you work hard on this program very good gains are possible:
Myself: 85kg to 100kg, +15kg
Yusef: 110kg to 120kg, +10kg
Both in just 3 weeks.
Other advice I would offer to anyone doing the program is that unless the second week is absolutely ball breaking and you feel run down and soul-crushed opt for another +5kg in the last week. If you made all the reps in the second week and it was a bit hard, you will manage the +5kg in the last week, even if you think you cannot.
I went on to convert that bum-off-the-bench touch-chest-and-go ugly grind of 100kg to this, paused bum on bench in a BPC Novice comp a few weeks later:
To put this in perspective squat was 165kg and deadlift 185kg at a bw of 90kg, not very good, but an ok start. And thankfully, not too embarrassing!
Notes on using the (American-friendly one size fits all) spreadsheet:
Just plug in your current 1rm, select kg or lbs from the drop down menu.
The numbers for your first two weeks will be displayed.
Once you have chosen the correct measurement (kg or lbs) in the first menu the 2nd drop down menu will display the correct options for +7.5kg/+15lbs and +10kg/+20lbs.
I would do the first two weeks, and then consider your third week.
The workouts should be done with the Sunday and Monday workouts on consecutive days. I discovered why to do this the hard way. The easiest workout should follow the day after the hardest session, anything else is much harder than this combination.
Aside: if you have a bigger bench say around 140kg plus and you are a more experienced lifter you may wish to play with your starting max to produce some reasonable numbers and focus on what you want out of the program. 140kg to 150kg would be a reasonable goal. For a predicted 150kg you need 127.5kg for 10x3, so either play with your starting max or use +5kg then +7.5kg in the second week.
I am going to be posting a few different things here, mostly about my own training, writing up programs that I do, but also about athletes I look up to and anything else I want really
In lieu of having nothing to write about right now heres a video of one of my favourite lifters, Taner Sagir, taking gold at the age of only 19 at the 2004 olympics in Athens
