8 Week Bench Cycle

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.