037 : 002 TECHNIQUE + CAPACITY

Bench pressing is one of those things that most men seem to have a “Dunning-Kruger” style relationship with – even people used to it are used to it under very narrow circumstances. Part of the fun of training is to take something you are familiar with and tweak the environment to see where things break down…

Technical work

2x5 slow bench (5 seconds down + 5 seconds up)

6x6 bench and a half

rest ~ 90 seconds between sets, add weight whenever appropriate.

Work

100x bench press

every time you rack push a sled ~ 20m + pull it back walking backward (strap around the waist if possible) 

Finisher

100x bicep curls with an empty straight bar, and minimal rest. 

Flow

The slow bench is to build awareness of the angle or angles you need to work. For the bench and a half, the flow is to un-rack the bar, come all the way down to your chest, back up to the halfway point (the weakest angle you found during the slow bench) for a 5-second hold, back down, and back to the top. This is one rep.  The bar moves in something of a “w” shape and the goal is to not rest at the top or bottom, and to not just hold at the halfway point, but to improve it by focusing on the changes that would help. Ask what bracing or slight positional changes should be employed. The path back up is your chance to enact those changes at speed. 

For the work portion, the “right” weight is surprisingly light. A rough suggestion is 50-60% bodyweight for an athletic male who is used to benching. When we run this we use a rogue dogsled somewhere between empty and + 45#, and a waist belt attached to the player at all times. It starts with benching and as soon as the bar is racked, the player goes directly into the sled push down and back. Walking backward directly onto the bench, sitting down, and unpacking the bar immediately – they can catch their breath as much as they like while holding the barbell. One of the main challenges here is holding yourself accountable. The urge to fidget and delay is very strong and the main point of this session is to see how much of that discomfort you can tolerate before behaving badly.