[0:00]Bench pressing 225 is something to take very seriously and I'm very excited for you because I truly believe it's it's extraordinarily attainable. No matter what your body weight is as a male especially, it is extremely attainable. But even if you're female, it's definitely, definitely attainable. Lots of lifters have accomplished it and it's something that may feel like it's far away, but I promise you it's really, really not. Take it from me, I am a world record holding power lifter. I want a junior world championship. My current bench press in competition is a 491 pound press. And I weigh in competition 205. So, um, so just again, I'm a natural lifter, I'm a drug-free lifter. I just want you to know that it's totally possible, okay? So without further ado, let's just dive right into it. So the very first thing I want you guys to think about is having a plan, okay?
[0:50]And there's two specific things I want you to think about when it comes to this plan, because chances are if you have yet to bench press 225, you either don't bench often, um, you don't bench press often enough, or when you do bench press, all you do is max out. Okay? And, and that's, although that might be a good start, although that's even debatable, um, it's definitely not how we want to continue. Okay? So when it comes to having good plan, there's, there's a lot that could go into this, but there's only two things I want to talk about right now. The first is your frequency, the second your progression. Okay? These are the only two things I want you to worry about right now. So when I say frequency, all I'm referring to here is the number of times per week you bench press. So if you currently bench press zero, I'd like you to increase that to one. If you, if you bench press once, I'd like you to increase that to two. Chances are you probably aren't benching twice a week. If you're already benching twice a week and you have yet to hit 225, you can increase to three, but there might be a better option. The exception is, however, if you are female, or if you are less than 175 pounds in body weight, okay? And the only reason why I say that is because there are biological differences we see in powerlifting, especially between men and women, uh, or male, female, um, and upper body strength, okay? For men, it's a little bit easier to, to build muscle in their upper body and to be stronger with their upper body, okay? So that's the only reason why I say that, but again, I want you thinking about trying to bench one to two times per week, okay? The second thing here is progression, and this is so, so important.
[2:27]I know so many lifters, usually young kids, high school age, they come to me and they say, hey man, I want to bench 225, but every time I max out, I can only hit 155 or 185, and then I just gas out. And every time I go, um, I can usually hit around 185, but recently, I have only been able to hit 135 and I don't know what's going on. Did I just get weaker? No. You were maxing out too often. Not only that, but maxing out itself doesn't make you stronger, okay? What you need to do is build strength. You create a progression, all right? And this takes some time. This takes a little bit of strategy. So, all I want you to think about is give yourself a four-week timeline, okay? So four weeks and we're going to call this what would be a block, all right, because this is a training block. Most training blocks are about four weeks long, and each week, week one through four, each week you're going to gradually increase the amount of weight you use, okay? Now, keeping in mind, we're trying to bench one to two times per week. Let's just say we're going with two times.
[3:32]Week one, you may have your first day. So we'll put day one here. And on your first day, you end up doing, let's say a three by five, okay? And day two, you do a one by one. So a single, and then you do a three by three, okay? And these are the two bench days. On this three by five day, you're going to start since maybe we don't know our one rep max. We're going to start with we're going to use RPE. We're going to start with, let's say RPE six. So that means that the exertion on a scale of one to 10 should be at around a six. You can start thinking about like reps in reverse in reps in reserve as well here, which means if I hit RPE six, technically that means on a scale of one to 10, there's only four units left. I'd have about four reps left in the tank. Okay? So if this is a set at RPE six, my three by five, each set I do a five, should end up having four reps left in the tank. So when I do my three by five, I should be using a weight that I really could be doing like a three by nine or a three by 10 with, okay? If that makes sense. All right. So that's how you would think about it. So let's say week one, day one, RPE six, okay? By the time you get to week four, day one might be, let's see, seven, six, seven, eight, nine. Yes, I did have to count on my hands. Let's say day one is like an eight and a half to a nine, RPE. I'm sorry if I'm moving slow, but I know that sometimes it's going to be a little tricky. Day two, your primary now. Remember if we're starting at let's say a six or a seven, let's say seven, why not? RPE seven. Day two on week four will be closer to a nine or a 10, okay? And that's mainly for the single, for the backdowns, you know, maybe you go a little bit lighter or something like that, okay? You have like a percentage reduction for your backdowns. But do you see what I'm trying to say here? I'm not trying to give you a program. Please don't think that this is like a program. All I'm trying to show you is that we now have a plan. There's a progression. Instead of going into the gym and just showing up and doing whatever we feel like, we're creating a progression. If you're thinking about percentages, and I, I prefer percentages, you may start off with a three by five on what would be considered your secondary day, even though it's the first day of the week that you're benching, your three by five might be at 70%, or let's say 65, 65%. Your single might be at, let's say 80%, and your three by three, instead of it being 72.5, is now going to be 75 or 77.5%. You follow what I'm saying? And then there will be a gradual increase week to week until you get to your week four.
[6:40]Now there's so much more that we could talk about going and, you know, that, that, that belongs in this when it comes to planning. But this should at least get you started in the right direction, okay? So you, you need to be thinking about this. And again, I always say this because if you have yet to bench bench press 225, you probably don't have this set up. Now, the very last thing, a little tip here I'm going to give you as it relates to plan is to make sure you're not going too heavy too often. Okay? And what I mean by this is this. What I mean by that is this. If you decide to bench two days a week, don't have both days be excruciatingly difficult, okay? It's that simple. When you are going to test your bench press, let's say you're going to test it on Thursday and it's currently Sunday. If you plan on benching before that day, don't kill yourself. Like don't go super, super heavy and super, super hard, because you have to be prepared and recovered and ready for that real primary test day, that primary bench test day. You understand what I'm saying? Okay, so don't go too heavy too often. So that's everything for the plan. And again, I apologize for being a little slow here, but I, I it's important that you guys get it because this is probably the one thing that's going to skyrocket your bench press the most. Now the next thing we're going to talk about here. The fastest way to bench press 225 is accessories. Accessories are really important, and you probably already do them. Accessories are simply the movements you do, um, that are supplementary to your main movements. So as a power lifter, one of the things that we think about is the skill of our main movement. So I may do a competition bench press, but something's got to come after that, right? I need to build muscle, I want to work on weaknesses, I want to work on certain portions of the movement, the main movement. All of that gets done through variations, um, or exercises. Accessories. I'm going to give you some major accessories. I think help the bench press a lot, but what I want you to think about especially is the major movers here. Chest, shoulders, triceps. These are the major movers, okay? Yes, you need good legs because you're going to use leg drive. Yes, you need to develop back, that's going to be very important. But these are the major movers, okay? So when we're thinking about accessories, we need to start performing movements that allow us to develop our chest, our shoulders, and our triceps. So chest, this could be any sort of of pressing, dumbbell pressing, machine chest press, that sort of thing. So this, I'm going to, we're just going to say horizontal pressing. Now, it's a little bit more complicated than that, but it's okay. This will do. Shoulders, personally, I'm not a big fan of doing overhead pressing, okay? I just don't think it's worth the risk in terms of your shoulder health, but shoulder development is really, really important overall, okay? So if you want, you can do like a overhead pressing or lateral raises, you know? I think those are fine, although I don't think they'll have a direct impact, direct transfer, um, but again, that shoulder strength will also get developed during any of the pressing that you do. Lastly, is triceps. And triceps are so, so important, all right? Triceps, there's so many different movements we can do, but the, the three major ones that I would recommend, dips for sure. Um, believe it or not, some version of a skull crusher or overhead extension. I found that those really do work this head right in here, which is really important. And then lastly, your typical like triceps push down or like a, it's like a single arm cable extension, something like that. Okay? So I'm going to put a pushdown here. Um, I misspelled this brutally, uh, pushdown. Accessories are going to be your absolute best friend if you're trying to bench press 225. You need to develop your triceps, your pecs, and your shoulders. Absolutely. You get these muscles bigger, that hypothetically, they have more potential for strength, okay? And so that's why it's really important. Now in terms of the reps and the sets, don't worry about all that just yet, just just train to grow, okay? So you can do three sets of eight, three sets of 10, three sets of 12, whatever, some of these exercises. And then over time, you can go a little bit heavier and heavier and maybe you end up in that six to eight rep range. That's fine. Do what you're comfortable with. Either way, we just need to grow the major movers in the bench press and I'm telling you right now, if you can grow your pecs and your triceps, you will absolutely blow up your bench press, okay? So if you find that you're just consistently struggling on the press, no matter how hard you try, chances are you have not spent enough time developing muscle tissue, all right? So your accessories really matter and being a little bit more specific with them is really important. Now, the last thing I'm going to recommend to you today to bench press 225 fast, and this is probably the fastest way, so I, I recommend this with caution, is to eat more. Be in a caloric surplus, gain weight. Mass moves mass. Though this can be debated, it's pretty damn true. Now, don't get me wrong. In my opinion, lean body mass is way more important than just prioritizing mass in general. In other words, don't just get fat, actually build muscle, okay? Because hypothetically, if you weigh 200 pounds and you're pure fat, there's no way you're going to be able to lift more than me if I'm 200 pounds or even 185 and I'm pure muscle, okay? So, there's actually this theory and I first heard this from Greg Knuckles, the way he describes this is, if you think about strength and muscle, muscle is like a glass, okay? That you would fill, uh, that you would put water into or something like that, right? Muscle is the glass, the water itself is strength. Hypothetically, the bigger the glass, the more potential for strength, right? The more potential for water, for more water to be poured in. However, just because you have a massive glass doesn't mean you've poured water into it, right? And just because you have a small glass, doesn't mean that the strength when it's filled all the way to the top isn't a lot, right? And so that's how we look at muscle and strength. That's how I like to look at hypertrophy and strength. Yes, mass moves mass, but if you think about muscle, the more muscle you have, the more potential you have for strength. Now, even if you don't have a ton of muscle tissue, you can still be super, super strong if you're maximizing all the muscle you do have, okay? So it's always this give and take. There's always this balance. But ultimately, there's no way of getting around this. Mass moves mass. So you want to eat more. And one of the best ways to ensure you are building muscle when you're training hard is to make sure you are in a caloric surplus, okay? So again, I know that this is a little bit of like a cheap trick, it feels like, but it really is important, okay? Most of the guys I know who are bench pressing 500 pounds or more, they are all at least 185 pounds in body weight, okay? And these are I'm talking about top, top end in the world. All right? I don't know anyone who's bench pressing 600 pounds, who's not at least 220 or 235, okay? So you got to keep that in mind, the body weight does matter. I just encourage you to do it smart. Don't dirty bulk, don't be lazy about it, don't get fat. Build tissue, be strategic in terms of your surplus and when you, you know, when you track, making sure that you're not doing, you're not overdoing it, you're not going overboard with it. But again, all in all, eating more will allow you to bench press 225 much faster, all right? So I'm done yapping for the day. Um, hopefully you guys got some value out of this and I will see you in the next YouTube video. Peace.
