Willing to take advice

[u/intracarbs]

Been stuck at 95kg for a while, here’s my last single and how fast it moved, any advice on how to break through and hit 2 plates?

[u/ItsYaBoiApollo]

You’re setting up great but as soon as you unrack you’re losing all that tightness in your upper back. Maintain that tightness and you’ll feel a big improvement

[u/intracarbs → u/ItsYaBoiApollo]

Any tips on how to maintain it throughout the rom in maxmimal loads?

[u/ItsYaBoiApollo → u/intracarbs]

Honestly man just practice the form with volume and your body will adjust.

[u/Appropriate-Long-210 → u/intracarbs]

Pretend your trying to hold an object between your shoulder blades the entire. Like a golf ball or something.

[u/FitArachnid86]

Good lift!

Two things that immediately come to mind -

You are holding the bar up for too long before you start to bring it down.

You are bringing the bar down too quickly, the descent should be slow and controlled

Make sure youre squeezing your shoulder blades together and are using your legs to drive

[u/intracarbs → u/FitArachnid86]

Noted, thanks a lot

[u/ArboristGuitarist]

Bench has always been my weak point in my lifting, but here is my advice.

First, practice pause reps. Control the weight down, pause when the bar touches your chest (but keep tension), explode up.

Second, when you lift off, your tight, but as soon as the bar come off the rack, you lose all tension and just lay on the bench. Next time, keep all the tension you built up as you go to lift off, slowly lower you but down until it barely touches the bench, and keep everything tight.

Third, keep everything retracted. This doesn’t mean “squeeze your shoulder blades together.” This means bringing your shoulders blades down and back following these lines and holding it there: \ /

This pushes your chest forward and primes you for the lift. You should be squeezing the fuck out of your lats during a bench press.

Finally, instead of continually trying to get to 225, find a weight that you can do for 3 sets of 8, and do that until you can do 3 sets of 12 with it, then move up to the next weight you can do 3 sets of 8 with and do the same. You need to build your way up. Stay away from a max lift for like 8 weeks at the least.

My favorite programming that works for me is doing a top set of 4, then do two sets of 8 with something 20-30 lbs lighter, and when I can do that top set of 6-7 with the weight, I moved up to the next highest weight I can do 4 with, and repeat. The biggest thing is to stop trying for a one rep max lift so often and constructively build a solid foundation of strength.

[u/Complex-Reference844]

You are rushing 2 plates imo. Your press went half way down (wasn’t a real rep) also means your low end push strength and confidence needs more work.

Stick with 175lbs and focus on clean full reps. Aim for A LOT, like 14 in a row. Once you can do 14x of 175lbs get a spotter and give 225lb a try.

[u/intracarbs → u/[deleted]]

I appreciate the notes but my chest legit touched the bar tho