New discovery for bustin’ through a plateau
This isn’t a new concept to the bodybuilding/powerlifting world, but it’s a new concept to me. In the past I would always train consistantly for a few weeks and then my strength gains would level off, I’d lose motivation, and then I’d quit all together. A few months ago I read about rest pause training–only performing 3 or less reps per set with a pre-determined amount of rest time in between sets. It works great, I highly recommend it.
Anyway for those of you who don’t know, I’ll use the bench press as an example. Say weeks 1 and 2 my bench press routine is:
Barbell Bench Press: 3 sets of 6 reps
At around week 2 or 3 using this routine, my strength gains will level off, so I need to add somethin to the mix. So I’d change my rep scheme to this:
Barbell Bench Press: 5 sets of 3 reps with a heavier weight (with a 1 minute rest time in between each set)
Works like a charm. A lot of people believe after reaching a plateau on their bench press they must perform other movements similar to the bench press in order to increase it all together. Sometimes this may be the case, but most of the time it isn’t, and believe me, I know from experience. I used to perform flat dumbbell presses, machine presses, etc, with the mindset that it would strengthen my barbell bench–WRONG. I say, if you want to increase your bench press, you must train your bench press.
This also applies to other movements as well: squats, deadlifts, military press, barbell curl, etc. So give it a try, you won’t regret it.
