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Barbell Grease the Groove for Bench Press?

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Saint

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Hi, I'm new to the forum and I'm looking for advice on how to apply grease the groove to my bench press.

My goal is to bench press double my bodyweight.

Info about me:
-Male
-25 years old
-135 lbs, 5'8"
-Bench press 1RM (perfect, strict form): ~145 lbs
-Bench press 1RM (bad form-- bouncing weight off chest, elbows flared, butt off bench): 215 lbs
-I have a bench press at home, and I work from home so I can bench pretty much any time I want to
-I previously used grease the groove back in 2012 to great success to do a 1-arm chinup after about 1.5 months of training
-My joints and shoulders don't have any issues as far as I know; I've never had any major injuries and I've been lifting for about 7 years

As of now, my current plan was to start out benching with perfect form at 125 lbs (85% of my perfect form 1RM), doing a set about every hour, for as many reps as I can without feeling tired... which is about 2-3 reps. I've got a pair of 1.25lb Olympic plates and I was planning on just increasing the total weight by 2.5 lbs every day.

Does this sound optimal? What would you guys recommend?

Thanks!
 
Sounds like a plan. People have had good success with a GTG approach on the bench press.

You might not progress at the linear rate you outlined - 2.5 lbs every day. I think that will get a bit much after 3 or 4 weeks. I could be wrong though, it could be OK for the early stages of your progress.

I'd do it a bit different myself. I'd stick with the same weight for a bit longer before I added more weight, maybe 3 or 4 days. The rotator cuff structures have a way of taking a lot of work up to a point and then almost overnight they can seem to be overstressed from bench pressing. With a GTG approach you aren't really trying lift more each training session, you are training your neuromuscular system - synaptic facilitation Pavel called it.

In the early stages you will be able to add weight without too much thought and rely on 1rm calculators, but as you progress you will have to rely more and more on actual 1rm tests to determine what you need to add for your next cycle. After a 1rm test it's normally a good idea to have a few days rest before starting the next cycle, but if you rely on 1rm calculators you won't need as much rest because you won't be pushing yourself so hard on test days.

I'd be inclined to balance the bench press with some type of pulling movement myself - deadlifts of some type rowing movement. I'm not suggesting to GTG the pulling movement at the same time as you focus on bench pressing, just do some pulling movement a few times a week.
 
A thought here - for GTG, I don't think the program design calls for gradual increases in weight. The idea is reps, so I would take a weight, work with it for a while, letting it get easier though the accumulation of volume, which is what GTG is all about, volume while remaining fresh. You don't even want to increase the reps per set but rather aim to get more and more easy sets in throughout the day. Periodically test yourself, recalibrate your GTG weight, and begin again.

E.g., begin by doing several sets of 3-4 w/ your current 10 rep max. Keep adding sets, go up to 5 reps if it feels easy during any individual set, and after a few weeks, see where you're at - test for a new 10RM and continue with that weight.

-S-
 
Thanks for the timely, specific responses.

I've lowered the weight to 115, and I've been doing sets of 3-4 with it. How frequently should I be doing sets? Once per hour? Once per half hour?

From what I'm understanding, I should basically wait until I can easily do sets of 5 reps all day with 115 before increasing the weight?

When I increase the weight, how much should I increase it by? Should it always be a flat amount (like 5 lbs, for example) or should I always test my 1RM or 10RM and then increase the weight based off that?
 
Grease the groove is a great way to accumulate volume on an exercise that represents a very high percentage of max effort and which is difficult to implement load changes - like pull-ups when your RM is one or two. The bench press, on the other hand, is finely titratable and allows you to directly ask your body to make the adaptation you seek - strength - instead of amassing volume.

Pick a system that incorporates the squat, deadlift, press, and bench using whatever progression scheme strikes your fancy and do the program.

And ferpitysakes eat.
 
I've lowered the weight to 115, and I've been doing sets of 3-4 with it. How frequently should I be doing sets? Once per hour? Once per half hour?

From what I'm understanding, I should basically wait until I can easily do sets of 5 reps all day with 115 before increasing the weight?

When I increase the weight, how much should I increase it by? Should it always be a flat amount (like 5 lbs, for example) or should I always test my 1RM or 10RM and then increase the weight based off that?

Saint, a min rest between sets on GTG is 15min; there is no maximum but it is best to press at least every hour.

When the weight starts feeling noticeably lighter, add 10lbs.
 
Hey guys,

Great topic, it answers a lot of my questions too.
A few more questions for this topic:
- Is there a need to warm up before GTG with a barbell lift?
- Is there any sense to GTG Bench Press with One Arm Push-up (e.g. when you can spend time in the gym GTG with Bench, but when you are not in the gym GTG with OAP)?
 
Hey guys,

Great topic, it answers a lot of my questions too.
A few more questions for this topic:
- Is there a need to warm up before GTG with a barbell lift?
- Is there any sense to GTG Bench Press with One Arm Push-up (e.g. when you can spend time in the gym GTG with Bench, but when you are not in the gym GTG with OAP)?

I'd like to know more about warming up as well. I had to take about 4 days off this week since my shoulder joint became really sore... which is odd since I haven't had any shoulder joint pains from benching in a very long time, and I never went to failure or anything. I thought I was being pretty conservative with my sets, but then again back when I used GTG for 1 arm chins, I had pretty bad elbow tendonitis by the end of it, so maybe the joint pain's inevitable. :|
 
Power To The People! has an excellent section about warming up. The short story is: do the warmup you need but try to need as little as possible. For GTG, I guess it depends on what movement you're doing, but warming up seems not to make sense - the idea is to hit many sub-maximal sets during the day and have it not take much time. Somehow warming up doesn't make sense - perhaps a quick fast-and-loose, maybe a few second hanging from the bar, that sort of thing.

JMO.

-S-
 
At our SFB cert, Pavel made a note about GTG method in general, something like: "it almost feels like you are warming up throughout the whole day."
 
Make sure to include upper body pulling movements. People neglect the lats and upper back involvement in progressing your bench press.
 
@Geoff Chafe, I think it depends on how you bench press. We use our lats in pretty much everything around here, including bench and military press.

-S-
 
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