The Legend of Toothpick

I said that!!!!!! Hise close grips are actually 'slightly closer grips'

lol whatever H, just because I'm almost stronger than you at them at 25 kilos less BW

I reckon my grip starts about 2.5 inch outside the smooth Davo, which I find is fine for me. Personally I don't believe in taking the grip way in, I don't think it's good for your wrists and I don't think it's any better for developing the triceps. Plus arm length is obviously a factor.

From experience I'd say my close grips are usually only about 5k behind my touch and go bench.

Since you're not interested in getting into a shirt, I'd've thought it would make more sense to be working more on the bottom of the lift and not spending much time on the lockout - if your closegrips are only just behind your full bench, your lockouts don't need the work. I wondered why you had no full bench in there, too.

I don't really agree with the principle of not training something because you're already good at it, which is kind of what you're suggesting. I don't think your triceps can be too strong - they have a lot of transfer to other lifts and I think they come in to play more fully in all of the bench press than most people think. Like I said half of my exercises are focused on bottom end anyway, so it's not like I'm giving it no attention.

Never say never about the shirted benching either, I'm certainly not dismissing it.

As for no full bench, close grips and bench with a mini-band are both full ROM so if by that you just mean normal bench, I think doing the close grips is fine. I'm just intending to use the mini-band for about a 4 week cycle.

SWISH!!!!

Agreed, dont neglect your strong points.

i agree with rick though, if getting bench up is a goal, normal bench should be in. But if not, then all kinds of wanky moves which makes s**t much more complicated than they should be are ok

lol, agree with Joni. Basic is best!

Learning to bench is a skill, that you can only learn through benching. I learnt this the hard way and have a crap BP to thank for it.

want a big bench ?

hammer those triceps !

...not my words....big dave whiteman...

robbybobby seems to know his stuff

I think close grip bench is pretty much as basic as it gets. You're doing all your benching narrow grip aren't you Joni - so you're saying because I'm doing the exercise with a grip an inch or two narrower than yours that I'm "not doing normal bench". Don't see your logic to be honest!

As for the comment about wanky moves, I'd say all those pressing exercises are good proven ones. So maybe you're just referring to adding the miniband to the bench, which for a 4 week cycle is hardly going to make much difference in terms of forgetting the movement - especially when I'm already doing close grips. It's just like doing rack pulls or platform deadlifts for a change.

Good point!

If you're enjoying your training that's half the battle imo

these are all just opinions, so no reason to fight about them really, but i would keep my approach basic as they came, assistance is just that, assistance, and not really that important but a good way to hammer weaknesses.

I was hitting narrows only because i was working on my overhead strength, bench was not a focus. And i can see it now, my normal bench is hardly any stronger - and thats a testament for both narrows being good in keeping up the pressing strength, and also on the flipside normal bench progress suffering in the process.

Do you get coaching from Alan at adlington or do you train there when he is not in?

I think you should speak to Alan about your training, dumbell presses and face pulls dont do much for bench, you dont need to use bands because you lift unequipped, you should try and keep things simple, listen to people like Alan, Joe or fat pete and your total will improve.

I'm not fighting with you Joni, I'm just saying I don't really see where you're coming from because my approach isn't all that different from what you are suggesting.

Aaron, I don't agree with your comments on dumbell work. Olly and Adam have both had a lot of success with them, benching 145@100 and 155@90 unequipped as juniors - so I'm inclined to take this into account. Tokar has also had good results with dumbell bench. Don't get me wrong, I do observe the training of others at Adlington but I think it would be very small-minded to assume this is the be all and end all of training methods.

As for the face pulls, they are a shoulder prehab exercise. I certainly am not doing them with the belief they will get my bench up!

you cant be selective about the supporting evidence though both olly and adam nailed f**kloads of normal bench during that time.

but aye, db presses are a great exercise in their own right!