this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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What's a good amount of volume for increasing bench press most consistently?
I'm in my 40's, about 210 lbs, and have been doing a 3-day program with each day focused on bench, deadlift, squat, where I just do warmup sets, then 3x5 at my 5 rep max, and then move up whenever I'm able to actually do all those sets. This week, I'm able to do 3x5x175 lbs.
On bench day, I'm doing regular bench, overhead press, and incline bench, and then some body weight push ups and dips. In recent weeks I've only been able to add 5 lbs every 2 weeks. Should I be focusing more on changing up the rep or set scheme?
Or, alternatively, am I wrong for trying to focus on my weakest lift? I know it's weird to be able to deadlift more than twice as much (385 lbs) as my bench (175 lbs), but that's just where I'm at.
You may be at the point where you're past your newbie gains and about as far as a linear program can take you. At that point its time to switch to a periodized program to continue progressing. Periodized programs vary the sets, reps and weights from week to week. As a simple example here is how 5/3/1 FSL handles it:
Week 1
Main work:
5 @ 65%
5 @ 75%
5+ @ 85%
Supplemental work:
5 x 5 @ 65%
Week 2
Main work:
3 @ 70%
3 @ 80%
3+ @ 90%
Supplemental work:
5 x 5 @ 70%
Week 3
Main work:
5 @ 75%
3 @ 85%
1+ @ 95%
Supplemental work:
5 x 5 @ 75%
After week three you increase your training max by 5lbs for overhead press and bench, and 10lbs for squat and deadlift, then restart at week 1 again. The increase in the training max will be imperceptible spread out over the next cycle, but in the course of a year that would be +75lbs to your upper and +150lbs to your lower body training maxes, not counting any deloads. That will have you benching two plates within the year easily.
5/3/1 has a lot of different templates including a few options for 3 day full body if you like that split, tactical barbell too and most likely some others that I"m less familiar with.
Looking at my logs, I've added 30 lbs in 3 weeks to my deadlift 5rm, and 20 lbs to my squat, but only added 10 lbs to my bench. I think I still have linear gains left on my other lifts (and my 5rm maxes on all of these lifts were higher 5 years ago, so I'm still in the process of rebuilding to where I was). I had been intending to squeeze out linear gains at least until I hit my old maxes, but I guess I am like 5 years older.
Just feels weird that my bench seems to be stalling so much earlier than my other lifts. Has anyone heard of periodization for just one lift while the others stay on a simpler linear progression? Or does the programming assume periodization for all lifts, all week?
Alternatively you could switch over to a periodized program and then adjust your training max based on your AMRAP sets for the other lifts (ala Juggernaut), so they progress more quickly while they still can. Bench seems to be sticky for a lot of folks sometimes. Could just need a little bit more volume at lower weight after the main work is done?
That's a good call. I think I'll do that starting next week. Thanks!
Sweet I hope it works out for you