When to pause ?

[treders]

At the moment I bench twice a week once regular grip and once close grip, so far I have been pausing all my reps for both however i'm not sure if pausing the reps on close grip bench is correct what are peoples thoughts on this ie is it beneficial ?

[dbunch]

LOL – Disclaimer: the bench is my weakest lift

I almost never use a pause as part of my main bench training. I don’t incorporate it until I’m getting close to a meet and only on singles and doubles. And at that point it is just to condition myself to for the meet.

Now I do use pause work as an accessory lift. The way I do them is to bring the bar down and stop about one inch off my chest, pause, then explode up. A lot of people relax their traps when they pause on the chest and lose all there power. Pausing off the chest help you hold that tightness in the lats.

Lastly and this is just my opinion but close grip benching shifts the weight from the lats to the triceps and it is the lats that get the most benefit from paused benching so I don’t know that I would bother using a pause with a close grip bench.

[3speed]

^^^I agree with Dan.  The bench has always been my weakest lift as well but I have managed to make it almost respectable over the years by really studying the kinesiology and execution of the lift.

Bench press and close grip bench press are done for different reasons and should be approached differently. Firstly, close grip bench press (CGBP) is done with fewer and smaller muscles than bench press (BP) so less volume is normally used on CGBP.  Secondly, BP is the competition exercise and most of your time should be spent on it building your strength and overall chest size where CGBP concentrates the effort mainly on your triceps which are stressed primarily during the top third of the BP. 

The target muscles worked during BP are the Sternal Pecs.  The Clavicular Pecs, the Triceps and the Anterior Delts are synergistic movers.  With the CGBP, the target muscle are the Triceps with the Anterior Delts and the Sternal and Clavicular Pecs being the synergistic movers.

CGBP should be performed with a very light touch and go at the bottom and stopping each rep just short of lockout. This maintains tension on the heads of the tricep throughout the execution of the movement. The biggest consideration in hypertrophic training is time under tension.

I have picked the brains of several of the greatest benchers around and there seems to be no consensus on the practice of pausing your regular bench in training. Some claim that the slightly increased weight they are able to lift t&g leads to greater strength development while others claim the pause training leads to greater explosiveness off the chest.  There are absolute monsters in both camps. You will have to experiment and decide which works better for you. Each theory requires a long term commitment to adequately evaluate, but it will be worth it in the long run if you get it right.

[treders]

First of all thank you so much for taking the time to answer my question it is much appreciated, the bench has always been my weakness too but i'm still hoping for a 1.5 x body weight bench as that's my main goal, obviously I have a lot to learn but I have the feeling I've come to the right place for that.

When I pause on both exercises I have been also stopping about 1 inch off the chest my reason for doing it this way is that I've been lead to believe this helps develop the bottom portion of the bench as this is usually the problem area for most raw lifters.

At the moment i'm just using a very basic 3x5 linear progression program as i'm coming back from a lay off due to tennis elbow.... and I don't even play tennis :-), taking on board the advice given perhaps I could carry on pausing my regular bench until i'm getting close to my 5 rep max and then switch over to touch & go reps unless you advise that I make the switch now that is ?

With regards to my CGBP I must admit that whilst I thought it would help me with my regular bench another reason that I included them was for vanity ie hoping to get bigger triceps as i'm only a lightweight, I will take on board the advice given and switch these over to touch & go reps stopping just short of lock out immediately.

Once again thank you for all the advice given.

[osu122975]

I might be the exception here. I pause the last rep of most of my sets. Any heavy singles get paused.

Especially, in 100% RAW competition, they WILL hold you - much longer than any other fed I've seen. To be honest, it's a bit overboard.

Learn to press with the bar fully stopped on your chest and pressed back up with force on heavy singles.

Learn to press from chest to half way up for reps in the 5-8 range. This will put extra pressure and work on that area where raw lifters need it most.

I bench twice per week also - one heavy week and one light week alternated. Heavy week is one day raw and second day slingshot. Following week is lighter chest to half way up for reps and second day is working something like a 2-board press.

I have a 1.5xBW bench press in competition.

[oldiron]

Aug 23, 2015 6:11:48 GMT -5 dbunch said:

LOL – Disclaimer: the bench is my weakest lift

I almost never use a pause as part of my main bench training. I don’t incorporate it until I’m getting close to a meet and only on singles and doubles. And at that point it is just to condition myself to for the meet.

Now I do use pause work as an accessory lift. The way I do them is to bring the bar down and stop about one inch off my chest, pause, then explode up. A lot of people relax their traps when they pause on the chest and lose all there power. Pausing off the chest help you hold that tightness in the lats.

Lastly and this is just my opinion but close grip benching shifts the weight from the lats to the triceps and it is the lats that get the most benefit from paused benching so I don’t know that I would bother using a pause with a close grip bench.

That type of pause bench is called a Spoto press, named after Eric Spoto. I started doing them a few months ago, once a week (besides my regular bench workout). I haven't done a 1RM since I started the Spoto press but I definitely feel stronger. I think it is an excellent accessory lift. I always pause my regular bench reps but touch and go my close grips.

[dbunch]

I havent tested my ORM lately either but I recently did 9@260 which if you plug into the handy dandy ORM calculator put my ORM at about 334 Which is a huge Jump from mt current ORM. So I would say that they have been very effective.

[santomaxton]

Aug 23, 2015 15:03:52 GMT -5 osu122975 said:

I might be the exception here. I pause the last rep of most of my sets. Any heavy singles get paused.

Especially, in 100% RAW competition, they WILL hold you - much longer than any other fed I've seen. To be honest, it's a bit overboard.

Learn to press with the bar fully stopped on your chest and pressed back up with force on heavy singles.

Learn to press from chest to half way up for reps in the 5-8 range. This will put extra pressure and work on that area where raw lifters need it most.

I bench twice per week also - one heavy week and one light week alternated. Heavy week is one day raw and second day slingshot. Following week is lighter chest to half way up for reps and second day is working something like a 2-board press.

I have a 1.5xBW bench press in competition.

i agree with this i too paused at last..

[dbunch]

I would add a pause at the top on the last rep also. I've seen my share of lifters get red lighted because they went straight for the rack just like they so in the gym.