Fortier has returned to the weight room, and he writes:
Yo. Any reason I can't add a third bench press day to my 5x5 routine, modeled after the middle light squat day? I really want to get bigger there, and I know it's only been 3 weeks, but after my heavy squat day and my escalating bench yesterday, only my legs are sore today. Also, first shipment from True Protein due tomorrow. About 3 shakes/day on workout days, 2 on average on nonworkout days. I find they ruin my appetite for real food, though.
Artist's depiction of Fortier
I know you want to get a bigger chest, but you cant apply the same methodology to bench as you do squat. When you squat, you bring in your hip flexors, quads, hamstrings, posterior chain, erector spinae, and a host of other smaller muscles. The squat is a motion that responds well to consistent stimulus simply because there is so much to recruit, the average trainee will rarely overtrain. Smolov method will have you squatting up to 4 times per week and nearly every workout spends considerable volume above 90% 1RM. Smolov makes gigantic Russians that give me night terrors.
Bench is a glorified elbow extension. Bench alone is not key to a bigger chest. There is no squat for the chest (although some argue it may be weighted dips). You can bench 4 times a week using all sorts of rep schemes and rest intervals but you are just going to end up overtrained and with a burnt out CNS. Pendlay wants you to train overhead press or incline bench on that second workout because delt development is the crucial lynch pin to benching more weight, and benching more weight will eventually give you a bigger chest.
Long before I finally figured out how to lift properly I always used to get people that would come to me and whine about how their progress in flat had stymied at 225, and they hadnt progressed in weight in years. I used to then ask them what they did to train shoulders and I usually got, "Eh, I don't know, I do a few sets of raises and upright rows on my bicep day." FUCK YOU GUY. How are you supposed to bench heavy when the heaviest stimulation your shoulders see is 3 sets of 8 side raises with 25 lbs with godfuckingawful form?
Do your shoulders you fucker! Fall in love with shoulders! make sweet love to the olympic bar as you press that bitch into the sky. Makes you look like a man! I suspect you want to do three days of bench because you are shitty at shoulder press, and that should be the fucking LIGHT OF GOD telling you that that's what you need to focus on.
And stop being a pussy about shakes destroying your will to eat. Getting big muscles is about eating when you're hungry, eating when you aren't hungry, eating while you are sleeping, eating while you are taking a shit. LOTS AND LOTS OF EATING FOOOOOOOOD.
just time your carbs right :0
On another note, Smegma Von Grundle is going to deadlift 3 wheels tonight so let's all keep his lower back in our prayers.
