Thread: Need help with psychological plateau

First of all, I would suggest not worrying about the numbers. Control is important. I think if you can feel comfortable controlling the weight, even if to you it's "light" (and, by the way, using 45s is not bad at all, especially after a long injury!), you'll feel a lot more confident to tackle heavier weight. You just need to learn to control your mind, and not let it control you. Always think that you're in control of the object, and that you're moving it carefully with a variety of muscles. Focus on the oxygen-rich blood cells rushing into your muscles, your motor units triggering the muscle fibers to contract, and your joints pivoting as the ligaments lengthen and shorten. Visualize what's going on in your body and it gives you a much better sense of control.

In the meantime, why not bench in the squat rack so that you have the peace of mind of the safety bars?

I have the same problem with the benching issue. It seems like I make great gains on all muscles except for chest. I always struggled with the fact of benching. No particular reason just that was my weak point. What I have been doing for the last year, that has been working for me, is to do my next target increment weight on the smith machine for proper form, and after a week or two of training on the smith machine (or whenever I feel comfortable) I move onto the normal flat bench with my desired weight that I had been training with on the smith. Some might not like the smith machine, but I found that it is good in helping with my form when needed.

Originally Posted by BigBoiH

I have the same problem with the benching issue. It seems like I make great gains on all muscles except for chest. I always struggled with the fact of benching. No particular reason just that was my weak point. What I have been doing for the last year, that has been working for me, is to do my next target increment weight on the smith machine for proper form, and after a week or two of training on the smith machine (or whenever I feel comfortable) I move onto the normal flat bench with my desired weight that I had been training with on the smith. Some might not like the smith machine, but I found that it is good in helping with my form when needed.

Yes I can definately crank out more than double the weight on the smith machine but for me it was never an issue with form. Regardless, I do use the smith machine from time to time to take some pride in actually pressing something heavier and get a good burn by doing it but in general I have found dumbbells to give me the best chest workout. As I can't do heavy dumbbells I take the weight I can do and do presses nice and deep really contracting muscles and for higher reps. Still miss being able to do 80lbs dumbbells for reps though which was the norm prior to injury

Yeah, from personal experience I say forget numbers. They're for competitors, second of all, if benching is your weak point then focus on it from every angle. Try to work every variation of bench into your monthly routine. Maybe one will be more comfortable than another ,and surely it will help build and strengthen each part of the chest.

You concern of breaking your arm again is legitimate. If it were me, I would start as you have, light weight/high volume, and slowly add weight throughout your training cycle. Just take your time. By adding weight slowly over a long period of time, you should be able to get past the mental block and make any adjustments if you start to feel stress at the breaking point. The last thing I would do is jump up in weight to quickly, regardless if you mind lets you or not.

Do you still have the same problem when you use a barbell bench(not on a smith machine) instead of the dumbbells? if not maybe its time to lose the dumbbell bench untill enough time passes by that you feel confident again. I must admit if that happened to me id be terrified to go near the bench press again, so all credit to you.

I would stop doing bench for a period of time. Sticking with it doesn't seem to be productive if anything it seems to be hurting your confidence even more. I would switch my main chest exercise to weighted dips(if you can), if not then bodyweight dips and work your way up to weighted dips. You'll likely not have the same mental block from doing dips, and yet you'll still be progessing in your chest/pressing strength all the same. The time away from bench will allow you to stop dwelling on your injury(they say time is a healer) and the strength gained from the dips should give you renewed confidence in your chest/arms.

Originally Posted by davegmb

Do you still have the same problem when you use a barbell bench(not on a smith machine) instead of the dumbbells? if not maybe its time to lose the dumbbell bench untill enough time passes by that you feel confident again. I must admit if that happened to me id be terrified to go near the bench press again, so all credit to you.

Actually I've tried pretty much everything for chest and I feel most comfortable with dumbbells by far. With the bar I'm restricted to keeping a straight angle but with a dumbbell I can make small adjustments with the grip so it works out much better for me.

Originally Posted by PushAndPull

I would stop doing bench for a period of time. Sticking with it doesn't seem to be productive if anything it seems to be hurting your confidence even more. I would switch my main chest exercise to weighted dips(if you can), if not then bodyweight dips and work your way up to weighted dips. You'll likely not have the same mental block from doing dips, and yet you'll still be progessing in your chest/pressing strength all the same. The time away from bench will allow you to stop dwelling on your injury(they say time is a healer) and the strength gained from the dips should give you renewed confidence in your chest/arms.

Yes I do dips religously and find them much easier to execute than bench press. I think I'll take your sound advice here and remove the bench press sets I normally do while add more dips to my routine for now. Although this will be something I'll incorporate in around 4 weeks when I change my program. I'm currently a few weeks into the 20 rep squat program and soon won't have much energy for accessory work as the squats are getting extremely taxing with the weight going up workout to workout.

You could use weighted push ups in place of bench press.