Chains... I see a lot of people using chains pretty much randomly on pressing movements, so I thought Id pop up a really simple chain cycle you can use that will actually allow you to benefit from their use. Im going to assume you are pressing at least 120kg for a single and struggle at the top half of the bench press. If your not, its probably not worth adding chains on your max effort movements in the way Im going to describe as even the lightest set we have would be over 10% of your max. If you are weak off the chest chains will do almost nothing to help you. Anyway...onwards. Week 1 Put your 8 rep max weight on the bar. Add a set of thick (12kg) chains AND a set of thin (6kg) chains. Hang the chains off of looped thick bands so that ALL the chain is on the floor at the bottom of the press. That will give you around about 90kg at the bottom and 126kg at the top with all the chain off the floor. Do sets of 3-5 reps. Keep doing sets until either you cant do 3 reps, or you reach 24 total reps. Now do some directed assistance work shoulders, triceps etc. Up to you what that is but Id do something to help bottom end strength e.g. wide bench, DB bench etc in there somewhere. Week 2 Add 10kg to the barbell weight you used last week. Only add the thick (12kg) chains this time. (so around 100kg bar and 24kg of chain). Perform sets of 2-5 reps. Keep doing sets till you either cant do 2 reps, or you reach 20 total reps. Assistance as before. Week 3. Add 12.5kg to the barbell weight you used last week. Only add the thin chains (so around 112.5kg bar weight plus 12kg chains) Perform sets of 2-3 reps. Keep dong sets till you cant do 2 reps or you reach 14 total reps. Assistance as before. Week 4. Work up to 120kg straight weight, no chains. You should find you can now hit 120 for several singles or maybe even a double rather than it being a true 1RM.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 17:14:17 +0000
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